Lauren Bacall (2025)

Lauren Bacall
(2025, 9x12, pencils)

Born Betty Joan Perske in Manhattan, Lauren Bacall wanted to be a dancer but chose to pursue acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. After graduating, she modeled and was featured on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar which caught the attention of the wife of director Howard Hawks. After a screen test, Hawks was so smitten that he cast her opposite Humphrey Bogart in the film “To Have and Have Not”. The rest, as they say, is history.

Not long after, Lauren and Bogey got married and became “Bogey and Bacall”, one of the earlier Hollywood power couples. I’m not sure how many movies they made together, but they were all excellent.

Howard Hawks, it seems, originally doubted Bacall’s star potential because her voice was high and nasal. She spent two weeks working on her voice and returned to test with Hawks with her signature husky voice. Learning this, I feel I have been lied to all my life and nothing is real.

Notable Films Include:
To Have and Have Not (1944)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Dark Passage (1947)
Key Largo (1948)
Written on the Wind (1956)
Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
The Shootist (1976)
Misery (1990)
Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)