Lauren Bacall: 1924–2014

This week cer­tain­ly is off to a pret­ty bad start. First, we lost the great Robin Williams, who trag­i­cal­ly took his own life after suc­cumb­ing to depres­sion. Now we’ve lost Lau­ren Bacall, one of the finest tal­ents of the last cen­tu­ry and a stal­wart progressive.

“With deep sor­row for the mag­ni­tude of our loss, yet with great grat­i­tude for her amaz­ing life, we con­firm the pass­ing of Lau­ren Bacall,” announced the estate of Humphrey Bog­a­rt, which is run by Bog­a­rt and Bacal­l’s son Stephen. 

The cause of death is said to be stroke. 

Bacall, eighty-nine, was a life­long New York­er who starred in many films now regard­ed as clas­sics. She was born Bet­ty Joan Perske on Sep­tem­ber 14th, 1924, in the Bronx, and began act­ing on stage at a young age.

Intro­duced to cin­e­ma by Howard and Nan­cy Hawks, she adopt­ed the stage name Lau­ren Bacall and rose to fame with her role along­side Bog­a­rt in To Have and Have Not, a wartime film that was released in 1944 and loose­ly based on the nov­el by Ernest Hem­ing­way. Bacall and Bog­a­rt lat­er fell in love and mar­ried; it was Bacal­l’s first mar­riage and Bog­a­rt’s fourth. They remained togeth­er until his death in 1957.

Bacall went on to appear in sev­er­al films noir, includ­ing The Big Sleep, Dark Pas­sage, and Key Largo. In the 1950s, she starred in Young Man with a Horn, How to Mar­ry a Mil­lion­aire (with Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe), and Writ­ten on the Wind. She devel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion for being choosy and turn­ing down roles she did­n’t find interesting.

Begin­ning in the 1960s, she had few­er film appear­ances and more parts in stage pro­duc­tions on Broad­way. She won two Tony Awards for her parts in Applause (1970) and Woman of the Year (1981). She did, how­ev­er, par­tic­i­pate in the films Sex and the Sin­gle Girl, Harp­er, and Mur­der on the Ori­ent Express dur­ing these years, shar­ing the screen with the likes of Hen­ry Fon­da, Paul New­man, and Ingrid Bergman. She even col­lab­o­rat­ed with John Wayne for his final film, The Shootist.

Bacall was polit­i­cal­ly active through­out her life. In the 1950s, she cam­paigned for Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee Adlai Steven­son; in the 1960s, she sup­port­ed Robert Kennedy’s Sen­ate cam­paign. She was also a fierce oppo­nent of the pol­i­tics of dis­graced Repub­li­can Joseph McCarthy. In 2005, she gave a mem­o­rable inter­view to CNN’s Lar­ry King in which she proud­ly iden­ti­fied as a lib­er­al, remark­ing, “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.”

As men­tioned, Bacal­l’s death comes just as peo­ple the world over are strug­gling to process Robin Williams’ sud­den death.

“What a ter­ri­ble loss for us all,” Bar­bara Streisand said in a state­ment mourn­ing Bacall. “First Robin, who was a genius, and now Lau­ren. It was my priv­i­lege to have known her, to have act­ed with her, and to have direct­ed her (in 1996’s The Mir­ror Has Two Faces). And most of all, to have had her as a wise and lov­ing friend. She was an orig­i­nal. Even with all those great films… she will be missed.”

“Lau­ren Bacal­l’s life is a life to be cel­e­brat­ed,” agreed come­di­an and showrun­ner Seth Mac­Far­lane, who also worked with Bacall.

“I am told her last per­for­mance was on ‘Fam­i­ly Guy.’ For that, we are for­ev­er hon­ored and priv­i­leged. Thank you, Lau­ren, for teach­ing us all how to whistle.”

Bacal­l’s body of work was rec­og­nized sev­er­al years ago by the Acad­e­my of Motion Pic­ture Arts and Sci­ences, which bestowed upon her an hon­orary Oscar at the 2009 Gov­er­nors Awards. (Video of Bacal­l’s accep­tance speech is on YouTube).

Lau­ren Bacall was one of the few remain­ing tal­ents left from the gold­en age of film. Now she’s gone. She will be great­ly missed. We at NPI extend our deep­est con­do­lences to her fam­i­ly and close friends.