Recap:The 2011 Favorite Actress Tournament - 40's Era

Looking back on the 1940's era for the 2011 favorite classic actress tournament and it was loaded with so much talent that the tourney could have been held just for the 40's by themselves. I mean the top 4 seeds in this era could have been top seeds of the entire tourney: Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, and Vivien Leigh. Wow indeed!

In the first round, no upsets occurred as all the top seeds won their matches.  In fact all were blow-outs. Bette Davis destroyed Esther Williams 40-15; Rita Hayworth beat Hedy Lamarr 31-18; Vivien Leigh crushed Ann Sheridan 34-17; Lauren Bacall defeated Jane Wyman 40-11; Gene Tierney beat Greer Garson 32-20; Ingrid Bergman was all over Jeanne Crain 42-10 and Ingrid took out Lana Turner 39-15. So the big stars flexed their muscle and dominated early.

Onto the second round, where the matches were a little more tighter. All  4 seeds made it through to the semi-final matches, thus validating their deserved rankings. Bette Davis defeated Rita Hayworth 30-24; Katharine Hepburn took down Gene Tierney 35-17; Ingrid Bergman squeaked by Olivia de Havilland 29-25 and Vivien Leigh edged past Lauren Bacall 29-23.

So the semi-final matches were now set as this era produced the only top four match-ups. This made for some thrilling excitement. What looked liked a final match setting up between number 1 Bette Davis and number 2 Katherine Hepburn became something else. I will be the first to admit my surprise as 4th seed Vivien Leigh and 3rd seed Ingrid Bergman stormed back today to win their respective semi-final matches to set up a showdown starting immediately. Leigh, who was trailing Davis at one point by 9 points came back to win 37-36 in a match that had several ties throughout Saturday. While it's a shame seeing another 1 seed being knocked out, Leigh is more than enough of a worthy opponent. Meanwhile in the other match, Hepburn was firmly in control of her match, at one point leading Bergman by 11 points. Well Ingrid's fans showed up today and she surged to a 30-30 tie with Kate and then never looked back. She would go on to win 34-30. Impressive comeback wins by Leigh and Bergman to set up what should be a fantastic finals match. Kudos to Bette and Kate for making such a strong showing as well.

And for the final match in the 40's era it was Vivien Leigh beating Ingrid Bergman 33-31 in one of the most thrilling matches of the entire tournament. And sending Leigh onto the final four.