Lauren Bacall

Biography

Betty Joan Perske (September 16, 1924 – August 12, 2014), known professionally as Lauren Bacall (), was an American actress. She was named the 20th-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema by the American Film Institute and was one of the last surviving major stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. She received an Academy Honorary Award in 2009 in recognition of her contribution to the Golden Age of motion pictures. Bacall began a career as a model for the Walter Thornton Model Agency before making her film debut at the age of nineteen in To Have and Have Not (1944) as the leading lady opposite Humphrey Bogart, whom she later married. She continued in the film noir genre with appearances alongside Bogart in The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947) and Key Largo (1948) and she starred in the romantic comedies How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) and Designing Woman (1957). She portrayed the female lead in Written on the Wind (1956), which is considered one of Douglas Sirk's seminal films. She later acted in Harper (1966), Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and The Shootist (1976). Bacall found a career resurgence for her role in the romantic comedy The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), for which she earned the Golden Globe Award and the Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for the Academy Award and the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress. During the final stage of her career, she gained newfound success with a younger audience for major supporting roles in the films Misery (1990), Dogville (2003), Birth (2004) and the English dubs of the animated films Howl's Moving Castle (2004) and Ernest & Celestine (2012). In theater, Bacall made her Broadway debut in Johnny 2x4 (1942). She went on to win two Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Musical for her performances in Applause (1970) and Woman of the Year (1981). She also acted in the play Goodbye Charlie (1959), the farce Cactus Flower (1965) and Wonderful Town (1977). She made her West End debut in Applause (1970) followed by Sweet Bird of Youth (1985).

== Early life and education == Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske on September 16, 1924, in the Bronx, New York City, the only child of William Perske (1889–1982), who sold medical instruments, and Natalie (née Weinstein-Bacal; 1901–1969), a secretary who later legally changed her surname to Bacal. Both of her parents were Jewish. Her mother emigrated from Iași, Romania, through Ellis Island. Her father was born in New Jersey to parents who were born in Valozhyn, at that time a predominantly Jewish community in present-day Belarus. Bacall's parents divorced when she was six, after which she no longer saw her father. She later took her mother's Romanian surname, Bacal, but added a fanciful "L". She was close to her mother, who married Lee Goldberg and moved to California after Bacall became a star. Through her father, Bacall was a second cousin of Shimon Peres (born Szymon Perski), the eighth prime minister and ninth president of Israel, through their shared patrilineal great-grandparents Yehuda and Elke Perski. Peres did not know about the relationship until Bacall told him. Bacall's family moved soon after her birth to Brooklyn's Ocean Parkway. Wealthy uncles funded Bacall's education at the Highland Manor Boarding School for Girls in Tarrytown, New York, a private boarding school founded by philanthropist Eugene Heitler Lehman, and at Julia Richman High School in Manhattan.

== Early career and modeling ==

In 1941, Bacall studied for a year at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, where she dated classmate Kirk Douglas. She worked as an usher at the St. James Theatre and as a fashion model in department stores. She made her acting debut on Broadway in 1942 at age 17 as a walk-on in Johnny 2x4. By then, she lived with her mother at 75 Bank Street and, in 1942, she was crowned Miss Greenwich Village. As a teenage fashion model, Bacall appeared on the cover of Harper's Bazaar and in magazines such as Vogue. A 1948 article in Life magazine referred to her "cat-like grace, tawny blonde hair and blue-green eyes." Though Diana Vreeland is often credited with discovering Bacall for Harper's Bazaar, it was in fact Nicolas de Gunzburg who introduced Bacall to Vreeland. He had first met Bacall at a New York club called Tony's, where de Gunzburg suggested that Bacall visit his Harper's Bazaar office the next day. He then turned her over to Vreeland, who arranged for Louise Dahl-Wolfe to shoot Bacall in Kodachrome for the March 1943 cover. The Harper's Bazaar cover caught the attention of "Slim" Keith, the wife of Hollywood producer and director Howard Hawks. Keith urged her husband to invite Bacall to take a screen test for his forthcoming film To Have and Have Not. Hawks asked his secretary to find more information about Bacall, but the secretary misunderstood and sent Bacall a ticket to travel to Hollywood for the audition.

== Hollywood ==

=== 1944–1959: Hollywood contract and leading roles ===

After meeting Bacall in Hollywood, Hawks immediately signed her to a seven-year contract with a weekly salary of $100 and personally began to manage her career. He changed her first name to Lauren, and she chose Bacall, a variant of her mother's maiden name, as her screen surname. Slim Hawks also took Bacall under her wing, dressing Bacall stylishly and guiding her in matters of elegance, manners and taste. At Hawks's suggestion, Bacall was trained by a voice coach to speak with a lower, deeper voice rather than her normally high-pitched, nasal voice. As part of her training, Bacall was required to shout verses of Shakespeare for hours every day. Her voice was characterized as a "smoky, sexual growl" by most critics and a "throaty purr". Bacall stood 5 feet 8+1⁄2 inches (1.74 metres), unusually tall for actresses of the era and a half-inch taller than Humphrey Bogart.

During her screen tests for To Have and Have Not (1944), Bacall was so nervous that, to minimize her quivering, she pressed her chin against her chest, faced the camera and tilted her eyes upward. This effect, which came to be known as "The Look", became another Bacall trademark, along with her sultry voice. Bacall's character in the film used Slim Hawks's nickname, "Slim" and Bogart used Howard Hawks's nickname "Steve". The on-set chemistry between the two was immediate, according to Bacall. She and Bogart, who was unhappily married to Mayo Methot, began a romantic relationship several weeks into shooting. Bacall's role in the script was originally much smaller, but during production, the part was revised and extended several times. After its release, To Have and Have Not catapulted Bacall into instant stardom and her performance became the cornerstone of her star image that extended into popular culture at large, even influencing fashion as well as filmmakers and other actors. Warner Bros. launched an extensive marketing campaign to promote the picture and to establish Bacall as a movie star. As part of the public-relations push, Bacall visited the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on February 10, 1945, and sat on a piano as Vice President Harry S. Truman played it.