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Lauren Bacall (born Betty Joan Perske on September 16, 1924) is an American film and stage actress. Known for her husky voice and sultry looks, she has become a fashion icon and role model for modern-day women. Today, she is considered a legendary actress, partly due to the longevity of her career.

She is 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 sassy comedienne, as seen in 1953's How to Marry a Millionaire.

Career

Early Stages
Born in New York City as Betty Joan Perske, she was the only child of Jewish immigrants, William Perske (a relative of former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, born in Poland with ancestors from France, in an area which is now part of Belarus) and Natalie Weinstein-Bacal (born in Romania with ancestors from Germany).* Her father was a salesman and her mother was a secretary. They were divorced when she was six years old.

As a result, she no longer saw her father, and she formed a strong bond with her mother whom she took with her to California once she had become a movie star.

Bacall studied dancing for 13 years. She then took acting lessons at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. During this time, she became a theater usher and worked as a fashion model.

As Betty Bacall, she made her acting debut on Broadway in 1942, in Johnny Two by Four. At that time her idol was Bette Davis. According to her autobiography, she got the chance to meet Davis at her hotel. Years later, Davis would visit Bacall backstage to congratulate her on her performance of Margo Channing in Applause, a musical based on Davis's turn in All About Eve.

Bacall began to model part-time. This was when she experienced anti-Semitism for the first time. Later, when she went to Hollywood, director Howard Hawks would make anti-Semitic remarks. This made her nervous of revealing her identity and she did not let Hawks know that she was Jewish.

Bacall had envisaged a career on stage for herself, but by chance, she entered the world of movies. Howard Hawks' wife Slim spotted Bacall on the cover of Harper's Bazaar, showed the photo to her husband, and he then made a phone call to New York to bring her to Hollywood for a screen test. Hawks would use the nickname "Slim" for Bacall's character in her first movie.

The Breakthrough
Not liking the name Betty, Hawks gave her the first name Lauren. He gave her several screen tests and then cast her in his next project, To Have and Have Not (1944). She was nervous in front of the camera, so Hawks suggested that she tilt her head and pull her hair over one side of her face. This became known as The Look, Bacall's trademark.

She met Humphrey Bogart on the set of To Have and Have Not. Bogart, who was married to Mayo Methot, initiated a relationship with Bacall some weeks into shooting and they began to see each other off set.

To Have and Have Not catapulted Bacall to instant stardom. Her turn in the film has later been acknowledged as one of the most powerful on-screen debuts in film history.

The 20-year old Bacall made worldwide headlines on a visit to the National Press Club in Washington D.C. on (10 February 1945). Her press agent (Charlie Enfield, chief of publicity at Warner Bros.) asked her to sit on the piano which was being played by the Vice-President of the United States Harry S. Truman. The photos of the incident (see *) caused a scandal.

After To Have and Have Not, she 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).

The 1950s to the 1980s
Bacall was known to turn down scripts she didn't find interesting. This earned her a reputation among studio executives for being difficult to deal with. Yet, she continued to get favorable reviews for her leads in a string of significant films.

1950's Young Man with a Horn, co-starring Doris Day and Kirk Douglas, is often considered the first big-budget jazz film. Bacall played a two-faced femme fatale, with more than a hint of lesbianism to her character.

1953's colorful comedy How to Marry a Millionaire was a runaway hit that saw Bacall teaming up with Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable. Bacall garnered positive notes for her turn as the witty gold-digger, Schatze Page.

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 delivered a perfomance as a determined and tough soap opera woman. Bacall states in her autobiography that she didn't think much of the role.

In the 1960s, Bacall´s movie career waned, and she was only seen in a handful of films. Her saving grace, however, was on Broadway. Her Broadway roles included Goodbye, Charlie (1959), Cactus Flower (1965), Applause (1970) and Woman of the Year (1981). She won Tony Awards for her performances in Applause and Woman of the Year.

For her work in the Chicago theatre, she won the Sarah Siddons Award in 1972 and again in 1984. She also frequently appeared on London's West End.

