|
|
|
|
| Birth Name(s) : Betty Joan Perske |
Date of Birth: N/A |
| Status:
Single
|
Partner:
Humphrey Bogart (1945-1957) |
| Profession:
N/A |
| << Add Lauren Bacall To Your Favorites |
|
Full Lauren Bacall Biography
She 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. Bacall also enjoyed success starring in the Broadway musicals Applause in 1970 and Woman of the Year in 1981.
Bacall became a part-time fashion model. Howard Hawks's wife Slim spotted her on the cover of Harper's Bazaar and showed the photo to her husband, who invited Bacall to Hollywood for a screen test.
Hawks gave her the first name Lauren. After several screen tests, he cast her in To Have and Have Not (1944). She was nervous, so she pressed her chin against her chest and tilted her eyes upward to face the camera. This effect became known as 'The Look', Bacall's trademark. To Have and Have Not made Bacall a star. Her turn in the film has later been acknowledged as one of the most powerful on-screen debuts in film history.
On the set, Bacall met Humphrey Bogart. 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.
After To Have and Have Not, Bacall was seen opposite Charles Boyer in the critically panned Confidential Agent (1945). She then appeared with Bogart in three more pictures: the film noir The Big Sleep (1946), the thriller Dark Passage (1947), and John Huston's melodramatic suspense film Key Largo (1948). She was also cast with Gary Cooper in the adventure tale Bright Leaf (1950).
In 1953 Bacall starred in the colorful comedy How to Marry a Millionaire, 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, Bacall starred with Gregory Peck in the 1957 slapstick comedy Designing Woman for rave reviews. It was directed by Vincente Minnelli.
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, during which she was both 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.
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. The divorce was mainly due to Robards' alcoholism, according to Bacall's autobiography. Bacall had two children with Bogart and one child with Robards. Her children with Bogart are Stephen Bogart, a news producer, documentary film maker and author, and daughter Leslie Bogart, a leading yoga instructor. Sam Robards, her son with Robards, is an actor.
From How to Marry a Millionaire (1953): "Look at that old fellow, what's his name, in The African Queen. Absolutely crazy about him!" (in reference to her then-husband, Bogart)
She told Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne:
- "He was a womanizer, he wanted to be in the sack with everybody and I liked that."
From the Larry King interview:
- Bacall: "I'm a total Democrat. I'm anti-Republican. And it's only fair that you know it."
- King: "Wait a minute. Are you a liberal?"
- Bacall: "I'm a liberal. The L word!"
From the 8 August 2005 issue of Time:
- "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."
Bacall appeared alongside Humphrey Bogart in a photograph printed at the end of an the article he wrote titled "I'm no communist" in the May 1948 edition of Photoplay, written to counteract negative publicity resulting from his appearance before the House Unamerican Activities Committee (Bacall had accompanied him to Washington along with a planeload of other Hollywood stars). In the article, Bogart distances himself from the Hollywood Ten. |
|
|
| Add Lauren Bacall Biography (SuperUSERS) + |
| Add Lauren Bacall Review/Comment
|
HQ Lauren Bacall Pictures (1) | Random Lauren Bacall Picture
|
| << Back to the Lauren Bacall Homepage |
|
