Lauren Bacall: Intimate Portrait

[Music] [Applause] this is not a game with her she has made her own place as a star on Broadway world boy I finally made it great I thought she's brave because without a whole lot of stage experience suddenly she's carrying a show she was widowed at the age of 32 with two children to support she took charge of her life bogie knew she would eventually step out of the shadow of their storied romance she was bogies wife and just kind of a Tori thing you know who did movies when she went to New York she became an actress a lot of people take her for granted just think that she's just a star well give me a break and I think she's a great role model for the younger women who are hopefully watching this the lifetime of style award goes to Miss Lauren Bacall this is Natasha Richardson tonight we celebrate a great American success story a woman I respect and admire Lauren Bacall [Music] [Music] [Music] this is gonna get me into a lot of trouble I think women are much more willing to take risks chances with their lives are much more honest and are generally better friends my mother was a great example she was the greatest influence of my life she was them more than anyone my mother had the greatest effect on me Laurens mother Natalie Weinstein Bacall was born into a highly cultured Jewish family in the lavish countryside of Romania in 1901 when her father's wheat business failed he decided like thousands of other immigrants to make a new life in America New York City became home for Natalie and her three brothers and sister a working woman her whole life in 1923 she married but to a man she did not love a year later Betty Joan was born Natalie's labor began in a prophetic locale over yaws which is really funny I mean the thought that anyone in my family would ever want to be an actor was ridiculous of course Sophie often sang a German nursery rhyme to her favorite grandchild Betty better Lion King a line and divided Belton I'll stop and talk instead good something something wrong the moon our bet divine souls she's so sad at the condom would Amer nataly's marriage was a disaster the focus of her life was her beautiful imaginative daughter I always pretended I always used to imitate and I used to act out things and I used to stay up nights reading fairy tales and you know envision myself as the princess er rapunzel let down your hair your golden hair natalie was a wonderful mother but Betty did not have a good relationship with her father I used to have bad dreams at night and I used to hear footsteps coming down the hall when they weren't any footsteps I used to hear a strap because my father when he's hit me would hit me with that strap Natalie divorced but his father who then literally disappeared from her life forever we have a first of all a sense of rejection sense of wanting approval I was always suspicious growing up and I never thought any relationship could last I think that that is probably one of the scars you know that you learn how to behave how to put up a font how to fool everyone if you can and just not showed show that nobody's going to get to you you know anything now a completely new life began for Natalie Sophie and Betty they moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan it was here that Betty would know that her destiny was to be an actress at Julia Richmond High School Betty made a lifelong friend when I first met her she hadn't quite grown into her body I mean none of us had you know that awkward age of 14 and she was always had that incredible beauty but she was gangling and falling over herself and I have these enormous feet I was a beauty at 14 that awkward beyond belief we used to quit school together and go to the 68th FreePlay house as often as we could because we does adored movies I used to buy Rowley cigarettes and sit up in the balcony and smoke the whole pack just feel like Betty Davis I was watching Betty Davis responding I wanted to feel like that it is when she was doomed and dark victory oh my god I thought the world had come to an end sobbing she made me feel more than anybody else did I love nonsense I can't live without please get up you're making a fool of yourself when Betty Davis made a visit to New York arrangements were made for 14 year old Betty to actually meet her idol and finally the door opened and out she came you're Betty Bacall Joseph I had business so you want the actress yes well I was so in awe of her that I couldn't think the tension was indescribable if Betty ever dreamed of becoming a film star that dream evaporated after she spent three nights in the theater now she was completely stage-struck feel good I was in a trance and that curtain came down I didn't know where I was I started to walk out I bumped into people I was long I didn't know I've never been so affected Katharine Hepburn in the Philadelphia Story she was so beautiful oh and I was up in the third balcony $0.55 seats I always fell out of the balcony up something else I was looking at her and you know who's in a play with her Joseph Cotten Van Heflin not a bad cast finally she saw Laurence Olivier and Vivian Leigh well I saw them in Romeo and Juliet that was when I was still in high school when you have those three things hit you between the eyes they're never the same if I'd never thought of being an actress I would have thought of being an actress because of that at 15 Betty graduated from high school and after an audition was accepted as a student at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts good proportions physical condition blonde pleasing personality boys alone see I even I loved voice then New York regionalism Jewish but does not look it some instinct everything to learn Betty's mother could only afford the tuition for one year not discouraged bet he worked as a theater usher so she got to see many plays I was in a show at the Lyceum I think it's West 43rd and there was an usherette and she sort of swept through my line of vision and I thought I thought who's that lanky kid with a kind of a cat's face that lanky kid had a lot of nerve I used to stand outside of Sardis and I used to say to the doorman point out to me this is anyone in the theater cuz I wasn't ever thinking in movies I only thought of myself on the stage her efforts paid off she got her first stage role in a play that never made it to Broadway so began a chain of events to earn money Betty turned to modeling where she was noticed by the editor of Harper's Bazaar Diana Vreeland they wanted a more natural look and that's her to study models look and that was why she started to use me which was great for me changed my life Diana put Betty on the cover the inside story commented that Betty longed to be an actress all this caught the attention of slim Hawks wife of the famous Hollywood director Howard Hawks she showed him these photographs and thought that I was interesting looking and maybe he should test me and he looked at them oh yeah maybe he was very influenced by her and that's how I began at the age of 18 Becky Bacall said farewell to Manhattan and her dream to be a star on the Broadway stage all by herself she took a train across America to the movie capital of the world I was so ambitious I was so anxious to have another kind of life finally Howard Hawks put Betty on contract at $100 per week she waited four months as long as the male lead agreed Betty would plays a love interest in the remake of Ernest Hemingway's novel to have and have-not Howard said I always thought of you being in a movie with either Humphrey Bogart or Cary Grant I said