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Lauren Bacall (born Betty Joan Perske, September 16, 1924) is an American film and stage actress and model. Known for her husky voice and sultry looks, she has continued acting to the present day.
Bacall is perhaps best known for being a film noir leading lady in films such as The Big Sleep (1946) and Dark Passage (1947), as well as a comedienne, as seen in 1953's How to Marry a Millionaire and 1957's Designing Woman.
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Quotations
...badly, playing the Missouri Waltz, or something.
On Harry S. Truman's piano playing
A lot depends on who's in the saddle.
As "Vivian Sternwood Rutledge" in The Big Sleep (1946)
He was...(pause) a womanizer, he wanted to be in the sack with everybody.
I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that.
As quoted in The Daily Telegraph (2 March 1988)
I'm hard to get, Steve. All you have to do is ask me.
As "Marie Browning" (aka Slim) to "Harry Morgan" (aka Steve) in To Have and Have Not (1944)
Imagination is the highest kite that one can fly.
Lauren Bacall By Myself (1978)
Encyclopedia
Lauren Bacall (born Betty Joan Perske, September 16, 1924) is an American film and stage actress and model. Known for her husky voice and sultry looks, she has continued acting to the present day.
Bacall is perhaps best known for being a film noir leading lady in films such as The Big Sleep (1946) and Dark Passage (1947), as well as a comedienne, as seen in 1953's How to Marry a Millionaire and 1957's Designing Woman. Bacall also enjoyed success starring in the Broadway musicals Applause in 1970 and Woman of the Year in 1981.
In 1999, Bacall was ranked as one of the 25 greatest female stars of all time by the American Film Institute. She is also famous for being married to Humphrey Bogart, with whom she worked in four films.
Early life
Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske in New York City, the only child of Natalie (née Bacal or Weinstein), a secretary, and William Perske, who worked in sales. Her parents were Jewish immigrants, their families having come from France, Poland, Romania and Germany. Her first cousin is former Prime Minister and current President of Israel Shimon Peres (who was born in Poland as Szymon Perski). Her parents divorced when she was five. She took her mother's name Bacall when her parents divorced. Bacall no longer saw her father and formed a bond with her mother, whom she took with her to California when she became a movie star.
Career
Bacall studied acting for 13 years, taking lessons at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. During this time, she became a theatre usher and worked as a fashion model. As Betty Bacall, she made her acting debut on Broadway in 1942, in Johnny 2 X 4. According to her autobiography, Bacall met her idol Bette Davis at Davis's hotel. Years later, Davis visited Bacall backstage to congratulate her on her performance in Applause, a musical based on Davis's turn in All About Eve.
Bacall became a part-time fashion model. Howard Hawks's wife Nancy spotted her on the March 1943 cover of Harper's Bazaar and urged Hawks to have her take a screen test for To Have and Have Not. Hawks invited Bacall to Hollywood for the audition. He signed her up to a seven-year personal contract, brought her to Hollywood, gave her $100 a week, and began to manage her career. Hawks changed her name to Lauren Bacall. Nancy Hawks took Bacall under her wing. She dressed Bacall stylishly, and guided the newcomer in matters of elegance, manners, and taste. Bacall's voice was trained to be lower, more masculine, and sexier, which resulted in one of the most distinctive voices in Hollywood. In the movie, Bacall takes on Nancy's nickname “Slim”.
Breakthrough
During screen tests for To Have and Have Not (1944), Bacall was nervous. To minimize her quivering, she pressed her chin against her chest and to face the camera, tilted her eyes upward. This effect became known as 'The Look', Bacall's trademark. Hawks cast her and gave her the first name Lauren. Her performance is acknowledged as one of the most powerful on-screen debuts in film history.
On the set, Humphrey Bogart, who was married to Mayo Methot, initiated a relationship with Bacall some weeks into shooting and they began seeing each other.
On a visit to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on February 10, 1945, Bacall's press agent, chief of publicity at Warner Bros. Charlie Enfield, asked the 20-year-old Bacall to sit on the piano which was being played by Vice-President of the United States Harry S. Truman. The photos caused controversy and made worldwide headlines.
