Happy 85th birthday to Hollywood and Broadway great Lauren Bacall! Bacall was just chosen to be awarded a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award for her outstanding work in the nearing seven decades she has been working in the entertainment business.
Born in 1924, Bacall got her start at 19 years old when Nancy “Slim” Hawks saw a young Bacall on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar and suggested to her husband, director Howard Hawks, that he use her in a movie. He flew Bacall from New York to Hollywood and gave her her start in the film industry with the role of Marie “Slim” Browning in 1944′s To Have and Have Not, opposite Humphrey Bogart. She and Bogart fell in love and as soon as his divorce from third wife Mayo Methot became final, they married in Ohio on friend Louis Bromfield’s Malabar Farm in May 1945. They had two children and lived happily until his death in 1957.
Bacall continued working in Hollywood but eventually moved back to New York and returned to the Broadway stage to great acclaim in many plays and musicals such as “Goodbye Charlie”, “Cactus Flower”, “Applause”, and “Woman of the Year”, continuing to do films. In fact, she is still continuing to do films, with three films “Wide Blue Yonder”, “Carmel”, and “Firedog” slated to premiere in 2010. She has also written two autobiographies, By Myself and Then Some (updated with and Then Some in 2005) and Now, both with great reviews. She has received many awards, including two Tony awards for the musicals “Applause” and “Woman of the Year”.
I can’t wait to see what she comes out with next! Happy birthday!
