{"id":32485,"date":"2014-08-14T15:54:20","date_gmt":"2014-08-14T19:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=32485"},"modified":"2014-08-15T22:11:41","modified_gmt":"2014-08-16T02:11:41","slug":"lauren-bacallprovocatively-glamorous-hollywood-star-with-sultry-looks-and-seductive-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=32485","title":{"rendered":"Lauren Bacall: Provocatively Glamorous Hollywood Star with Insinuating Pose,Sultry Looks and Seductive Voice."},"content":{"rendered":"

BY
\nENID NEMY<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"LB081514\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lauren Bacall, the actress whose provocative glamour elevated her to stardom in Hollywood\u2019s golden age and whose lasting mystique put her on a plateau in American culture that few stars reach, died on Tuesday in New York. She was 89.<\/p>\n

Her death was confirmed by her son Stephen Bogart. \u201cHer life speaks for itself,\u201d Mr. Bogart said. \u201cShe lived a wonderful life, a magical life.\u201d<\/p>\n

With an insinuating pose and a seductive, throaty voice \u2014 her simplest remark sounded like a jungle mating call, one critic said \u2014 Ms. Bacall shot to fame in 1944 with her first movie, Howard Hawks\u2019s adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway novel \u201cTo Have and Have Not,\u201d playing opposite Humphrey Bogart, who became her lover on the set and later her husband.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It was a smashing debut sealed with a handful of lines now engraved in Hollywood history.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know you don\u2019t have to act with me, Steve,\u201d her character says to Bogart\u2019s in the movie\u2019s most memorable scene. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to say anything, and you don\u2019t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don\u2019t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lauren Bacall had a long career in film and theater, but she remains best known for the roles she played opposite Humphrey Bogart.<\/p>\n

The film was the first of more than 40 for Ms. Bacall, among them \u201cThe Big Sleep\u201d and \u201cKey Largo\u201d with Bogart, \u201cHow to Marry a Millionaire\u201d with Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable, \u201cDesigning Woman\u201d with Gregory Peck, the all-star \u201cMurder on the Orient Express\u201d (1974) and, later in her career, Lars von Trier\u2019s \u201cDogville\u201d (2003) and \u201cManderlay\u201d (2005) and Robert Altman\u2019s \u201cPr\u00eat-\u00e0-Porter\u201d (1994).<\/p>\n

But few if any of her movies had the impact of her first \u2014 or of that one scene. Indeed, her film career was a story of ups, downs and long periods of inactivity. Though she received an honorary Academy Award in 2009 \u201cin recognition of her central place in the Golden Age of motion pictures,\u201d she was not nominated for an Oscar until 1997.<\/p>\n

The theater was kinder to her. She won Tonys for her starring roles in two musicals adapted from classic films: \u201cApplause\u201d (1970), based on \u201cAll About Eve,\u201d and \u201cWoman of the Year\u201d (1981), based on the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn movie of the same name. Earlier she starred on Broadway in the comedies \u201cGoodbye, Charlie\u201d (1959) and \u201cCactus Flower\u201d (1965).<\/p>\n

She also won a National Book Award in 1980 for the first of her two autobiographies, \u201cLauren Bacall: By Myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though often called a legend, she did not care for the word. \u201cIt\u2019s a title and category I am less than fond of,\u201d she wrote in 1994 in \u201cNow,\u201d her second autobiography. \u201cAren\u2019t legends dead?\u201d<\/p>\n

Forever Tied to Bogart<\/strong><\/p>\n

She also expressed impatience, especially in her later years, with the public\u2019s continuing fascination with her romance with Bogart, even though she frequently said that their 12-year marriage was the happiest period of her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019ve damn well earned the right to be judged on my own,\u201d she said in a 1970 interview with The New York Times. \u201cIt\u2019s time I was allowed a life of my own, to be judged and thought of as a person, as me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Years later, however, she seemed resigned to being forever tied to Bogart and expressed annoyance that her later marriage to another leading actor, Jason Robards Jr., was often overlooked.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy obit is going to be full of Bogart, I\u2019m sure,\u201d she told Vanity Fair magazine in a profile of her in March 2011, adding: \u201cI\u2019ll never know if that\u2019s true. If that\u2019s the way, that\u2019s the way it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Bacall was an 18-year-old model in New York when her face on the cover of Harper\u2019s Bazaar caught the eye of Slim Hawks, Howard Hawks\u2019s wife. Brought to Hollywood and taken under the Hawkses\u2019 wing, she won the role in \u201cTo Have and Have Not,\u201d loosely based on the novel of the same name.<\/p>\n

She played Marie Browning, known as Slim, an American femme fatale who becomes romantically involved with Bogart\u2019s jaded fishing-boat captain, Harry Morgan, known as Steve, in wartime Martinique. Her deep voice and the seductive way she looked at Bogart in the film attracted attention.<\/p>\n

Their on-screen chemistry hadn\u2019t come naturally, however. In one of the first scenes she filmed, she asked if anyone had a match. Bogart threw her a box of matches; she lit her cigarette and then threw the box back to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy hand was shaking, my head was shaking, the cigarette was shaking, I was mortified,\u201d she wrote in \u201cBy Myself.\u201d \u201cThe harder I tried to stop, the more I shook. … I realized that one way to hold my trembling head still was to keep it down, chin low, almost to my chest, and eyes up at Bogart. It worked and turned out to be the beginning of The Look.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Bacall\u2019s naturally low voice was further deepened in her early months in Hollywood. Hawks wanted her voice to remain low even during emotional scenes and suggested she find some quiet spot and read aloud. She drove to Mulholland Drive and began reading \u201cThe Robe,\u201d making her voice lower and louder than usual.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho sat on mountaintops in cars reading books aloud to the canyons?\u201d she later wrote. \u201cI did.\u201d<\/p>\n

During her romance with Bogart, she asked him if it mattered to him that she was Jewish. His answer, she later wrote, was \u201cHell, no \u2014 what mattered to him was me, how I thought, how I felt, what kind of person I was, not my religion, he couldn\u2019t care less \u2014 why did I even ask?\u201d
\n
\nAn Impulsive Kiss<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ms. Bacall\u2019s love affair with Bogart began with an impulsive kiss. While filming \u201cTo Have and Have Not,\u201d he had stopped at her trailer to say good night when he suddenly leaned over, lifted her chin and kissed her. He was 25 years her senior and married at the time to Mayo Methot, his third wife, but to Ms. Bacall, \u201che was the man who meant everything in the world to me; I couldn\u2019t believe my luck.\u201d<\/p>\n

As her fame grew in the ensuing months \u2014 she attracted wide publicity in February 1945 when she was photographed on top of a piano, legs draped over the side, with Vice President Harry S. Truman at the keyboard \u2014 so did the romance, particularly as she and Bogart filmed \u201cThe Big Sleep,\u201d based on a Raymond Chandler whodunit.<\/p>\n

But her happiness alternated with despair. Bogart returned to his wife several times before he accepted that the marriage could not be saved. He and Ms. Bacall were married on May 21, 1945, at Malabar Farm in Lucas, Ohio, the home of Bogart\u2019s close friend the writer Louis Bromfield. Bogart was 45; Ms. Bacall was 20.<\/p>\n

Returning to work, she soon suffered a setback, when the critics savaged her performance in \u201cConfidential Agent,\u201d a 1945 thriller with Charles Boyer set during the Spanish Civil War. The director was Herman Shumlin, who, unlike Hawks and Bogart on her first two movies, offered her no guidance. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what the hell I was doing,\u201d she recalled. \u201cI was a novice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter \u2018Confidential Agent,\u2019 it took me years to prove that I was capable of doing anything at all worthwhile,\u201d she wrote. \u201cI would never reach the \u2018To Have and Have Not\u2019 heights again \u2014 on film, anyway \u2014 and it would take much clawing and scratching to pull myself even halfway back up that damn ladder.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDark Passage,\u201d her third movie with Bogart, came after several years of concentrating on her marriage. Had she not married Bogart, she told The Times in 1996, her career would probably have flourished, but she did not regret the marriage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would not have had a better life, but a better career,\u201d she said. \u201cHoward Hawks was like a Svengali; he was molding me the way he wanted. I was his creation, and I would have had a great career had he been in control of it. But the minute Bogie was around, Hawks knew he couldn\u2019t control me, so he sold my contract to Warner Bros. And that was the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was eventually suspended 12 times by the studio for rejecting scripts.<\/p>\n

\u2018And We Made a Noise\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1947, as the House Un-American Activities Committee investigated Americans suspected of Communism, Ms. Bacall and Bogart were among 500 Hollywood personalities to sign a petition protesting what they called the committee\u2019s attempt \u201cto smear the motion picture industry.\u201d Investigating individual political beliefs, the petition said, violated the basic principles of American democracy.<\/p>\n

The couple flew to Washington as part of a group known as the Committee for the First Amendment, which also included Danny Kaye, John Garfield, Gene Kelly, John Huston, Ira Gershwin and Jane Wyatt. \u201cI am an outraged and angry citizen who feels that my basic civil liberties are being taken away from me,\u201d Bogart said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Three decades later, Ms. Bacall would express doubts about \u201cwhether the trip to Washington ultimately helped anyone.\u201d But, she added: \u201cIt helped those of us at the time who wanted to fight for what we thought was right and against what we knew was wrong. And we made a noise \u2014 in Hollywood, a community which should be courageous but which is surprisingly timid and easily intimidated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, bowing to studio pressure, Bogart later said publicly he believed the trip to Washington was \u201cill advised,\u201d and Ms. Bacall went along with him.<\/p>\n

A year after that trip she had what she termed \u201cone of my happiest movie experiences\u201d starring with Bogart, Lionel Barrymore, Edward G. Robinson and Claire Trevor in John Huston\u2019s thriller \u201cKey Largo.\u201d It was Bogart\u2019s and Ms. Bacall\u2019s last film together. \u201cYoung Man With a Horn\u201d (1950), with Kirk Douglas and Doris Day, in which she played a student married to a jazz trumpeter, was less successful.<\/p>\n

Ms. Bacall\u2019s first son, Stephen H. Bogart (named after Bogart\u2019s character in \u201cTo Have and Have Not\u201d), was born in 1949. A daughter, Leslie Bogart (named after the actor Leslie Howard), was born in 1952. In a 1995 memoir, Stephen wrote, \u201cMy mother was a lapsed Jew, and my father was a lapsed Episcopalian,\u201d adding that he and his sister, Leslie, were raised Episcopalian \u201cbecause my mother felt that would make life easier for Leslie and me during those post-World War II years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rat Pack Den Mother<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ms. Bacall, however, wrote that she felt \u201ctotally Jewish and always would\u201d and that it was Bogart who thought the children should be christened in an Episcopal church because \u201cwith discrimination still rampant in the world, it would give them one less hurdle to jump in life\u2019s Olympics.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was, she said, happy being a wife and mother. She was also \u201cden mother\u201d to the so-called Hollywood Rat Pack, whose members included Bogart, Frank Sinatra, David Niven, Judy Garland and others. (It would evolve into the better-known Rat Pack whose members included Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.)<\/p>\n

In 1952 she campaigned for Adlai E. Stevenson, the Democratic candidate for president, and persuaded Bogart, who had originally supported the Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, to join her. The two accompanied Stevenson on motorcades and flew east to help in the final lap of his campaign in New York and Chicago.<\/p>\n

Her film career at this point appeared to be going nowhere, but she had no intention of allowing Lauren Bacall the actress to slide into oblivion. In 1953 her fortunes revived with what she called \u201cthe best part I\u2019d had in years,\u201d in \u201cHow to Marry a Millionaire,\u201d playing alongside Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable as New York models with sights set on finding rich husbands.<\/p>\n

In the early 1950s the Bogarts dabbled in radio and the growing medium of television. They starred in the radio adventure series \u201cBold Venture\u201d and, with Henry Fonda, in a live television version of \u201cThe Petrified Forest,\u201d the 1936 film that starred Bogart, Bette Davis and Leslie Howard. In 1956 Ms. Bacall appeared in a television production of No\u00ebl Coward\u2019s \u201cBlithe Spirit,\u201d in which Coward himself also starred. She would occasionally return to the small screen for the rest of her career, making guest appearances on shows like \u201cThe Rockford Files\u201d and \u201cChicago Hope\u201d and starring in TV movies.<\/p>\n

Bogart was found to have cancer of the esophagus in 1956. Although an operation was successful \u2014 his esophagus and two lymph nodes were removed \u2014 after some months the cancer returned. He died in January 1957 at the age of 57.<\/p>\n


\nRomance With Sinatra<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shortly after Bogart\u2019s death, Ms. Bacall, by then 32, had a widely publicized but brief romance with Sinatra, who had been a close friend of the Bogarts. She moved to New York in 1958 and, three years later, married Mr. Robards, settling in a spacious apartment in the Dakota, on Central Park West, where she continued to live until her death. They had a son, the actor Sam Robards, and were divorced in 1969. She is survived by her sons, Stephen Bogart and Sam Robards; her daughter, Leslie Bogart; and six grandchildren.<\/p>\n

Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske in the Bronx on Sept. 16, 1924, the daughter of William and Natalie Perske, Jewish immigrants from Poland and Romania. Her parents were divorced when she was 6 years old, and her mother moved to Manhattan and adopted the second half of her maiden name, Weinstein-Bacal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t really have any love in my growing-up life, except for my mother and grandmother,\u201d Ms. Bacall said in the Vanity Fair interview. Her father, she said, \u201cdid not treat my mother well.\u201d<\/p>\n

From then until her move to Hollywood, Ms. Bacall was known as Betty Bacal; she added an \u201cl\u201d to her name because, she said, the single \u201cl\u201d caused \u201ctoo much irregularity of pronunciation.\u201d The name Lauren was given her by Howard Hawks before the release of her first film, but family and old friends called her Betty throughout her life, and to Bogart she was always Baby.<\/p>\n

Although finances were a problem as she was growing up \u2014 \u201cNothing came easy, everything was worked for\u201d \u2014 her mother\u2019s family was close-knit, and through an uncle\u2019s generosity she attended the Highland Manor school for girls in Tarrytown, N.Y., where she graduated from grade school at 11. She went on to Julia Richman High School in Manhattan and also studied acting at the New York School of the Theater and ballet with Mikhail Mordkin, who had on occasion been Pavlova\u2019s partner.<\/p>\n

After graduation in 1940, Ms. Bacall became a full-time student at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts but left after the first year; her family could no longer subsidize her, and the academy at the time did not offer scholarships to women.<\/p>\n

So she turned to modeling, and in 1941, at 16, she landed jobs with David Crystal, a Seventh Avenue dress manufacturer, and Sam Friedlander, who made evening gowns. During lunch hours she would stand outside Sardi\u2019s selling copies of Actor\u2019s Cue, a casting tip sheet, hoping to catch the attention of producers. She also became an usher at Broadway theaters and a hostess at the newly opened Stage Door Canteen.<\/p>\n

Her first theater role was a walk-on in a Broadway play called \u201cJohnny 2 x 4.\u201d It paid $15 a week and closed in eight weeks, but she looked back on the experience as \u201cmagical.\u201d Another stab at modeling, with the Walter Thornton agency, proved disappointing, but her morale soared in July 1942, with a sentence by George Jean Nathan in Esquire: \u201cThe prettiest theater usher \u2014 the tall slender blonde in the St. James Theater right aisle, during the Gilbert & Sullivan engagement \u2014 by general rapt agreement among the critics, but the bums are too dignified to admit it.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nWatching \u2018Casablanca\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Later that year she was cast by the producer Max Gordon in \u201cFranklin Street,\u201d a comedy directed by George S. Kaufman, which closed out of town. It was her last time onstage for 17 years.<\/p>\n

It was about this time that she saw Bogart in \u201cCasablanca.\u201d She later recalled that she could not understand the reaction of a friend who was \u201cmad\u201d about him. \u201cSo much for my judgment at that time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In 1942, she met Nicolas de Gunzburg, an editor at Harper\u2019s Bazaar, who took her to meet Diana Vreeland, the fashion editor. After a thorough inspection, Vreeland asked her to return the next day to meet the photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe. Test shots were taken, and a few days later she was called.<\/p>\n

A full-page color picture of her standing in front of a window with the words \u201cAmerican Red Cross Blood Donor Service\u201d on it led to inquiries from David O. Selznick, Howard Hughes and Howard Hawks, among others. The Hawks offer was accepted, and Betty Bacall, 18 years old, left for the West Coast by train with her mother. She returned to New York less than two years later as Lauren Bacall, star.<\/p>\n

In her 70s, Ms. Bacall began lending her distinctive voice to television commercials and cartoons, and her movie career again picked up steam. Between 1995 and 2012 she was featured in more than a dozen pictures, most notably \u201cThe Mirror Has Two Faces\u201d (1996), in which she played Barbra Streisand\u2019s monstrous, vain mother.<\/p>\n

The role brought her an Academy Award nomination as best supporting actress; the smart money was on her to win. But the Oscar went to Juliette Binoche for her part in \u201cThe English Patient,\u201d to the astonishment of almost everyone, including Ms. Binoche.<\/p>\n

Ms. Bacall \u2014 who received a consolation prize of sorts when she was named a Kennedy Center Honors winner a few months later \u2014 was perhaps prepared for the Oscar rebuff. Shortly before the Academy Awards ceremony, she told an interviewer that she hadn\u2019t been happy for years. \u201cContented, yes; pleased and proud, yes. But happy, no.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, she said, she had been lucky: \u201cI had one great marriage, I have three great children and four grandchildren. I am still alive. I still can function. I still can work.\u201d<\/p>\n

As she said in 1996: \u201cYou just learn to cope with whatever you have to cope with. I spent my childhood in New York, riding on subways and buses. And you know what you learn if you\u2019re a New Yorker? The world doesn\u2019t owe you a damn thing.\u201d
\n
\nCourtesy:New York Times<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY ENID NEMY Lauren Bacall, the actress whose provocative glamour elevated her to stardom in Hollywood\u2019s golden age and whose lasting mystique put her on a plateau in American culture that few stars reach, died on Tuesday in New York. She was 89. Her death was confirmed by her son Stephen Bogart. \u201cHer life speaks …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Lauren Bacall: Provocatively Glamorous Hollywood Star with Insinuating Pose,Sultry Looks and Seductive Voice.’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32485"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32485"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32509,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32485\/revisions\/32509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}