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Lauren Bacall dead: Hollywood film noir legend dies aged 89

Tim Walker
The Independent (UK)
Wednesday, 13 August 2014





Lauren Bacall, one of the last remaining icons of Hollywood’s golden age, has died at her home in New York. She was 89. Bacall was best known for acting opposite her husband, Humphrey Bogart, in several 1940s classics including The Big Sleep, Key Largo and Dark Passage. Their 12-year marriage also made “Bogie and Bacall” one of the original Hollywood power couples.

The actress is believed to have suffered a stroke on Tuesday morning at her apartment in Manhattan’s landmark Dakota Building, which overlooks Central Park. The Humphrey Bogart Estate announced her death on its Facebook page, saying, “With deep sorrow for the magnitude of our loss, yet with great gratitude for her amazing life, we confirm the passing of Lauren Bacall.”

Born Betty Jean Perske in September 1924, Bacall grew up as the only child of a Romanian-Jewish mother and Polish-Jewish father in New York’s Bronx district. In 1944, Howard Hawks came across one of her modelling shoots in Harper’s Bazaar and had her contracted to Warner Brothers. After a successful screen test, the celebrated director told her he intended to cast her alongside Bogart or Cary Grant. “I thought Cary Grant, great. Humphrey Bogart‚ yuck,” she would later recall.

Nevertheless, her first screen role was opposite Bogart in the 1944 adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s novel, To Have and Have Not, when she was 19 and Bogie 44. She made a deep impression on her co-star and audiences alike by delivering her most famous line in her uniquely husky voice: “You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.”

During filming, Bogart was still with his third wife, but the two stars began an affair and were married the following year. They had two children, son Stephen and daughter Leslie, before Bogart died from oesophageal cancer in 1957. A year later, Bacall became engaged to Frank Sinatra, but he broke off the match. “He behaved like a complete s***,” Bacall said later. She is rumoured to have coined the term “The Rat Pack” to describe Bogart, Sinatra and their friends. From 1961 to 1969, she was married to actor Jason Robards, with whom she had another son, Sam.

Following the collapse of the old studio system, and perhaps to escape the shadow of Bogart’s fame, Bacall carved out a great stage career, winning two Tony Awards for Applause in 1970, and Woman of the Year in 1981. She continued doing vital work on film into her 70s and 80s, including two collaborations with controversial Danish auteur Lars Von Trier: Dogville (2003) and Manderlay (2005). She also appeared briefly but memorably in a 2006 episode of The Sopranos.

Long considered the Queen of cinematic cool, Bacall earned just one Oscar nomination during her career, for Best Supporting Actress in The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), when she was 72. However, she was also presented with an honorary Academy Award in 2010.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people...9-9665188.html#

She was sort of the last link to the Golden Age of the studios.

R.I.P. Lauren

She was one of the performers about whom "Star of stage and screen" could truly be applied.

RIP Ms Bacall.

Been a bad week for hollywood. First Robin Williams and now Lauren Bacall..

We had it all, just like Bogey and Becall.. (as the song goes)

RIP Lauren..

Hopefully the rule of threes takes a vacation after these 2.

Maybe Lauren Bacall is the 3rd ... James Garner died only 3 weeks or so ago. I remember liking a movie with Garner and Bacall from the 80's called "The Fan", about a psycho stalking a Broadway star (Bacall). The movie was panned, probably deservedly, because it was a slasher movie with elements of being a musical and a romantic comedy. I just liked seeing Bacall and Garner on-screen together, both in their later prime. Sad to see the old-timers leaving us, and sobering because you realize that its your own generation that's becoming the "old-timers".

R.I.P. Lauren.

In my view, this is a much greater loss than Robin Williams.

I wouldn't dream of marginalizing anyone's passing that way. Every death is somebody's tragedy. We don't know these people, but they were somebody's loved one. Robin Williams wasn't my cup of tea, and truthfully, neither was Bacall. But you have to respect their talent and recognize their humanity.

That's all good. We simply disagree with who is the better actor.

Shoot, this must be the dead person forum or Purp is trying to tell me something.

The threads I see are this one (of course) Robin Willimas, dead as well, the ferguson shooting, another dead guy and one about Ann Coulter, the walking dead.