After To Have and Have Not, Bacall was seen opposite Charles Boyer in the critically-panned Confidential Agent (1945). Bacall would state in her autobiography
that her career never fully recovered from this film, and that studio boss Jack Warner didn't care about quality.
She then appeared with Bogart in the film noir The Big Sleep (1946), the thriller Dark Passage (1947), and John Huston's melodramatic suspense film Key Largo (1948). She was cast with Gary Cooper in the adventure tale Bright Leaf (1950).
1950s
Bacall turned down scripts she didn't find interesting and thereby earned a reputation for being difficult. Yet, for her leads in a string of films, she received favorable reviews. In Young Man with a Horn (1950), co-starring Doris Day and Kirk Douglas, Bacall played a two-faced femme fatale, with more than a hint of lesbianism to her character. This movie is often considered the first big-budget jazz film.
Bacall starred in the CinemaScope comedy How to Marry a Millionaire in 1953, a runaway hit that saw her teaming up with Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable. Bacall got positive notices for her turn as the witty gold-digger, Schatze Page. According to her autobiography, Bacall refused to press her hand- and footprints in the cemented forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theatre at the Los Angeles premiere of the film.
Written on the Wind, directed by Douglas Sirk in 1956, is now considered a classic tear-jerker. Teaming up with Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone and Robert Stack, Bacall played a determined soap opera woman. Bacall states in her autobiography that she didn't think much of the role. While struggling at home with Bogart's severe illness (cancer of the esophagus), Bacall starred with Gregory Peck in the slapstick comedy Designing Woman for rave reviews. It was directed by Vincente Minnelli and released in New York City on May 16th 1957, four months after Bogart succumbed to cancer on January 14th.
1960s and 1970s
Bacall's movie career waned in the 1960s, and she was only seen in a handful of films. But on Broadway she starred in Goodbye, Charlie (1959), Cactus Flower (1965), Applause (1970) and Woman of the Year (1981). She won Tony Awards for her performances in the latter two. The few movies Bacall shot during this period were all-star vehicles such as Sex and the Single Girl (1964) with Henry Fonda, Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood, Harper (1966) with Paul Newman and Janet Leigh, and Murder on the Orient Express (1974), with Ingrid Bergman, Albert Finney and Sean Connery. In 1964, she appeared in two acclaimed episodes of Craig Stevens's CBS drama, Mr. Broadway: first in "Take a Walk Through a Cemetery", with then husband Jason Robards, Jr., and Jill St. John, and then as Barbara Lake in "Something to Sing About", with Martin Balsam as Nate Bannerman.
For her work in the Chicago theatre, Bacall won the Sarah Siddons Award in 1972 and again in 1984. In 1976, she co-starred with John Wayne in his last picture, The Shootist. The two became friends, even though Wayne was politically conservative and Bacall was a liberal. They had previously been cast together in 1955's Blood Alley.
Later career
During the 1980s, Bacall appeared in the poorly-received star vehicle The Fan (1981), as well as some star-studded features such as Robert Altman's Health (1980) and Michael Winner's Appointment with Death (1988). In 1997, Bacall was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her role in The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), her first nomination after a career span of more than fifty years. She had already won a Golden Globe and was widely expected to win the Oscar, which went to Juliette Binoche for The English Patient.
Bacall received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1997. In 1999, she was voted one of the 25 most significant female movie stars in history by the American Film Institute. Since then, her movie career has seen a new renaissance and she has attracted respectful notices for her performances in high-profile projects such as Dogville (2003) and Birth (2004), both with Nicole Kidman. She is one of the leading actors in Paul Schrader's 2007 movie The Walker.
In March 2006, Bacall was seen at the 78th Annual Academy Awards introducing a film montage dedicated to the film noir genre. She also made a cameo appearance as herself on The Sopranos in April 2006, during which she was punched and robbed by a masked Christopher Moltisanti.
In September 2006, Bacall was awarded the first Katharine Hepburn Medal, which recognizes "women whose lives, work and contributions embody the intelligence, drive and independence of the four-time-Oscar-winning actress," by Bryn Mawr College's Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center. She gave an address at the memorial service of Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr at the Reform Club in London in June 2007.
Bacall is the spokesperson for the Tuesday Morning discount chain. Commercials show her in a limousine waiting for the store to open at the beginning of one of their sales events.
