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BacallBorn Betty Joan Perske in New York City on September 16, 1924, the future Lauren Bacall was the daughter of a salesman and a secretary who divorced when she was five. Bacall was her mother’s maiden name, albeit spelled with a single “l”. Originally interested in dance, she switched to acting in high school and attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts after graduation. She earned money as a model and landed the cover of Harper’s Bazaar where she was spotted by the wife of Howard Hawks who suggested she be given a screen test. She passed it with flying colors and was given a role in Hawks’ 1944 film, To Have and Have Not.

19-year-old Bacall so impressed Hawks and the film’s star, Humphrey Bogart, that her role was expanded at the expense of that of original leading lady Dolores Moran. Bogart was impressed with her off screen as well and married her in 1945.

Although she flopped in 1945’s Confidential Agent opposite Charles Boyer, she quickly rebounded opposite Bogart again in The Big Sleep, Dark Passage and Key Largo. Her films of note in the early 1950s included Young Man With a Horn opposite Kirk Douglas, Bright Leaf opposite Gary Cooper, How to Marry a Millionaire with Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable, Woman’s World with June Allyson and Clifton Webb, The Cobweb opposite Richard Widmark, Blood Alley opposite John Wayne and Written on the Wind opposite Rock Hudson..

After Bogart’s death in early 1957, she starred in Designing Woman opposite Gregory Peck and Flame Over India opposite Kenneth More. She married Jason Robards in 1961. Their marriage would end in 1969. During the marriage she starred in Broadway’s Cactus Flower while occasionally appearing on screen in supporting roles, most notably in 1966’s Harper with Paul Newman.

In 1970 Bacall won a Tony as Margo Channing in Broadway’s Applause, the musical version of All About Eve. She had her most memorable supporting role on screen in 1974’s Murder on the Orient Express and starred once again opposite John Wayne in his last film, 1976’s The Shootist. She won a second Tony for 1981’s Woman of the Year, the musical version of the Hepburn-Tracy classic of the same name. That same year she played her last starring role on screen in The Fan opposite James Garner.

Bacall finally received an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Barbra Streisand’s mother 1996’s The Mirror Has Two Faces. Her later films included Dogville, Birth and The Walker. She received an honorary Oscar in 2009.

Lauren Bacall’s last film was 2012’s The Forger. She died in 2014 at the age of 89.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

To Have and Have Not (1944), directed by Howard Hawks

Bacall had one of the most auspicious screen debuts in film history at the age of nineteen in Hawks’ bastardized version of Ernest Hemingway’s novel. Re-written to resemble the Oscar winning Casablanca, Hemingway’s plot was filmed six years later as The Breaking Point with John Garfield. Originally intended to place more emphasis on Dolores Moran’s Bergmanesque wife of a resistance fighter, the film was retooled to beef up Bacall’s enigmatic lounge singer. Rumor to the contrary, she’s not dubbed by Andy Williams, but she does ask Bogie if he knows how to whistle.

The Big Sleep (1946), directed by Howard Hawks

After Bacall’s second film, Confidential Agent opposite Charles Boyer, flopped, Hawks again cast her opposite now husband Bogie as Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. The romance between Bogie and Bacall’s enigmatic wealthy divorcée is the heart of the film, not the convoluted murder mystery, the resolution of which no one remembers five minutes after they’ve seen the film. The film is also notable for the impressive supporting performances of Martha Vickers, John Ridgely, Peggy Knudson Elisha Cook, Jr. and that girl in the book store, future star Dorothy Malone.

How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), directed by Jean Negulesco

This classic comedy was the first film made in Cinemascope, but not the first released, that distinction belongs to The Robe. Betty Grable, nearing the end of her illustrious career at Fox, was top-billed on screen as per the demands of her contract, but first billing on the film’s poster and in the trailer went to fast-rising star, Marilyn Monroe on the heels of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Both are memorable, but Bacall is the real surprise here, flawlessly displaying comedic gifts no one knew she had, but which would sustain her career for the remainder of her life.

Murder on the Orient Express (1974), directed by Sidney Lumet

Lumet’s film of Agatha Christie’s classic novel is best remembered for its superb cast led by Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot. Although there was certainly interest in the casting of Vanessa Redgrave, Sean Connery, Michael York, Jacqueline Bisset, Wendy Hiller, Rachel Roberts, John Gielgud, Anthony Perkins, Richard Widmark and others, most of the press at the time was interested in the first meeting ever of Bogie’s two most famous leading ladies, Casablanca’s Ingrid Bergman and Bacall five years after Bergman played Bacall’s stage role in Cactus Flower on screen. They got along famously.

The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), directed by Barbra Streisand

Critics hated it, audiences ignored it and Streisand, now in pre-production for Catherine the Great, did not direct another movie for twenty years. Streisand and Jeff Bridges as Columbia University professors who marry out of admiration and respect, not love, are far from their best. The film is stolen by Bacall as Streisand’s glamorous mother who has all the best lines. She received the first and only Oscar nomination of her long career, but shockingly lost to Juliette Bincoche in The English Patient signaling that sentiment alone was no longer enough to win an Oscar.

LAUREN BACALL AND OSCAR

  • Nominated – Best Supporting Actress – The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996)
  • Oscar – Honorary Award (2009)

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