Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall (born Betty Joan Perske; 16 September 1924 - 12 August 2014) was an American film and stage actress. She was the wife of Humphrey Bogart until his death, and later married Jason Robards.

Imagination is the highest kite that can fly.

Quotes

The people I've known I must say are extraordinary. When I think about some of them, I can't believe that I knew them all.

• How many women do we know who were continually kissed by Clark Gable, William Powell, Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy and Fredric March? Only one: Myrna Loy... And to meet whom did Franklin D. Roosevelt find himself tempted to call off the Yalta Conference? Myrna Loy. And to see what lady in what picture did John Dillinger risk coming out of hiding to meet his bullet-ridden death in an alley in Chicago? Myrna Loy, in Manhattan Melodrama.
  • Hosting a Carnegie Hall tribute to Myrna Loy, as quoted in The New York Times (January 10, 1985)

• I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that.
  • As quoted in The Daily Telegraph (March 2, 1988)

• Looking at yourself in a mirror isn't exactly a study of life.
  • As quoted in The Daily Mail (November 1, 1990) and cited in "Lauren Bacall: 14 of her best quotes", The Guardian (August 13, 2014)

• You 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’re a New Yorker? The world doesn’t owe you a damn thing.
  • Interview of 1996, quoted in "Lauren Bacall Dies at 89; in a Bygone Hollywood, She Purred Every Word" by Enid Nemy, in The New York Times (August 12, 2014)

• She's not a legend. She's a beginner. What is this 'legend'? She can't be a legend at whatever age she is. She can't be a legend, you have to be older.
  • As quoted in numerous reports of a response she made to a question by Jenni Falconer during joint interview sessions with Nicole Kidman at the Venice Film Festival (September 8, 2004) She, Kidman and others have indicated that the remarks were inaccurately quoted and taken out of context. (see also the Larry King interview)

• Nicole and I worked together on Dogville and we were friends when we started this. That laid the groundwork for our fabulous relationship on screen and off.
  • Interview at Venice Film Festival (September 8, 2004)

• When you talk about a great actor, you're not talking about Tom Cruise. His whole behavior is so shocking. It's inappropriate and vulgar and absolutely unacceptable to use your private life to sell anything commercially, but I think it's kind of a sickness.
  • On Tom Cruise, Time magazine (August 8, 2005)

• Imagination is the highest kite that can fly.
  • Lauren Bacall By Myself and Then Some (2005)

Larry King interview (2005)

Being a liberal is the best thing on earth you can be. You are welcoming to everyone when you're a liberal.

Interview with Larry King on CNN (May 6, 2005)

• The people I've known I must say are extraordinary. When I think about some of them, I can't believe that I knew them all. And I think the reason I knew most of them at the beginning was because they were of Bogie's generation, 25 years my senior, not mine. But they were the most talented people of all.

• I was Betty Bacall always. And Lauren was Howard Hawks... he felt that Lauren Bacall was better sounding than Betty Bacall. He had a vision of his own. He was a Svengali. He wanted to mold me. He wanted to control me. And he did until Mr. Bogart got involved.

• Bacall: I'm a total Democrat. I'm anti-Republican. And it's only fair that you know it. Even though...

King: Wait a minute. Are you a liberal?

Bacall: I'm a liberal. The "L" word!

King: Egads!

Bacall: … I love it. Being a liberal is the best thing on earth you can be. You are welcoming to everyone when you're a liberal. You do not have a small mind... I'm total, total, total liberal and proud of it. And I think it's outrageous to say "The L word". I mean, excuse me. They should be damn lucky that they were liberals here. Liberals gave more to the population of the United States than any other group.

• Losing Bogey was horrible, obviously. Because he was young. And because he gave me my life. I wouldn't have had a — I don't know what would have happened to me if I hadn't met him — I would have had a completely different kind of life. He changed me, he gave me everything. And he was an extraordinary man.

