Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall, born in 1924, American motion-picture and stage actor, who found early success by combining her husky voice and provocative demeanor with a cool sophistication. Born Betty Joan Perske in New York City, she studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and began her career as a model. In 1943 she attracted the attention of American filmmaker Howard Hawks after she appeared on a cover of Harper's Bazaar magazine, and Hawks signed her to a seven-year film contract. Hawks had her change her name to Lauren Bacall and cast her at the age of 19 as a flirtatious yet resolute woman opposite American actor Humphrey Bogart in Hawks's film To Have and Have Not (1944). Bacall and Bogart were married in 1945 and appeared in three other films together, The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948).

Bacall found her greatest popular and critical success with the insolent and seductive screen persona of her early films, but she also succeeded in movies that offered her a greater range of material, such as How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), a comedy, and Written on the Wind (1956), a melodrama. She remained best known for her relationship with Bogart. After caring for him until his death of cancer in 1957, Bacall sought to define herself as a more independent actor, partly by turning to the stage. She performed in her first starring role in a Broadway production in Goodbye Charlie (1959) and later delivered notable performances in Cactus Flower (1965) and Applause (1970), for which she won a 1970 Tony Award. Bacall's later motion pictures include Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Shootist (1976), and Misery (1990). In 1979 she published her autobiography, Lauren Bacall by Myself, to critical acclaim.