Lauren Bacall Biography

Her parents divorced when she was six-years-old. Bacall no longer saw her father and formed a bond with her mother, whom she took with her to California when she became a movie star.

The husky-voiced former usherette was spotted by Howard Hawks' wife on the cover of Harper's Bazaar and made an electric debut in film, at the age of 19, opposite Humphrey Bogart, in 'To Have and Have Not'.

Bacall subsequently married Bogart, 25 years her senior, creating a formidable team, both on and off the screen.

A subsequent reteaming with Bogart, in Hawks' mesmerizing 'The Big Sleep', in 1946 confirmed the team's appeal, and showed her starting to hone her powers of characterisation as the wealthy, enigmatic Vivian.

Another film opposite Bogart, meanwhile, John Huston's punchy 'Key Largo', gave her a more vulnerable character, whose loyalty showed her suitability in a "man's world".

Like Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich before her, Bacall's sulky, androgynous beauty made possible an interesting variety of roles, from the sexually ambiguous "bad girl" of 'Young Man with a Horn', to the most subdued of three women seeking 'How to Marry a Millionaire' as well as the distraught wife in Douglas Sirk's striking melodrama, 'Written on the Wind'.

Even during her peak of screen activity from the mid 1940s to the late 1950s, Bacall was sometimes off the screen for several years at a time, as she fought with Warner Brothers, after rejecting standardised glamour roles, or opting to spend time with Bogart and the family they started.

His slow decline in health required a great deal of attention, but her sleek comic grace in the sophisticated comedy 'Designing Woman' (1957), shot during Bogart's last days, was a tribute to her professionalism.

The 1960s were a low period for screen activity, but Bacall did keep coming back to appear in such interesting films as 'Harper'.

She raised her children, married actor Jason Robards (they divorced after eight years) and, most rewardingly in a professional sense, turned her energies back to the stage, where she had worked briefly as a teen.

In 1974, after an eight year hiatus, Bacall returned to the screen in 'Murder on the Orient Express', making a smooth transition to playing older women.

One of Bacall's more notable later appearances was in the psychodrama 'The Fan', which, though in many ways unworthy of her, nonetheless showcased her classy yet down-to-earth elegance. Subsequent movie roles have included turns in Robert Altman's 'H.E.A.L.T.H.', 'Appointment with Death' and 'Misery'.

She reteamed with Altman for 'Ready to Wear' ('Pret-a-Porter'), suitably cast as a former fashion editor, and was able to work with her actor son, Sam Robards.

In 1996, Bacall earned her first Oscar nomination, as Barbra Streisand's acerbic mother, in the somewhat overblown 'The Mirror Has Two Faces'.