Bette Davis Featured on New 2008 Stamps

[December 27, 2007]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- A face that will tease you, and please you and perhaps unease you is coming to the post office next year, it's those Bette Davis eyes.

On the 100th anniversary of her birth the great actress will be honored on a commemorative stamp, the 14th in the Legends of Hollywood Series.

A 10-time Academy Award nominee, Davis won twice, for her roles in "Dangerous" (1935) and "Jezebel" (1938).

And speaking of centennials, the same year Davis was born, actor Jack Norworth wrote "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," the song still famed in the seventh inning stretch. Postal officials hope buyers will root, root, root for a stamp based on a 19th-century baseball card recalling that special melody next year.

Also in 2008 the post office will launch a new multiyear Flags of Our Nation series, a 60-stamp set scheduled to include the Stars and Stripes as well as the flags of each state, the District of Columbia and territories.

Ten stamps will be issued in June -- the Stars and Stripes and the flags of Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut and Delaware.

Following in the fall will be a set with the flags of the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Kansas.

Among the other new postage stamps scheduled for neat year are:

• Year of the Rat in January, marking the Chinese lunar new year. People born in the Year of the Rat are said to be industrious, adaptable and ambitious.

• Charles W. Chesnutt will be honored with the 31st stamp in the Black Heritage series. Chesnutt was a pioneering writer recognized today as a major innovator among literary realists who probed the color line in American life.

• Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Yearling" and her memoir "Cross Creek."

• American Scientists: Theoretical physicist John Bardeen, who co-invented the transistor; biochemist Gerty Cori, who made important discoveries that later became the basis for our knowledge of how cells use food and convert it into energy; astronomer Edwin Hubble, whose meticulous studies of spiral nebulae proved the existence of galaxies other than our own Milky Way; and chemist Linus Pauling, who determined the nature of the chemical bond linking atoms into molecules and did pioneering work on protein structure was critical in establishing the field of molecular biology.

• American Journalists: Martha Gellhorn, who covered the Spanish Civil War, World War II and the Vietnam War in a long career that broke new ground for women; John Hersey, whose most famous work, "Hiroshima," describes what happened when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city; George Polk, a young reporter killed covering the strife in postwar Greece; Ruben Salazar, the first Mexican-American journalist to have a major voice in mainstream news media; and Eric Sevareid, a broadcast journalist for CBS.

• Mount St. Mary's University stamped card, commemorating the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Maryland university.

• Frank Sinatra, Oscarand Grammy-winning singer and actor.

• Reissues of the designs of the two 2007 Wedding Hearts stamps featuring vines that form the shape of a heart. These stamps come in two denominations designed for mailing wedding invitations and RSVPs.

• Minnesota statehood 150th anniversary.

• Love, an annual stamp this time featuring an oversized heart being transported by its owner to convey that a heart filled with love.

• Vintage Black Cinema set based on posters for five early movies.

• The Art of Disney: Imagination, featuring animated characters.

• Olympic Games, to coincide with the Games to be held from Aug. 8-24 in Beijing, China.

• Charles and Ray Eames, who made contributions to architecture, furniture design, manufacturing and photographic arts. Among many other things the husband and wife team designed the stackable molded fiberglass chair.

• Artist Albert Bierstadt, featuring his painting "Valley of the Yosemite."

• Latin Jazz, with a tropical evening scene.

• Alzheimer's Awareness, calling attention to the most common form of dementia among older people.

• Nature of America, detailing the flora and fauna of Great Lakes Dunes.

• Four Holiday Nutcrackers stamps picturing Santa, a king, a captain and a drummer.

• Traditional Christmas Stamp featuring a detail of a painting titled "Virgin and Child With the Young John the Baptist" by the Italian master Sandro Botticelli.

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On the Net:

U.S. Postal Service: http://www.usps.com/

[Associated Press; By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID]

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.