Bronx-born fashion model Betty Joan Perske caught the eye of Nancy Hawks, wife of renowned director Howard Hawks, and urged him to give the 19-year-old a screen test for his next movie.
The result? A seven-year contract with Hawks, and a name change: Lauren Bacall.
(The 'Lauren' was Hawks' idea; and 'Bacall' was a variation on her mother's maiden name, Weinstein-Bacal. She added an extra 'l' on the end, so no one would mistakenly pronounce it like 'crackle.' And despite her new name, to friends, she was always 'Betty.')
Her voice was almost her undoing. Described as high and nasally, Hawks insisted on a change. "When a woman gets excited or emotional," he said, "she tends to raise her voice. Now, there is nothing more unattractive than screeching."
After a round of vocal lessons to lower and deepen her voice, and lessons on style and manners from Mrs. Hawks, Bacall was ready for her first role as Marie "Slim" Browning in To Have and Have Not. It was a high-profile debut. Her costar Humphrey Bogart was in the upper echelon of actors at the time, thanks to a string of successes including High Sierra, Maltese Falcon, and Casablanca.
Loosely based on the Ernest Hemingway novel of the same name, the movie spawned a million quotes ("You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? Just put your lips together and blow.) and won critical acclaim.
Bacall's wise-cracking characterization was allegedly based directly on Nancy Hawks, who was known for her quick wit; "Slim" was also Nancy's nickname.
She later insisted that she was so nervous during filming, she had to lower her chin and brace her arm against her body to stop the shaking, creating a trademark pose (chin down, eyes up) that came to be known as "the Look."
The movie marked the beginning of a May-December romance between the two co-stars that has become legend. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were married the following year, in 1945 -- it was a partnership that would last until his death in 1957 -- and continued to appear in movies together, including Key Largo, Dark Passage, and The Big Sleep.
The marriage cemented an image in the minds of the public, and while Bacall continued to work after her husband's death -- and remarried briefly, to actor Jason Robards -- she couldn't escape the Bogie-Bacall connection. She continued to work, however, in movies, on television, and on Broadway, garnering two Tony Awards along the way, as well as an Academy Award nomination for her role in The Mirror Has Two Faces and an honorary Oscar in 2009, which recognized her "central role in the Golden Age of motion pictures."
For books by and movies featuring Lauren Bacall, visit the library catalog.
