TMS Muse of the Week: Lauren Bacall
(John Kobal Foundation)
It takes a lot of natural beauty and poise to be known simply as ‘The Look,’ and from 1943 to 1956, one young woman was referred to as just that: Lauren Bacall. Born Betty Joan Perske on September 16th, 1924, Lauren was a native New Yorker from a Jewish family, who had her sights set on stardom when she started taking acting courses and modeling jobs in her teens. Within no time, Lauren was landing bit parts in plays, but gaining more traction in the fashion world for appearing in magazines like Vogue and Life, as well as crowned Miss Greenwich Village at 18 years old in 1942. In less than two years, Lauren went from covering an iconic March 1943 issue of Harper’s Bazaar, where she posed in front of the American Red Cross; to co-starring with her future husband, Humphrey Bogart, in Howard Hawks’ classic film noir To Have and Have Not (1944). There are a lot of stories about Lauren’s rise to popularity. Most old Hollywood fans know her femme fatale persona portrayed in both To Have and Have Not and her equally classic follow-up with Bogie and Howard, The Big Sleep (1946), was actually heavily influenced by Howard’s second wife, socialite and fellow model Slim Keith. It was even Slim who noticed Lauren’s Harper’s cover and recommended her as the female lead in Howard’s next film. There is also the famous tale of Lauren being driven out to the middle of the California desert to scream her lungs out so she could get her trademark smoky voice.
The fact that Lauren’s voice is just as recognizable as her face is proof the model-turned-actress isn’t just remembered for her classic looks. She turned out to be a pretty good actress on film as much as she was on stage. After her double breakthrough in Have Not and Big Sleep, she appeared in two more noir dramas, Delmer Daves’ Dark Passage (1947) and John Huston’s Key Largo (1948), opposite Bogie yet again. Hit romantic comedies and melodramas then followed, such as Michael Curtiz’s Young Man with a Horn (1950), Jean Negulesco’s How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), Vincente Minnelli’s The Cobweb (1955) and Douglas Sirk’s Written on the Wind (1956). Those who have gone through Laurent’s Wiki or IMDb pages will notice there were usually 2-4 years in between projects, even during her prime. There were a couple of reasons for this. One was that as soon as filming began on To Have and Have Not, sparks flew between the two stars, despite Bogie being 44 and Lauren only 19. In between their first two films together, the pair got hitched and moved in together in 1945 to become one of the biggest power couples in pop culture history; eventually having two children, Stephen [b. 1949] and Leslie [b. 1952]. Lauren began prioritizing her family over her career for a while, as well as turning down roles to travel with Bogie in his later years whenever he starred in a movie that was shot on location, including John Huston’s The African Queen (1951). By the time Bogie passed from esophageal cancer in 1957, Lauren’s brand of leading lady was going out of style; and she had to reinvent her career as a supporting actress in movies and go back to the theatre for lead roles.
(John Kobal Foundation)
On screen, Lauren’s more noteworthy later appearances were in Richard Quine’s Sex and the Single Girl (1964), Sidney Lumet’s Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Don Siegel’s The Shootist (1976), Edward Bianchi’s The Fan (1981), Rob Reiner’s Misery (1990), Lars von Trier’s Dogville (2003) and the English language dub of Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle (2004). Her biggest accolades were an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress with Barbra Streisand’s The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), and two Tonys for Best Lead Actress in a Musical with the successful Broadway runs of Betty Comden & Adolph Green’s Applause (1970) and John Kander & Fred Ebb’s Woman of the Year (1981). In her personal life, Lauren experienced a tumultuous marriage to actor Jason Robards in 1961-69, during which her second son, actor Sam Robards [b. 1961], was conceived. She also had relationships with a wide variety of celebrities like Frank Sinatra, Burgess Meredith, Harry Guardino and Anthony Franciosa throughout the 1950s to 1980s. Three memoirs, By Myself (1978), Now (1994) and By Myself and Then Some (2005), were eventually published before her death in 2014 at age 89. In her books, the screen legend revealed her share of juicy stories; even some that aren’t so flattering, such as affairs with married men [including both of her husbands when she got involved with them]. Off camera, Lauren actually preferred to be called by her birth name ‘Betty’ rather than her stage name.
Another big part of Lauren’s impact is her influence on future sex symbols, primarily Kathleen Turner in the early 1980s and Scarlett Johansson in the mid-2000s. When Kathleen made her big screen debut in Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat (1981), many critics and longtime movie fans thought the husky voiced blonde was perfect casting for the femme fatale of the modern neo-noir. Some reporters and pundits went as far as to officially name Kathleen the ‘new Lauren Bacall,’ which then carried over when Kathleen provided the voice of toon fatale Jessica Rabbit in Robert Zemeckis’ Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). When Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation (2003) was shot, Sofia told Scarlett to gravitate towards Lauren’s vibe for her performance because the director wanted a ‘Bogie & Bacall’ type chemistry between the actress and co-star Bill Murray. Scarlett, the then latest blonde with a deep voice, seemed to lean into this even further for her role in Woody Allen’s Match Point (2005) as well.
Many noir fans have their choices on who the essential femme fatale is. When I first discovered the film noir subgenre in high school, Rita Hayworth and Lauren Bacall were the epitome of ‘femme fatale’ to me. Two decades later, I still think they’re the best examples, particularly Lauren. Whether slowly lighting a cigarette, asking Bogie if he knows how to whistle, or gazing sultrily at the camera; Ms. Bacall was very much The Look for a lifetime.