Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall (1924- ), American actress, best known for her film noir roles of the 1940s and her on- and off-screen chemistry with Humphrey Bogart. Bacall, originally named Betty Joan Perske, was born on September 16, 1924, in New York. She studied dance for 13 years, and also briefly attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before performing in her first Broadway show, January 2 x 4 (1942). Howard Hawks saw her picture on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar in 1943 and gave her a seven-year contract, beginning with a starring role in To Have and Have Not (1944) with Bogart. Perfectly cast as the ingénue with a caustic wit, the 19-year-old stole the film and mesmerized Bogart, who married her in 1945.

There followed a series of classic successes for Bacall: Confidential Agent (1945) with Charles Boyer; The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948) with Bogart; Young Man with a Horn (1950) with Kirk Douglas; and Bright Leaf (1950) with Gary Cooper. After Hawks sold his contract with Bacall to Warner Bros., she was often at loggerheads with the studio, turning down many parts; and, although she regained her freedom, she failed to repeat her former magic in films such as Written on the Wind (1956) and Designing Woman (1957). When Bogart died in 1957, Bacall distanced herself from Hollywood and married Jason Robards in 1961. During the 1960s she made Sex and the Single Girl (1964), among other less interesting films; she was more successful on Broadway, with Good-bye Charlie (1959), Cactus Flower (1965), and Applause (1970).

After several fallow years as far as the big screen was concerned, Bacall made a successful transition from leading lady to the supporting character role of Harriet Hubbard in Murder on the Orient Express (1974). This was followed by a touching performance in the last John Wayne film, The Shootist (1976). Thereafter she turned out a string of telling performances, both for cinema—Health (1980), Mr North (1988), Misery (1990), and Prêt-à-Porter (1994)—and television—Perfect Gentleman (1978), The Portrait (1993), and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankenweiler (1995). In 1996 she played the mother to Barbra Streisand in The Mirror Has Two Faces, for which she won a Golden Globe award for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award in the same category. Further supporting roles followed in Dogville (2003) and Manderlay (2005) by the Danish film-maker Lars Von Trier, and Birth (2004). A first volume of her autobiography, Lauren Bacall by Myself, was published in 1978 (republished as By Myself and Then Some, 2005); and a second volume, Now, in 1994.