• Well, his attention span was not long, shall we say.
  • Speaking of Frank Sinatra

• I love Nicole. Nicole and I happen to be very great friends. Besides that, the press never get it straight. They do not print what you say... We were in Venice for Birth at the Venice Film Festival. And you know when you have a day when you go from one room to another with the roundtables with about five journalists sitting around at each table throwing questions at you all the time. So in one of these rooms, I'm sitting there. And one of the journalists said, you're an icon and Nicole Kidman's an icon and what do you think about that? And I said, why do you have to burden her with the category? She's a young woman. She's got her whole career ahead of her. Why does she have to be pegged as an icon or as anything? Let her enjoy her time. Don't, you know, suddenly put her in a slot. And that was all I said. The word "legend" never came up. It was "icon."
  • On being quoted in 2004 as saying about Nicole Kidman: "She's not a legend. She's a beginner..."

"She's not a legend," Bacall said. "She can't be a legend at whatever age she is. … You have to be older."

Private Screenings interview (2005)

An interview for Private Screenings on TCM with Robert Osborne (August 2005)

• A planned life is a dead life.

• I went to a sneak preview... I was sort of stunned by it, because you don't realize what you've done. I never knew what was going to happen, but they knew. Warners knew, and Howard knew.
  • On her role in To Have and Have Not (1944)

• [B]adly, playing the Missouri Waltz, or something.
  • On Harry S. Truman's piano playing

• That's absolutely one of my most favorite movies, for so many reasons. I fought for that part; I wanted it badly. I took a lower salary, I did everything. Grace Kelly said, "I'll never forgive you for playing that part. It was written for me". She [Kelly] got the prince [Rainier], I got the part.
  • On her role in Designing Women (1957)

• He was... a womanizer, he wanted to be in the sack with everybody.
  • On former fiancé Frank Sinatra

• It's not an old movie if you haven't seen it.
  • On TCM with Robert Osborne

Quotes about Bacall

• Her life speaks for itself … She lived a wonderful life, a magical life.
  • Stephen Bogart, her son, as quoted in "Lauren Bacall Dies at 89; in a Bygone Hollywood, She Purred Every Word" by Enid Nemy, in The New York Times (12 August 2014)
• People said Bacall was 'tough.' She's a pussycat with a heart of gold.
  • Kirk Douglas

• [I]t was her modelling career that took off before the acting one when she was introduced to the Harper's Bazaar columnist Diana Vreeland by none other than Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg — not just an editor at the magazine but also a former actor who had played the leading role in Carl Dreyer's classic Vampyr (1932).
  • Anne Billson "Bogie & Bacall by William J Mann review — 'the very definition of sizzling sexual chemistry'", The Times (12 August 2023)
  • William J Mann's Bogie and Bacall: The Surprising True Story of Hollywood’s Greatest Love Affair is published by Harper.

• It could be that today's conservative movement remains in thrall to the same narrative that has defined its attitude toward film and the arts for decades. Inspired by feelings of exclusion after Hollywood and the popular culture turned leftward in the '60s and '70s, this narrative has defined the film industry as an irredeemably liberal institution toward which conservatives can only act in opposition—never engagement. Ironically, this narrative ignores the actual history of Hollywood, in which conservatives had a strong presence from the industry's founding in the early 20th century up through the '40s, '50s and into the mid-'60s]. The conservative Hollywood community at that time included such leading directors as Howard Hawks, Frank Capra, and Cecil B. DeMille, and major stars like John Wayne, Clark Gable, and Charlton Heston. These talents often worked side by side with notable Hollywood liberals like directors Billy Wilder, William Wyler, and John Huston, and stars like Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Spencer Tracy. The richness of classic Hollywood cinema is widely regarded as a testament to the ability of these two communities to work together, regardless of political differences.
  • Govindini Murty, “Hey, Conservatives: It's Safe to Go to the Movies Again”, The Atlantic, (Oct. 12, 2011).

External links

• The Official Website - Lauren Bacall.com
• Lauren Bacall on IMDb
• Lauren Bacall at the Notable Names Database
• Idol Chatter: Lauren Bacall
• Interview with Larry King on CNN (6 May 2005)
• Article about the "origin" of the "Rat Pack" taken mainly from her book "Lauren Bacall, By Myself", (New York: Knopf, 1978)