Lauren Bacall – Betty Joan Perske, (born September 16, 1924, New York, New York, U.S.—died August 12, 2014, New York, New York), American 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).
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).
TOP 10
10.Appointment with Death
Carrie Fisher, Lauren Bacall
Released: 1988
Directed by: Michael Winner
9.The Gift of Love
Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack
Released: 1958
Directed by: Jean Negulesco
8.Harper
Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall
Released: 1966
Directed by: Jack Smight
7.Sex and the Single Girl
Natalie Wood, Lauren Bacall
Released: 1964
Directed by: Richard Quine
6.To Have and Have Not
Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart
Released: 1944
Directed by: Howard Hawks
5.Key Largo
Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart
Released: 1948
Directed by: John Huston
4.The Big Sleep
Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart
Released: 1946
Directed by: Howard Hawks
3.Designing Woman
Lauren Bacall, Gregory Peck
Released: 1957
Directed by: Vincente Minnelli
2.Murder on the Orient Express
Sean Connery, Ingrid Bergman
Released: 1974
Directed by: Sidney Lumet
1.
The Mirror Has Two Faces
Barbra Streisand, Pierce Brosnan
Released: 1996
Directed by: Barbra Streisand