In 1976, Bacall co-starred with John Wayne in his last picture, The Shootist. During the filming, the two created a bond, even though Wayne was politically far to the right and Bacall was a liberal.

Later Stages
Bacall was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her role in The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), for which she had already won a Golden Globe.

She received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1997. 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) with Nicole Kidman, The Limit (2003) with Claire Forlani, and Birth (2004), again with Kidman.

In 1999, she was voted one of the 25 most significant female movie stars in history by the American Film Institute.

In 2004, she appeared in advertisements for the Tuesday Morning discount store franchise.

In March 2006, she was seen at the 78th Annual Academy Awards introducing a film montage dedicated to the film noir genre. She also did a cameo appearance on The Sopranos in April 2006.

Bacall has written two autobiographies, Lauren Bacall By Myself (1978) and Now (1994). In 2005, she updated and renamed them by the title By Myself and Then Some.

Private life

On May 21, 1945, Bacall married Humphrey Bogart. Their wedding and honeymoon took place at Malabar Farm, Mansfield, Ohio (the country home of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louis Bromfield, a close friend of Bogart). 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.

After the filming of The African Queen in 1951, Bacall and Bogart became great 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 (on whom she allegedly had a "school-girl" crush).

Shortly after Bogart's death in 1957, Bacall had an affair with singer and actor Frank Sinatra. Bacall states that the affair began after Bogart's death; knowing of Sinatra's reputation as a womanizer, Bacall knew that he was unlikely to be a faithful husband. 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 "dropped the curtain," cutting Bacall off completely and going to Las Vegas.

She was later married to the actor Jason Robards from 1961 until their divorce in 1969, due to Robards' alcoholism. She is the mother of two sons, news producer, documentary film maker, and author Stephen Bogart and actor Sam Robards as well as one daughter, Leslie Bogart, who became a nurse and yoga therapist.

See also: the Bogart and Bacall section in the Humphrey Bogart article.

Trivia

  • Bacall is a cousin of Shimon Peres, the former Prime Minister of Israel.
  • Contrary to some reports, Bacall does not have a vocal disorder. However, a type of one has been named after her and Humphrey Bogart. Bogart-Bacall Syndrome (or BBS) is a form of muscle tension dysphonia most common in professional voice users (actors, singers, TV/radio presenters, etc) who habitually use a very low speaking pitch. BBS is more common among women than men and has been blamed on the social pressure that professional women feel to compete with men in the business and professional arenas. The syndrome got its name from the low-pitch speaking tones that both actors used in their performances.
  • In 1951, Bacall co-starred with Bogart in the radio drama Bold Venture, playing the caustically affectionate "Sailor Duval".
  • According to her autobiography, she refused to press her hand- and footprints in the cemented forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theatre at the Los Angeles premiere of the 1953 film How to Marry a Millionaire.
  • Actress Kathleen Turner has often been compared to Bacall. When Turner and Bacall met, Turner reportedly introduced herself to Bacall by saying "Hi, I'm the young you."
  • Bacall appears in an episode of The Sopranos. After she is introduced to Christopher Moltisanti and Little Carmine Lupertazzi by Sir Ben Kingsley, Christopher punches her and steals a gift basket she has received in exchange for presenting at an awards show.

Quotes

Bacall is known for speaking out her mind and her sarcastic remarks on her colleagues and peers. She has also delivered some of the most iconic lines in movie history.

=Famous Movie Quotes
= From To Have and Have Not (1945): "You know you don't have to act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow."

From The Big Sleep (1946): Humphrey Bogart: "What's wrong with you?" Lauren Bacall: "Nothing you can't fix."

From How to Marry a Millionaire (1953): "Look at that old fellow, what's his name, in The African Queen." (in reference to her then-husband, Bogart)

From Written on the Wind (1956): Bacall: "Just what do you do for the Hadley Oil Company?" Robert Stack: "We're troubleshooters. Wherever they want trouble, they send for us."