Personal life
On May 21, 1945, Bacall married Humphrey Bogart. Their wedding and honeymoon took place at Malabar Farm, Lucas, Ohio. It was the country home of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louis Bromfield, a close friend of Bogart. The wedding was held in the Big House. Bacall was 20 and Bogart was 45. They remained married until Bogart's death from cancer in 1957. Bogart usually called Bacall "Baby," even when referring to her in conversations with other people. During the filming of The African Queen in 1951, Bacall and Bogart became friends of Bogart's co-star Katharine Hepburn and her partner Spencer Tracy. Bacall also began to mix in non-acting circles, becoming friends with the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and the journalist Alistair Cooke. In 1952, she gave campaign speeches for Democratic Presidential contender Adlai Stevenson. Bacall was a staunch opponent of McCarthyism along with other Hollywood figures.
Shortly after Bogart's death in 1957, Bacall had a relationship with singer and actor Frank Sinatra. She told Robert Osborne of Turner Classic Movies (TCM) in an interview that she had ended the romance. However, in her autobiography, she wrote that Sinatra abruptly ended the relationship, having become angry that the story of his proposal to Bacall had reached the press. Bacall and her friend Swifty Lazar had run into the gossip columnist Louella Parsons, to whom Lazar had spilled the beans. Sinatra then cut Bacall off and went to Las Vegas.
Bacall was married to actor Jason Robards from 1961 to 1969. According to Bacall's autobiography, she divorced Robards mainly because of his alcoholism. After her divorce from Robards, Bacall did not remarry. In her autobiography Now, she recalls having a relationship with Len Cariou, her co-star in Applause.
Bacall had two children with Bogart and one child with Robards. Her children with Bogart are son Stephen Humphrey Bogart (born January 6, 1949), a news producer, documentary film maker and author, and daughter Leslie Bogart (born August 23, 1952), a leading yoga instructor. Sam Robards (born December 16, 1961), her son with Robards, is an actor.
Bacall has written two autobiographies, Lauren Bacall By Myself (1978) and Now (1994). In 2005, she re-published the first volume and updated it with an extra chapter. She released it as By Myself and Then Some.
Political views
Bacall is a staunch liberal Democrat. She has proclaimed her political views on numerous occasions.
She appeared alongside Humphrey Bogart in a photograph printed at the end of an article he wrote titled "I'm No Communist" in the May 1948 edition of Photoplay magazine, written to counteract negative publicity resulting from his appearance before the House Unamerican Activities Committee. Bogart and Bacall specifically distanced themselves from the Hollywood Ten and were quoted as saying: "We're about as much in favor of Communism as J. Edgar Hoover." In October 1947, Bacall and Bogart traveled to Washington, DC along with other Hollywood stars, in a group that called itself the Committee for the First Amendment.
She campaigned for Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson in the 1952 Presidential election and for Robert Kennedy in his 1964 run for Senate.
"I'm anti-Republican. ... A liberal. The L word", she said in a 2005 interview with Larry King.
Dramatization
In 1980, Kathryn Harrold played Bacall in the TV movie Bogie that was directed by Vincent Sherman and was based on the novel by Joe Hymans. Kevin O'Connor played Bogart, and the movie focused primarily upon the disintegration of Bogart's third marriage to Mayo Methot, played by Ann Wedgeworth, when Bogart met Bacall and began an affair with her.
Work
Filmography
Features
Short subjects
- 1955 Motion Picture Theatre Celebration (1955)
- Amália Traďda (2004)
Selected stage appearances
- January Two by Four (1942)
- Goodbye Charlie (1959)
- Cactus Flower (1965)
- Applause (1970)
- V.I.P. Night on Broadway (1979) (benefit concert)
- Woman of the Year (1981)
- Angela Lansbury: A Celebration (1996) (benefit concert)
- Waiting in the Wings (1999)
Television work
Books
- By Myself (1978)
- Now (1994)
- By Myself and Then Some (2005)
Awards and nominations
Nominations
Bacall has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1724 Vine Street.
See also
External links
- taken mainly from her book "Lauren Bacall, By Myself", (New York: Knopf, 1978)
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