Lauren Bacall

Betty Joan Perske (September 16, 1924 – August 12, 2014), professionally known as Lauren Bacall, was an American actress. She was named the 20th-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema by the American Film Institute and received an Academy Honorary Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2009 in recognition of her contribution to the Golden Age of motion pictures. She was known for her alluring, sultry presence and her distinctive, husky voice. Bacall was one of the last surviving major stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. Bacall began a career as a model for the Walter Thornton Model Agency before making her film debut at the age of 20 as the leading lady opposite her future husband Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not (1944). She continued in the film noir genre with appearances alongside her new husband in The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948), and she starred in the romantic comedies How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) with Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable, and Designing Woman (1957) with Gregory Peck. She portrayed the female lead in Written on the Wind (1956) which is considered one of Douglas Sirk's seminal films. She starred alongside Paul Newman in the 1966 mystery film Harper. She co-starred with John Wayne in his final film The Shootist (1976) by Wayne's request. She also worked on Broadway in musicals, earning Tony Awards for Applause (1970) and Woman of the Year (1981). For her performance in The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996) she won a Golden Globe, and a SAG award, and was nominated for a BAFTA and an Academy Award. During the final stage of her career she gained newfound success with a younger audience for major supporting roles in the films Misery (1990), Dogville (2003), and the English dubs of the animated films Howl's Moving Castle (2004) and Ernest & Celestine (2012). Early life Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske on September 16, 1924, in the Bronx, New York City, the only child of Natalie (née Weinstein-Bacal; 1901–1969), a secretary who later legally changed her surname to Bacal, and William Perske (1889–1982), who worked in sales. Both of her parents were Jewish. Her mother emigrated from Iași, Romania through Ellis Island. Her father was born in New Jersey to parents who were born in Valozhyn, a predominantly Jewish community in present-day Belarus.