=On Harry S. Truman's Piano-Playing
= From an interview with Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne:

  • "...badly, playing the Missouri Waltz, or something."

=On Howard Hawks
= Of Mr. Hawks, Bacall told Larry King on CNN:

  • "He was a Svengali. He wanted to mold me. He wanted to control me. And he did until Mr. Bogart got involved."

=On Frank Sinatra
= She told Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne:

  • "He was a womanizer, he wanted to be in the sack with everybody."

She said of Sinatra to Larry King:

  • "Well, his attention span was not long, shall we say."

=On Being a Democrat
= From the Larry King interview:

  • BACALL: "I'm a total Democrat. I'm anti-Republican. And it's only fair that you know it. Even though..."
  • KING: "Wait a minute. Are you a liberal?"
  • BACALL: "I'm a liberal. The L word!"
  • KING: "Egads!"

=On Nicole Kidman
= From the Associated Press on Nicole Kidman:

  • "She's not a legend," Bacall said. "She can't be a legend at whatever age she is...you have to be older."

From the Larry King interview:

  • KING: "I'm told the media tried to stir up a fuss when you took issue with a reporter describing Nicole Kidman as a legend. You worked together in "Dogville" and the film "Birth," and the legend label was used by a British morning show hostess. And you said she's not a legend, she's a beginner."

  • BACALL: "God, if the press ever quoted anyone correctly, it would be brilliant."

  • KING: "Straighten it out."

  • BACALL: "I love Nicole. Nicole and I happen to be very great friends. Besides that, the press never get it straight. They do not print what you say."

  • KING: "You can't get it wrong here. What did you mean?"

  • BACALL: "Well, number one, this is what happened. We were in Venice for "Birth" at the Venice Film Festival. And you know when you have a day when you go from one room to another with the roundtables with about five journalists sitting around at each table throwing questions at you all the time. So in one of these rooms, I'm sitting there. And one of the journalists said "you're an icon, and Nicole Kidman's an icon, and what do you think about that?". And I said: "Why do you have to burden her with the category? She's a young woman. She's got her whole career ahead of her. Why does she have to be pegged as an icon or as anything? Let her enjoy her time. Don't, you know, suddenly put her in a slot". And that was all I said. The word "legend" never came up. It was "icon" to begin with. And, of course, Nicole was there. And she says, you know the press. Because my only interest was that she was not hurt or that she did not misunderstand."

=On Tom Cruise
= She slammed Tom Cruise in the 8 August 2005 issue of Time Magazine:

  • "When you talk about a great actor, you're not talking about Tom Cruise. His whole behavior is so shocking. It's inappropriate and vulgar and absolutely unacceptable to use your private life to sell anything commercially, but, I think it's kind of a sickness."

References in popular culture

  • The 1981 romantic ballad, Key Largo (written and sang by Bertie Higgins) referenced the Bogart/Becall movie of the same name, and their relationship.
  • In the song "Rainbow High" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Evita, the main character Eva Peron orders her stylist to "Lauren Bacall me!"
  • Bacall is mentioned among some other Hollywood icons in the lyrics for Madonna's 1990 hit single "Vogue".
  • Bacall is mentioned in The Clash song "Car Jamming" from Combat Rock: "I thought I saw Lauren Bacall/I swear/Hey fellas/Lauren Bacall/In a car jam".
  • 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.

Filmography

Selected stage appearances

Television work

Books by Lauren Bacall

Awards and nominations

She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (At 1724 Vine Street)

See also

Bogart-Bacall Syndrome

External links

American models | 1924 births | American female singers | American film actors | American stage actors | Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nominees | Hollywood Walk of Fame | Jewish American actors | Jewish American models | Living people | People from New York City | Film actors

Lauren Bacall | Lauren Bacall | Lauren Bacall | Lauren Bacall | Lauren Bacall | Lauren Bacall | Lauren Bacall | ローレン・バコール | Lauren Bacall | Lauren Bacall | Lauren Bacall | Lauren Bacall

 

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