Bette Davis reportedly realized a new generation of Hollywood had arrived just days before she died, after spotting a giant poster for Michael Keaton's Batman in Spain.
According to Entertainment Weekly, the Oscar-winning star was in San Sebastián in September 1989 to receive an honorary award at the film festival, where Batman was also screening. Her longtime assistant, Kathryn Sermak, recalls in her book Miss D and Me that Davis walked to a window and saw a banner for the film, which covered most of the front of a building. She chuckled at the caped figure on it.
"My era of Hollywood is over. I've come here to pass the torch," Davis said, according to Sermak. Sermak told EW that the superhero world "was not her world."
Davis did not stay quiet about it, though. At the festival's press conference, Sermak writes, she said she had "no era" because she was still acting. After the festival, she was taken to a hospital in France, where she died on Oct. 6, 1989, at age 81.
EW says it has reached out to a representative for Keaton for comment.
