Lauren Bacall - # 87

Lauren Bacall Dies

She was number 87 on the list.

Lauren Bacall, the sultry presence who first hit movie screens in 1944 and then went on to play a series of sophisticated, tough-as-nails roles for the next six decades – even in real life.

"Ms. Bacall passed away peacefully at her home in New York City earlier today," Robbert de Klerk, co-managing partner of the Humphrey Bogart estate, said Tuesday evening. Bacall's son, Stephen Bogart, personally told him the news.

She was 89 and a longtime resident of Manhattan's Upper West Side.

Launched by a Harper's Bazaar cover when she was a 19-year-old model, the former Betty Joan Perske, born to Jewish immigrants in New York City, was signed by Warner Bros. in 1943.

Whatever she may have lacked in acting experience, the willowy teen made up for with a certain grace that was made camera-ready by the great director Howard Hawks. Lauren Bacall, as she had been renamed, modeled her character in 1944's adaptation of a Hemingway novel, To Have and Have Not, after Hawks's stylish wife, Nancy "Slim" Keith, and delivered the immortal line to the grizzled Humphrey Bogart, who was 25 years her senior: "You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow."

A star was born. So was a legendary off-screen romance.

"Everyone could see their love right there on celluloid," their son Stephen Bogart told PEOPLE in 1996. "He was the great love of her life, and she his."

During their first scene together, "I realized that one way to hold my trembling head still was to keep it down, chin low, almost to my chest, and eyes up at Bogart," Betty, as she was always known, wrote in her 1978 autobiography, Lauren Bacall: By Myself. "It worked." In fact, "the Look" would be known as Bacall's trademark.

On May 21, 1945, shortly after Bogey's divorce from his third wife was finalized, he and Bacall were married on a friend's farm in Ohio. Three years later, son Stephen (named after Bogie's character in To Have and Have Not) was born, followed in 1952 by daughter Leslie (named in honor of Bogey's late pal, The Petrified Forest actor Leslie Howard).

Then, tragedy struck in 1956, when Bogie was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. Bacall nursed him throughout the illness, and on Jan. 14, 1957, he died. Afterward, the devastation that Bacall, then 33, suffered was nearly indescribable.

She and Frank Sinatra had an affair ("He behaved like a complete s–––," she later said), then came a rocky, 12-year marriage to stage and screen star Jason Robards that produced another son, actor Sam Robards, but ultimately fell apart due to Jason's heavy drinking.

Once Bacall left Hollywood for New York in the late '50s, she found a new career working on Broadway, where, despite her raspy singing voice, she won Tony Awards for the musicals Applause (1970) and Woman of the Year (1981). "The theater," she said, "has been fantastic to me."

Filmmakers didn't forget her, either. Though she wasn't nominated, she delivered an Oscar-worthy performance as the widow taken with the charms of the dying Old West gunfighter played by John Wayne in director Don Siegel's 1976 The Shootist.

Twenty years later, at age 72 (the same year PEOPLE named her one of the 50 Most Beautiful) she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for playing the mother of Barbra Streisand's character in The Mirror Has Two Faces. Said Streisand, who also directed the film: "Lauren's special beauty is the reflection of her elegance, her intelligence and her invigorating will."

Finally paid her due, in 2010 Bacall received a Life Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

And while the star always played down any praise that happened to come her way about her looks – "I always thought I had crooked eyebrows and crooked teeth. That's why I never understood why people called me a beauty" – she did once say, "[Comedian] Jack Benny told me I had perfect timing. That's probably the biggest compliment I've ever gotten."

Her Filmography:

