“I think that sometimes she doesn’t realize how much I love her and respect her and respect what she is, as a woman and as an actress and what she’s contributed to her profession and her world. And I think that she needs to know that.” — Stephen Bogart
“I think the qualities that my mother gave me include intelligence, humor, sensitivity, the ability to scrutinize people. I feel she gave me her sense of power and her sense of strength as she deals with the world around her. And her contribution to women and to women’s issues in addition to being to a loving mother. She has also, just as a woman, been a great example for me.” — Leslie Bogart
“Soft and sleek – and looking – looking…Sloe-eyed – moving through the woods on a carpet of wet brown leaves (or anyway a carpet – the best – and long – and deep)…No sound – only a rhythmic beat…Honey dripping from her temples…Eyes unblinking – glinting green – challenging…Her texture bread-dough soft – and smooth and tawny – rising alive…He has penned in a lioness…No claws for those she loves – babies – mate – and even friends – a few…The best – the best (what the hell – they must be – they’re mine)…You are subdued by her lavish enthusiasm – lulled by the repetition of your own extraordinary virtues…You are king among mice – secure – remarkable – you have no equal…You belong to the kingdom of her children – she will protect you…But if you do not belong: look out…No zulac from the bazaar has a sharper knife – can use it without pause – direct – piercing…Love or Hate…Yes or No…Good or Bad…Victorian clarity…Soft – sun-serene surface – surface – surface – and under it – Woman.”
Lauren Bacall by Katharine Hepburn
“I’m not ashamed of what I am - of how I pass through this life. What I am has given me the strength to do it. At my lowest ebb I have never contemplated suicide. I value what is here too much. I have a contribution to make. I am not just taking up space in this life. I can add something to the lives I touch. I don’t like everything I know about myself, and I’ll never be satisfied, but nobody’s perfect. I’m not sure where the next years will take me - what they will hold - but I’m open to suggestions.” - Lauren Bacall
When our final interview is over, I help Bacall up from her chair, and she walks with me to the door. “You haven’t told me a thing about you!” she says as I stand there with one foot over the threshold. She gives me a hug and a kiss and then issues one last lament: “I can never get a voice-over job. People say, ‘With your voice?’ I say, ‘Yes, with my voice.’ It’s all Bogie’s fault.” She leans forward and pokes a finger in my chest. “Remember what Bogie and my mother both used to say: ‘Character is the most important thing. All that matters is character!’ ”
With that she shuts the door.
When she is off the phone, I ask, “Where is the Oscar?”
“It’s hidden in my bedroom,” she says. “I’m ready to throw it out the window. I hate it now. Every time I look at it, I remember that day, and I think it was probably the worst thing I have ever done. What should have been one of the best days in my life is one of the worst.”
“How so?”
“Because I only talked about Bogie,” she says. “My three children were sitting out there, and I never talked about Jason, and I never mentioned Sam, my youngest child. I had a lot I should have said about Jason, and Sam”—who is an accomplished actor in his own right—“was sitting right there. I think that’s about as bad a thing as I’ve ever done. I just kind of went blank. And I knew it, and I tried to get back on, and I couldn’t, because they had all of the film cuts planned, and so they were right into the next thing. I think it scarred my son terribly, and there’s no excuse for that, especially in view that I so adore him.”
“While we’re looking at people, let’s look at Betty. She and Bogie seemed to have the most enormous opinion of each other’s charms, and when they fought it was with the utter confidence of two cats locked deliciously in the same cage.”
—Katharine Hepburn on Lauren Bacall, The Making of the African Queen or How I went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall, and Huston and almost lost my mind
“Charlie and Ann Lederer gave a party for the Shah of Iran. When the incumbent of the Peacock Throne complimented Lauren Bacall by saying, ‘You were born to dance, Miss Bacall,’ she replied with gusto, ‘You bet your ass, Shah.’”
—David Niven, Bring on the Empty Horses
“What it felt like to be so wanted, so adored! No one had ever felt like that about me. It was all so dramatic, too. Always in the wee small hours when it seemed to Bogie and me that the world was ours - that we were the world. At those times were were.”
— Lauren Bacall & Humphrey Bogart
On Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not (Howard Hawks - 1944)
In To Have and Have Not, Bacall combines intelligence and sensuality, pride and submission. She holds her own. She is a singer and is as surrounded by her “musical world” as Bogart is by his underground one, and she combines with him to create one of the greatly perfectly balanced couples, as highly defined by fantasy and wit.
- From Reverence to Rape: the Treatment of Women in the Movies (Molly Haskell - 1974)
5) Classic actresses | Lauren Bacall
“Lauren Bacall has cinema personality to burn. She has a javelin-like vitality, a born dancer’s eloquence of movement, a fierce female shrewdness, and a special sweet-sourness. With these faculties, plus a stone-crushing self-confidence and a trombone voice, she manages to get across the toughest girl Hollywood has dreamed of in a long, long while.”
— James Agee
