Lauren Bacall receiving her Honorary OscarShe arrived on the scene fully formed, the most womanly, not girlish, teenager you ever did see. In truth Lauren Bacall was newly 20 when To Have and Have Not premiered but it's tough to imagine that she made it at 19. The enormous age gap with co-star Humphrey Bogart (a full quarter century) who she'd marry offscreen almost instantly was mitigated by her steely maturity. There'd be faint echoes of Lauren later, arguably, in the great Kathleen Turner's throaty sensuality and Scarlett Johansson's uncommonly early self-possession, but like all true stars Lauren Bacall was an original and remained her own inimitable thing.
2014 has been unusually cruel in the taking of key giants from Hollywood's golden age but we'll always have their films to remember them by. And in Bacall's case the filmography stretches and stretches and stretches across the eras of cinema. Bacall died yesterday at 89 in Manhattan, bringing her unusually enduring career to an end. She might not have been the most gifted or versatile actress from her peer group, but she had real onscreen fire. Perhaps it was her agelessness - she always seemed 40ish to me, whether she was a teenager or an old woman -- that helped her age so naturally onscreen. She worked consistently right until the end, finding key roles in every decade. That's something to celebrate in and of itself, in an industry so obsessed with youth.
After the jump, 10 essentials covering every decade of her career:
"Slim" in To Have and Have Not (1944, debut)
Viviane Rutledge in The Big Sleep (1946)
Nora Temple in Key Largo (1948)
Schatze Page in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) - one of the best character names ever
Lucy Moore Hadley in Written on the Wind (1956)
Mrs Sampson in Harper (1966) - HASTY PUDDINGS WOMAN OF THE YEAR (67)
Bond Rogers in The Shootist (1976) - BAFTA NOMINATION
Sally Ross in The Fan (1981)
Hannah Morgan in The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996) - OSCAR, BAFTA, NOMINATIONS / SAG WINNER
Ma Ginger in Dogville (2003) ... though I was tempted to choose Eleanor in Birth (2004)
What's your favorite Bacall? You know how to whistle, don't you?