It's hard to believe that there are people alive today who, upon hearing of the death of Lauren Bacall responded with a quizzical look and a "Who's she?"
But that's what happens when you become a star at a very early age, marry a legend and then become a legend yourself and live to be 89.
Yes, you were part of the great Hollywood studio system in its heyday but you outlived it.
Yes, you were good friends with stars like Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy but you long since outlived them.
Yes, you campaigned for Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson and Jack Kennedy and you learned to win some and lose some and all that is history now.
Yes, you marched alongside Dr. King for civil rights when they were actually called, civil rights.
Yes, after your movie star days were over, you played The Palace, starring in a big, splashy, old-fashioned Broadway musical but they don't make 'em like that anymore, darling.
And yes, you wrote a classic, tell-all Hollywood memoir and even lived to write a sequel to that but that was when people actually read.
Lauren Bacall did all these things and a whole lot more.
And she lived to tell about it -- and to see the world change and change and change again.
If you only recall her from a line in the song Key Largo ("just like Bogie and Bacall") you didn't really know her. If she's just a smokey, husky voice to you, you knew her a bit better but you still didn't really know her. If you know who said "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, ” then you're getting to the essence of Bacall.
She was the original sultry dame. She was not to be trifled with and she was often one, two, three or more steps ahead of the men who pursued her. She was quick with the retort but slow with her sensual, seductive talents. And then there was that look -- a look that said "Is this what you want? Well, then be prepared to earn it, baby!"
That was Lauren Bacall.
And to talk about her only in tandem with Humphrey Bogart is to do her a great injustice. She stood alone and apart from Bogey even she starred with him in several movie classics. Always, she was s star in her own right.
Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske on September 16, 1924 in The Bronx.
She first emerged as a leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have and Have Not (1944) and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in Bogart movies The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948), as well as comedic roles in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) with Marilyn Monroe and Designing Woman (1957) with Gregory Peck. Bacall worked on Broadway in musicals, gaining Tony Awards for Applause in 1970 and Woman of the Year in 1981. Her performance in the movie The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996) earned her a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination.
In 1999, Bacall was ranked number 20 of the 25 actresses on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars list by the American Film Institute. In 2009, she was selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to receive an Academy Honorary Award "in recognition of her central place in the Golden Age of motion pictures."
Both her parents were Jewish. Her mother emigrated from Romania through Ellis Island and her father was born in New Jersey to Polish-born parents.
She was a first cousin to Shimon Peres, the ninth President of Israel, whose term expired last month. Her parents divorced when she was five, and she took the Romanian form of her mother's last name, Bacall. Bacall no longer saw her father and formed an extremely close bond with her mother. Her mother came to live in California after Bacall became a movie star.
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.
On the set, Humphrey Bogart, who was married to Mayo Methot, initiated a relationship with Bacall several weeks into shooting and they began seeing each other and, despite the significant difference in their ages, were married. He was 45. She was 20. They were married for 12 years before Bogey died of lung cancer in 1957.
Pressed once by interviewer to talk about her marriage to Bogart, and asked about her notable reluctance to do so, Bacall simply replied that "being a widow is not a profession".
That was the essential Lauren Bacall.
She knew who she was.
She knew what she stood for.
And always, she was a self-assured woman -- a woman in full.
We apologize for the misspelling of Lauren Bacall's name in an earlier version of this post as our spell check kept wanting to spell befall. Sorry!
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