Lauren
Bacall - Biography
original name Betty Joan Perske
( 1924 – )
(born September 16, 1924, New York, New York, U.S.)
American motion-picture and stage actress known for her portrayals
of provocative women who hid their soft core underneath a layer of
hard-edged pragmatism.
Bacall
started modeling in 1941 and supplemented her income with jobs as
a theatre usher and as a hostess at the Stage Door Canteen, which
kept her next to the Broadway theatre scene that she loved. In 1942
she appeared as an ingénue in the George S. Kaufman-directed
Franklin Street, but the play closed before reaching New York. Bacall's
photo on the cover of Harper's Bazaar in 1943 caught the attention
of the wife of film director Howard Hawks. Cast in Hawks's To Have
and Have Not (1944) as the leggy sardonic beauty who gives Humphrey
Bogart a famous lesson in whistling, the 19-year-old Bacall was an
overnight sensation. Nervous throughout the shooting, Bacall kept
her head low to keep it from shaking; this, combined with her bedroom
eyes and husky voice, resulted in a sultry aura that was touted in
promotional campaigns as “The Look.” She and Bogart fell
in love during the filming and were married in 1945; they subsequently
costarred in the successful thrillers The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage
(1947), and Key Largo (1948). Bacall's other successful films include
Young Man with a Horn (1950), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), and
Designing Woman (1957).
After
Bogart's death in 1957, Bacall worked sporadically, appearing in one
Broadway flop ( Goodbye Charlie, 1959) and one hit ( Cactus Flower,
1965) and in such films as Sex and the Single Girl (1964) and Harper
(1966). In 1961 she married actor Jason Robards (divorced 1969). Bacall
made a stunning comeback in the Broadway musical Applause (1970),
for which she won a Tony Award as best actress. Her career revitalized,
she went on to essay memorable roles in such films as Murder on the
Orient Express (1974), The Shootist (1976), and The Fan (1981). She
returned to Broadway in 1981 and won a second Tony Award for Woman
of the Year.
Bacall's
performances of the 1990s, most of which capitalized on her brash-but-endearing
personality, are among her most respected. She received good notices
for supporting roles in Misery (1990), The Portrait (1993; made for
television), My Fellow Americans (1996), and Diamonds (1999). For
her performance in The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), Bacall received
her first Academy Award nomination, for best supporting actress. Her
later films include Dogville (2003) and Birth (2004), both of which
also featured Nicole Kidman, and The Walker (2007). In 1999 she scored
another Broadway triumph in a revival of Noël Coward's Waiting
in the Wings. Bacall wrote three autobiographies— By Myself
(1978), Now (1994), and And Then Some (2005).
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