September 3, 2009. Copyright 2009, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Acting legend Lauren Bacall, whose career spans seven decades, is 85
By Susan Shepherd

LONDON, September 3, Graphic News:  She was still a teenager when, with her distinctive deep voice, and slouching in a doorway, she asked Bogie for a light. It was 1944, the world was still at war and Hollywood was in full "film noir" mode, making movies of dark realism, with shady characters and atmospheric lighting. Betty Joan Perske, the daughter of Jewish immigrants who split while she was still a little girl in Brooklyn, had only ever wanted to act. She had even started a course at the American Academy of Dramatic Art. But it was too expensive to complete and scholarships, back then, were only available to men. So she hung around on the fringes of the industry, taking a job as an usherette in a Broadway theatre and modelling. One shoot, for the cover of Harper's Bazaar magazine, caught the eye of producer Howard Hawks' wife, Slim. She suggested he invite the young model to screen test for him. Hawks called her Lauren -- though she remains Betty to her closest friends -- added an extra "l" to her mother's maiden name, Bacal, and cast her opposite one of the biggest names in the business, Humphrey Bogart. Of that debut role in To Have and Have Not, Bacall later wrote, in her autobiography, By Myself, that she trembled so badly with nerves she had to lower her chin "practically to my chest" and gaze up at her famous co-star. The technique, simply a device to hold her head steady, gave Bacall an instant look, which has been associated with her ever since.
 
She has commented that the first line of her obituary will, inevitably, read: "married to Humphrey Bogart", though it is now 65 years since the 19-year-old newcomer and the 44-year-old star, then on his third marriage, began the relationship which made them the Golden Couple of their day. She was 20 when they wed and starred in three further films with him -- The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947) and Key Largo (1948) -- before giving up her career, temporarily, to have children. Their son Stephen was born in 1949, daughter Leslie in 1952. Bacall then made three more movies -- including the comedy How To Marry A Millionaire (1953), with Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable -- before Bogart was diagnosed with throat cancer, early in 1956. He died a year later, Bacall burying with his ashes the whistle he'd given her as a souvenir of that first film together, when she had uttered the famous line: "You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow."
 
A romance with Frank Sinatra brought further heartache for the grieving Bacall when he suddenly dumped her after news of their engagement reached the press. She found happiness again with actor Jason Robards Jr., marrying him in 1961. They had a son, Sam, before Bacall left him, later confessing she had been unable to cope with Robards' alcoholism. In 1970, the year after their divorce and with her career in decline, Bacall returned to the theatre in the musical, Applause, a stage version of All About Eve, which had brought success for Bette Davis. Bacall's performance was a huge hit with audiences and critics, her portrayal of Margo Channing earning her the first of two Tony awards. The second came a decade afterwards, for Woman of the Year (1981). Her later films have included Michael Winner's adaptation of Agatha Christie's Appointment with Death (1988) and Barbra Streisand's Mirror with Two Faces (1996), for which she was Oscar-nominated. A staunch Democrat, Bacall has never re-married and still lives alone. "I am essentially a loner," she says.
/ENDS