The Lonely Life cover art

The Lonely Life

An Autobiography

Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

The Lonely Life

By: Bette Davis
Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

Originally published in 1962, The Lonely Life is legendary silver screen actress Bette Davis's lively and riveting account of her life, loves, and marriages--now in ebook for the first time, and updated with an afterword she wrote just before her death.

As Davis says in the opening lines of her classic memoir: "I have always been driven by some distant music--a battle hymn, no doubt--for I have been at war from the beginning. I rode into the field with sword gleaming and standard flying. I was going to conquer the world." A bold, unapologetic book by a unique and formidable woman, The Lonely Life details the first fifty-plus years of Davis's life--her Yankee childhood, her rise to stardom in Hollywood, the birth of her beloved children, and the uncompromising choices she made along the way to succeed. The book was updated with new material in the 1980s, bringing the story up to the end of Davis's life--all the heartbreak, all the drama, and all the love she experienced at every stage of her extraordinary life.

The Lonely Life proves conclusively that the legendary image of Bette Davis is not a fable but a marvelous reality.
Entertainment & Celebrities Entertainment & Performing Arts Film & TV Celebrity Entertainment Biography Heartfelt

Listeners also enjoyed...

Dark Star cover art
This 'n That cover art
Mommie Dearest: 40th Anniversary Edition cover art
Past Imperfect cover art
Bette & Joan cover art
Cary Grant cover art
Goldie cover art
Fay Wray and Robert Riskin cover art
Learning to Live out Loud cover art
Apparently There Were Complaints cover art
The Legs Are the Last to Go cover art
Glenn Ford cover art
Sinatra cover art
A Portrait of Joan cover art
My Way of Life cover art
Miss D and Me cover art
All stars
Most relevant
Just loved this book and I almost forgot it wasn’t bette davis talking.

I would highly recommend this one! Easy to follow and what a woman!!! Tough cookie!

Amazing book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

The narrator channels Bette so well it's almost spooky! The last few chapters that cover her life after 1962 are a marvelous additional. a beautiful book.

Exceptional performance - a must listen for fans

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

What a strong lady Betty was . I missed her when I finished the book .
She loved her work , terrible the way she was treated in the early days ,

Betty , Bobbi and Mum

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I found the whole story of Bette Davis' take on Bette Davis insightful and fascinating.

By today's standards she might be called difficult - even narcissistic. What I took away was that she strong willed, hard working dedicated actress who constantly strive to raise the standards of story telling on yhe screen and on the stage. Betrayed several times by the ones she loved, Bette took solice in her work and a pragmatic "the show must go on" outlook. Excellently read delivered and paced by the narrator.

Buckle Up. Lights, Camera, Action

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

I loved it all, I have always loved Bette Davis films and now I know I would have loved her too.

Felt like Bette David was reading it herself which was magnificent

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews