Lauren Bacall, who graced movie screens with her sultry voice, classic beauty, and “The Look,” died in August 2014, just a few days short of her 90th birthday.
Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske in September 1924 in the Bronx, New York. As a teenager, Betty studied acting while working as a theater usher and fashion model. One of her acting classmates was Kirk Douglas, who was two years younger; decades later, in 1999, she appeared with him in the movie Diamonds.
Her big break—and her name change to Lauren Bacall—came when she was cast opposite Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not in 1944. Her off-screen relationship with Bogart began just a few weeks into filming of the
Actress Lauren Bacall in a publicity photo from the 1940s.
movie. They were married in 1945; he died, leaving her a young widow, in 1957.
Among her most famous films were Dark Passage, Key Largo, and How to Marry a Millionaire. She appeared onscreen with such famous names as Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, Lionel Barrymore, Edward G. Robinson, Henry Fonda, Ingrid Bergman, and Gary Cooper.
Although Bacall performed notable roles in many well-known and well-received movies over six decades, she did not win an Oscar until 2009, when she was selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to receive an Honorary Academy Award.
Bacall died after suffering a massive stroke on August 12, 2014, at her home in Manhattan. News of her death was somewhat eclipsed by the sudden and unexpected death on the previous day of comedian and actor Robin Williams, 63.
