Last week we also lost Lauren Bacall. Ms. Bacall made her debut in Hollywood with To Have and Have Not 70 years ago! She still has one of the best and memorable movie lines from that movie. Said with her trademark sultry voice: “You know how to whistle, don’t ya Steve? Ya just put your lips together and… blow.” It was her first movie and it made her a movie super star overnight. The sad commentary on modern times is that “sexy” often means “raunchy,” but not “classy.” Ms. Bacall was the epitome of “class.”
She starred in Hollywood’s biggest and best movies of the 40s, four with her equally famous husband Humphrey Bogart, such as The Big Sleep (1946) and Key Largo (1948). They were the Hollywood Brangelina power couple two decades before Brangelina were even born. After Bogie’s death in 1957 she threw herself into theatre giving award winning performances. She also starred in some other old-time favorites of mine Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and The Shootist (1976)–John Wayne’s last movie before his death. And there also is 2004’s Howl’s Moving Castle, which I consider the second greatest Japanese anime movies of all time; Bacall was the voice of the Witch of the Waste.
The last of Hollywood’s Golden Age female movie titans is gone. Her great body of work is not only classic entertainment of an era past, but part of history—American history. She is described as a “sultry film-noir legend of screen and stage,” and she was, but she was also our very talented and engaging tour guide through a time that I suspect will be more and more appreciated by future generations.
We’ll miss you too, Lauren.
Lauren Bacall: August 12, 2014 to September 16, 1924 (Died at 89)
#Lauren Bacall #Hollywood
Austin Dragon is the author of over 30 books in science fiction, fantasy, and classic horror. His works include the sci-fi detective LIQUID COOL series, the epic fantasy FABLED QUEST CHRONICLES, the international futuristic epic AFTER EDEN Series, the classic SLEEPY HOLLOW HORRORS, and new military sci-fi PLANET TAMERS series. He is a native New Yorker but has called Los Angeles, California home for more than twenty years. Words to describe him, in no particular order: U.S. Army, English teacher, one-time resident of Paris, ex-political junkie, movie buff, Fortune 500 corporate recruiter, renaissance man, futurist, and dreamer.
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