Lauren Bacall

Without a doubt, she was the most famous “skinny” in the history of cinema. It was enough for her to ask for a few matches leaning on a doorjamb to become an icon of sophistication, class and self-confidence. And if on top of her she taught you to whistle and swayed her slender body between the chairs of a small hotel in La Martinique, then…, well, then you were capable of marrying her. Tough Bogart knows it’s true.

Betty Joan Perske was lucky in that movie thing, because the truth is that she entered through the front door. Born in New York on September 16, 1924, she only had to wait 19 years to become one of the most brilliant stars on the screen. Before her, she studied at the School of Dramatic Art in her hometown and worked as an usher in a theater. When she was elected Miss Greenwich Village in 1942, her haughty beauty was not lost on the editor of Harper Bazaar magazine, and she offered him the cover of her. That changed her life, since Howard Hawks ‘s wife noticed that girl with the deep gaze and long body and she suggested to her husband that he give her a chance in her next film, To Have and Not to have. And they say that, after meeting her, the great Hawks told Bogie: “Get ready, because I just found a girl who can be as cynical as you.”

Betty Perske immediately changed her name to Lauren Bacall (this last name taken from her grandmother’s “Bacal”, to which the new actress added an L). It must be said that Bacall would probably never be able to do a better job than Marie Browning. All her appearances are irresistible, with jets of irony, seduction, elegance and a complicity with Bogart like no one had ever had. Added to this were his green, green, catlike gaze, and that deep, spongy voice that sounded so strange and suggestive (a rare vocal disorder that he curiously shared with Bogart and that was so characteristic of the couple that gave its name in medicine to the “Syndrome Bogart-Bacall”). Despite a 25-year age difference, Bacall and Bogart married in 1945, the year they premiered the fantastic The Big Sleep together., also directed by Hawks. But their partnership on the screens would still give rise in the following years to the estimable Dark Path (1947), by Delmer Daves , and the extraordinary Key Largo (1948), this time under the baton of another of the greats, John Huston . .

However, it must be recognized that all the impetus of his beginnings slowed down in later years, although his filmography still has great titles, especially from his early days: the biographical and jazzy The Trumpeter (1950), the “negulesque” comedy ” How to marry a millionaire (1953), the thriller Bloody Alley (1956), along with John Wayne , or the invaluable Written on the Wind (1956), by the master of melodrama Douglas Sirk . Things changed in 1957, when Bogart died and she was left alone with two children (she remarried years later to Jason Robards, but the marriage failed). He spent a hard time and spaced more his works in the cinema, among which stand out India on fire (1959), Harper, a private investigator (1966), Murder on the Orient Express and The last gunslinger (1976), film testament of John wayne.

In addition, the actress combined the cinema with successful appearances in Broadway theaters, for which she won two Tony Awards, in 1970 and 1981. In her last stage, her work on the screen multiplied, with brief appearances in notable films such as Misery ( 1990), Love has two faces (1996), for which he achieved his only Oscar nomination, or the kidmanian Dogville (2003). She premiered Lars Von Trier ‘s Manderlay , and her last work was the obscure drama The Forger , from 2012.