‘The Pitt’s Ernest Harden Jr. Dedicates Emmy Win to ‘White Mama’ Co-star Bette Davis

The Pitt guest star Ernest Harden Jr. dedicated his first Emmy win to his White Mama co-star, Bette Davis, 46 years after the TV movie premiered.

On Sunday, September 6, Harden Jr., 73, accepted the award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series on Night 2 of the 2026 Creative Arts Emmys, held at the Peacock Theater at L.A. LIVE in Los Angeles. He earned the honor for playing Louie Cloverfield, an alcoholic and unhoused patient in The Pitt.

During his acceptance speech, Harden Jr. thanked a long list of individuals for supporting him along the way — and the last person he named was Davis. She was nominated for (but didn’t win) the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or a Special for her role in White Mama.

“In ’79, I did a movie with Bette Davis called White Mama,” Harden Jr. said. “I just want to say, Bette Davis, we didn’t make it then, but this one is for us.”

After his speech, Harden Jr. chatted with Entertainment Weekly about his relationship with Davis, who died at 81 in 1989.

“Her playing my mother, she got into it so much that she was actually like my mother,” he recalled. “She would come on holidays, maybe Thanksgiving, cook me Thanksgiving dinner and invite me over, all that, so we became really tight. We actually planned on doing other movies together, but, you know, she didn’t last. But we had a great connection, and in working [together], I got a chance to see Hollywood on that level.”

CBS via Getty Images

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White Mama, which premiered in 1980, starred Davis as Adele Malone and Harden Jr. as B.T. Williamson. The TV movie’s synopsis reads, “A poor, elderly white woman living in a tenement in a black ghetto is befriended by a neighborhood boy, and the two of them form a mutually beneficial relationship: he provides her companionship and protection, and she becomes the mother he never had.”

A combined broadcast of the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, held September 5 and 6, will air on September 12 on FXX. The Primetime Emmy Awards will air live on Monday, September 14, at 8 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock.