‘Toughest girl in Hollywood’ takes her final bow

BACALL. Her significant contributions should be cherished. AP

The film biz got hit by a stellar double-whammy last week, with not just one (Robin Williams) but two big stars making their untimely exit from the performing scene. The second departee was Lauren Bacall, and it’s really sad that her passing has been upstaged by the global shock and sorrow over Williams’ suicide.

We join in mourning his shocking loss, but Bacall also fully deserves to be cherished and thanked for her many noteworthy achievements on the silver screen—when it was still silver, unlike its current “slivered” state.

Lauren Bacall became a big star at the relatively tender age of 19. She studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, played a few minor roles onstage, became a model, and got on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar.

It was that striking cover photograph that caught the eye of the wife of producer Howard Hawks—and, in just one month, she was filming her first movie, “To Have And Have Not,” which costarred her with no less than the established star, Humphrey Bogart.

The 1944 film turned out to be not just a success but also a veritable sensation—thanks in part to the excitement that its new leading lady generated. It’s no exaggeration to say that Bacall’s big-screen debut was one of the most exciting stellar launches of the decade!

What made her such a remarkable find? Acclaimed critic James Agee provides the answer with his exultant notes on her: “Lauren Bacall has cinematic personality to burn. She has a javelin-like vitality, a born eloquence of movement, a fierce female shrewdness, and a special sweet-sourness. With those faculties, plus a stone-crushing self-confidence and a trombone voice, she manages to come across as the toughest girl Hollywood has dreamed of in a long while.”

Studio publicity for the film dubbed her “The Look,” and she was clearly, feistily on her way!  In 1945, she married Bogart and appeared with him in three more films, launching one of the movie screen’s most beloved stellar tandems.

When Bogart was stricken with cancer, she dropped everything to take care of him until he died in 1957.

In 1951, she married another gifted actor, Jason Robards—whose screen persona, not so incidentally, came across as quite “Bogar-esque.”

In the late ’60s, Bacall appeared successfully on Broadway in “Cactus Flower”—and, years later, won the Tony Award for her performance in “Applause.” In 1981, she starred in another stage hit, “Woman of The Year.”

Bacall was one of the few film actresses who similarly triumphed on the theater stage—because her persona was “larger than life.” In 1974, she made her screen comeback with “Murder on the Orient Express,” and remained a working actress until her death last week at age 89.

Bacall’s other significant starrers include “The Big Sleep,” “Key Largo,” “How to Marry A Millionaire,” “Woman’s World,” “Designing Women,” “Sex and the Single Girl,” “Harper,” “The Shootist” and “Misery.”