Born: September 16, 1924
Following study at the American Academy
of Dramatic Arts and subsequent stage and modeling experience,
legendary actress Lauren Bacall gained nationwide attention by posing
for a 1943 cover of Harper's Bazaar magazine. This photo prompted film
director Howard_Hawks to put her under personal contract, wanting to "create" a movie star from fresh, raw material.
For her screen debut, Hawks cast Bacall opposite Humphrey_Bogart
in To Have and Have Not (1944). The young actress was so nervous that
she walked around with her chin pressed against her collarbone to keep
from shaking. As a result, she had to glance upward every time she
spoke, an affectation which came across as sexy and alluring, earning
Bacall the nickname "The Look." She also spoke in a deep, throaty
manner, effectively obscuring the fact that she was only 19-years-old.
Thanks to the diligence of Hawks
and his crew -- and the actress' unique delivery of such lines as "If
you want anything, just whistle..." -- Bacall found herself lauded as
the most sensational newcomer of 1944. She also found herself in love
with Humphrey_Bogart, whom she subsequently married.
Bogie and
Bacall co-starred in three more films, which increased the actress'
popularity, but also led critics to suggest that she was incapable of
carrying a picture on her own. Bacall's disappointing solo turn in Confidential_Agent
(1945) seemed to confirm this, but the actress was a quick study and
good listener, and before long she was turning in first-rate
performances in such films as Young Man With a Horn (1950) and How to
Marry a Millionaire (1953).
Bogart's
death in 1957 after a long and painful bout with cancer left Bacall
personally devastated, though, in the tradition of her show-must-go-on
husband, she continued to perform to the best of her ability in films
such as Designing_Woman (1957) and The Gift of Love (1958). In the late '60s, after Bacall's second marriage to another hard-case actor, Jason_Robards_Jr.,
she received only a handful of negligible film roles and all but
dropped out of moviemaking. In 1970, Bacall made a triumphant comeback
in the stage production +Applause, a musical adaptation of All_About_Eve, in which she played grand dame Margo Channing, a role originally played by Bette_Davis in the film version.
Her sultry-vixen persona long in the past, Bacall spent the '70s playing
variations on her worldly, resourceful +Applause role, sometimes merely
being decorative (Murder on the Orient Express, 1974), but most often
delivering class-A performances (The_Shootist, 1976). After playing the quasi-autobiographical part of a legendary, outspoken Broadway actress in 1981's The_Fan,
she spent the next ten years portraying Lauren Bacall -- and no one did
it better. In 1993, Bacall proved once more that she was a superb
actress and not merely a "professional personality" in the
made-for-cable film The_Portrait, in which she and her Designing_Woman co-star Gregory_Peck played a still-amorous elderly couple.
During the filming of The_Mirror_Has_Two_Faces (1996), Bacall traveled to France to accept a special César Award for her lifetime achievement in film. For her role in Mirror, which cast her as Barbra_Streisand's
mother, Bacall earned a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination. She
continued to work on a number of projects into the next decade,
including Diamonds, in which she appeared alongside Kirk_Douglas, with whom she last co-starred in the 1950 romantic drama Young Man with a Horn.
In the new century she worked twice with internationally respected
filmmaker Lars von Trier, appearing in Dogville and Manderlay. She was
in the Nicole Kidman film Birth, and appeared in the documentary
Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff.