Year       Title       Role       

1944      To Have and Have Not    Marie "Slim" Browning                  

1945      Confidential Agent           Rose Cullen                         

1946      Two Guys from Milwaukee          Herself Cameo appearance         

1946      The Big Sleep     Vivian Sternwood Rutledge                         

1947      Dark Passage      Irene Jansen                       

1948      Key Largo             Nora Temple                      

1950      Young Man with a Horn                 Amy North                          

1950      Bright Leaf          Sonia Kovac                        

1953      How to Marry a Millionaire          Schatze Page                      

1954      Woman's World                Elizabeth Burns                 

1955      The Cobweb       Meg Faversen Rinehart                 

1955      Blood Alley         Cathy Grainger                  

1956      Written on the Wind       Lucy Moore Hadley                         

1957      Designing Woman            Marilla Brown Hagen      Laurel Award for Top Female Comedy Performance (3rd place)    

1958      The Gift of Love                Julie Beck                             

1959      North West Frontier        Catherine Wyatt                               

1964      Shock Treatment              Dr. Edwina Beighley                        

1964      Sex and the Single Girl    Sylvia Broderick                                

1966      Harper Elaine Sampson                                 

1974      Murder on the Orient Express    Mrs. Harriet Belinda Hubbard                     

1976      The Shootist       Bond Rogers       Nominated - BAFTA Award for Best Actress           

1980      HealtH Esther Brill                          

1981      The Fan                Sally Ross                             

1988      Appointment with Death              Lady Westholme                              

1988      Mr. North            Mrs. Cranston                    

1988      John Huston: The Man, the Movies, the Maverick              Herself Documentary film            

1989      Tree of Hands    Marsha Archdale              Alternate title: Innocent Victim 

1989      Dinner at Eight Carlotta Vance   TV film 

1990      Misery      Marcia Sindell                    

1991      A Star for Two    Edwige                  

1991      All I Want for Christmas                 Lillian Brooks                      

1993      The Portrait        Fanny Church     TV film 

1993      A Foreign Field Lisa        TV film 

1994      Prêt-à-Porter     Slim Chrysler      Alternate title: Ready to Wear (Prêt-à-Porter)

NBR Award for Best Cast               

1995      From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler        Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler               TV film 

1996      The Mirror Has Two Faces            Hannah Morgan                Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture

SAG Award for Best Supporting Actress

San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress

Nominated - Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress

Nominated - BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress 

1996      My Fellow Americans     Margaret Kramer                             

1997      Day and Night    Sonia     French title: Le Jour et la Nuit     

1999      Get Bruce            Herself Documentary film            

1999      Too Rich: The Secret Life of Doris Duke   Doris Duke          TV miniseries     

1999      Madeline: Lost in Paris   Madame Lacroque           Voice, Animated film      

1999      Diamonds            Sin-Dee                                

1999      The Venice Project          Countess Camilla Volta                  

1999      Presence of Mind             Mado Remei                       

2000      A Conversation with Gregory Peck            Herself Documentary film            

2003      Gone Dark           May Markham   Alternate title: The Limit               

2003      Dogville                Ma Ginger                           

2004      Howl's Moving Castle     Witch of the Waste         Voice, Animated film      

2004      Birth      Eleanor                               

2004      Amália Traïda     TV Announcer   10-minute short film       

2005      Manderlay          Mam                     

2006      These Foolish Things       Dame Lydia                         

2007      The Walker         Natalie Van Miter                             

2008      Eve         Grandma             20-minute short film       

2008      Scooby-Doo! and the Goblin King              The Grand Witch              Voice, Animated film   

2008      Empire State Building Murders   Penny Baxter     TV film

2010      Wide Blue Yonder            May                       

2012      Ernest & Celestine           The Grey One    Voice, Animated film      

2012      The Forger          Anne-Marie Cole              Alternate title: Carmel-by-the-Sea, (final film role)             

Television

Year       Title       Role     

1953      What's My Line?               Mystery Guest / Herself                3 episodes          

1954      Light's Diamond Jubilee                 Herself TV film documentary      

1955      Producers' Showcase      Gabby Maple     Episode: "The Petrified Forest"   

1956      Ford Star Jubilee               Elvira Condomine             Episode: "Blithe Spirit"   

1963      The DuPont Show of the Week   Lorraine Boswell               Episode: "A Dozen Deadly Roses"              

1963      Dr. Kildare           Virginia Herson Episode: "The Oracle"     

1964      Mr. Broadway    Barbara Lake      2 episodes          

1965      Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre                Amanda / Barbara            Episode: "Double Jeopardy"        

1965      The Danny Kaye Show    Guest/Herself    Episode: Comedy and Song Sketches with Kaye and husband Jason Robards               

1978      Perfect Gentlemen          Mrs. Lizzie Martin            TV film 

1979      The Rockford Files            Kendall Warren                 Episodes: "Lions, Tigers, Monkeys and Dogs" (Part 1 & 2)                 

1990      Frederick Forsyth Presents           Beatrix Coltrane                Episode: "A Little Piece of Sunshine"        

1993      The General Motors Playwrights Theater               Herself / Host    Episode: "The Parallax Garden" 

1998      Chicago Hope     Samara Visco Klein           Episodes: "Risky Business" / "Absent Without Leave"       

2006      The Sopranos     Herself Episode: "Luxury Lounge"             

2014      Family Guy          Evelyn (voice)    Episode: "Mom's the Word" (final television role)              

 

 

Stage

Year       Title       Role       Notes    Ref.

1942      Johnny 2x4          Ensemble            Broadway (credited as Betty Bacall)         

1942      Franklin Street   Unnamed teenager         Broadway            

1959      Goodbye Charlie               Charlie Broadway            

1965      Cactus Flower    Stephanie            Broadway            

1970      Applause             Margo Channing               Broadway and West End

Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical               

1977      Wonderful Town              Ruth Sherwood Summer stock   

1979      V.I.P. Night on Broadway              Herself Broadway (benefit concert)         

1981      Woman of the Year         Tess Harding      Broadway

Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical               

1985      Sweet Bird of Youth        The Princess Kosmonopolis          West End             

1989      The Players Club Centennial Salute           Herself Broadway (benefit concert)         

1995      The Visit               Claire Zachanassian         Chichester Festival           

1996      Angela Lansbury: A Celebration Herself Broadway (benefit concert)         

1999      Waiting in the Wings      Lotta Bainbridge               Broadway