SirJoshua Reynolds' painting, Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse, played a crucial role in the creation of the film All about Eve. While puzzling over the mise-en-scène, the director Joseph Mankiewicz happened upon the portrait and instantly decided that it would provide the keynote of his production. He opened the story in the ballroom of the fictitious Sarah Siddons Society, in which a replica of Reynolds's painting hangs. The occasion is the presentation of the Sarah Siddons award statuette, modeled on Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse. In the climactic party scene, the painting again takes center stage, prominently displayed between the framing figures of Bette Davis and Marilyn Monroe. It also presides over the culminating scene, in which the chastened Anne Baxter skulks past a towering reproduction of Reynolds' portrait. Seven years after the release of the film, Bette Davis posed as Sarah Siddons in a re-creation of the painting staged as part of the Pageant of the Masters.

The powerful presence of Sarah Siddons in All about Eve convinced a group of theater-lovers in Chicago to found a real Sarah Siddons Society granting an actual award, also modeled on the Reynolds' painting. Beginning with Helen Hayes in 1952, the Society has awarded a statuette to the outstanding actress of each year. In 1971 Lauren Bacall received the Sarah Siddons award for her performance in Applause, the musical version of All About Eve, in which she played the role that Bette Davis had first immortalized. The following year, Bette Davis presented the Society with a statuette used in All about Eve, and in return the Society bestowed on her a special 20th Anniversary Award for her performance in the film. The Society has now been going since the middle of the 20th century, honoring the greatest actresses (and actors) of our day in the name of Sarah Siddons, who made acting a legitimate profession for women.