Oh Cary Grant we done the test and then waited and waited and didn't know what was going to happen and I remember as I was walking into Howard's office bogey was coming out and he said I just seen your test we'll have a lot of fun together Oh hardy-har-har little did he know filming began on Betty's first movie 45 year old Humphrey Bogart was a seasoned and respected star of stage and screen he had a volatile relationship with his third wife Mae OMA though there was excessive drinking and jealousy on the set he was professional and caring with his young leading lady the kidding around on the set was too relaxed me he knew how nervous I was he could tell how nervous I was was quite a fact and of course I was hanging on Howard's every word and I was apprehensive we you know working with bogie and also I was warned by various people that he but his wife was a woman who hallucinatin a lot and who was sure that he was having affairs with everyone that he worked with and that she was very tough and the teeth drop a lamp on my head if I wasn't careful certainly thrilled with a better news luckily Betty discovered how to steady her trembling head I found that by Holly my head of a certain angle and looking up I could hold it still and so I could either look to the side or look up but I held my chin down and that's how it became the look Bogart went nuts over her because I mean she was an extraordinary extraordinary presence as a 20 year old she had the poise and the manner of a much older woman Betty and bogie were falling in love many of their clandestine meetings took place on his sailboat it was dangerous of course remember this danger this romance we've just evolved and just became this frantic hysterical thing when he would be calling me up at 3 in the morning having left wherever he was home or wherever three sheets to the wind and come pick me up on Wilshire Boulevard no my mother the phone's way do you think you're going at this hour I said I've got me this Howard yes I can she was horrified she did not think highly of him at all he's a married man three times in 1944 to have and have-not was released featuring Humphrey Bogart and introducing Lauren Bacall the film was a hit and Bacall lit up the screen [Music] that was that that lanky girl with a cat's face that was briefly an usher revelation theater Lauren captured the heart of every American male including Vice President Harry Truman but the only heart Betty wanted to win was bogies he proposed was a proviso he said I want a wife and I want my wife with me and so I'm not saying not to work but you must promise not to go off on location not to you know and I said of course of course I wanted to give him a but he'd never had I mean I wanted to give him a family life any way I wanted to give him children which he never had in so of course he reached a point in his life where he never thought he would have it he thought it would never was never meant to be for him that he would always have just lived the way he lived and never have children and never have a really happy marriage so I made that promise and I stuck to it and in view of the fact that we had such a short time together I must say I'm damn glad I did this McCall is 20 mr. Bogart married three times before is 45 the wedding march started while he was waiting downstairs George was upstairs for me started the wedding march no bride George needs Elvan the balusters her she's in the can he was crying and I was shaking what a birth in those days some hit movies were reenacted on radio the Bogaerts played out their most famous love scene in to have and have not you know you don't have to act with me Steve you don't have to say anything and you don't have to do anything not a thing oh maybe just whistle you know how to whistle dr. Steve you just put your lips together blow you just put your lips together and [Music] inexplicably Warner's decided to release Lauren's third film she was hopelessly miscast and the movie flopped Plus moviegoers wanted to see her with bogie not Charles boy eh they almost ruined a really with bad judgement after confidential agent they said we made a terrible mistake this girl is a horror send her back where she came from so young and to be you know up there and then a pilloried and then have to sort of fight your way and be I'm sure in her mind she must have been agonized and felt such a tremendous failure and had it not been for bogie of course who gave me courage and also stability I mean this is the same kind of stability that my mother gave me except of course he was around to salvage the situation Warren has released three more bogie and Bacall films The Big Sleep dark passage and keylogger I say smacker and let it go at that smacking her isn't enough for such an insult he'd have to kill her and he'd have to kill the rest of it because we witnessed it to kill us all and nothing [Music] Wow smell blood hair their passion for each other was as real in life as it was on the screen she was very much in love with him it wasn't just a movie the Hollywood thing she really was very much involved with him and the boat was a big thing in their lives Bogart loved that boat and she loved being on that boat with him and they spent a lot of very happy times on the boat [Music] Betty relished their private moments and she thrived in Hollywood's limelight as well however Betty soon decided it was time to start a family well I told him I was pregnant and we argued because he suddenly realized that something was coming between us and it bothered him it upset him and of course then of course he loved it after that in 1949 Steven was born Betty was a natural parent bogie well he had a harder time of it well I take my son outside and I say look you see up there there's a moon up there and there are stars of the sky and it's nighttime and that's when you see these things didn't know how to talk to them two years later director John Huston gave bogie the lead role starring with Katharine Hepburn in the film The African Queen bogie wanted his wife with him on location Betty arranged for her mother to take care of two year old Stephen and set off on a great adventure John Huston always chose the most impossible locations and this certainly was an impossible location in the Belgian Congo about as far away from humanity as you can get they built in the camp you know they made a camp for us made out of bamboo trees and palm leaves it was an adventure all right but I would always scrape though I wouldn't have missed the trip for anything on earth six months later in London the Bogart family was reunited bogie won an Oscar for his performance in the African Queen and Betty was thrilled to be pregnant once again of course a growing family needs a larger home I never thought of just adding on so we moved which bogies to say there are some women when they're pregnant that want pickles but my wife wants houses Lesley was born bogey was amazed she was druggie she was this flower she's a flower he was like this like tiptoeing around this would touch her fingers hold her hand look at her with Wonder this little girl in 1954 Edward Amuro interviewed America's most glamorous couple on live television I remember both of you are natives of New York you missed this big town very much yeah wait a minute well that's a nice normal family disagreement but tell me don't either you'll get again to do a Broadway play yes no I think I'll tell you what I think that you're gonna run into kind of a traffic jam it has two actors at one question I think you better take it one by one who finally had a family you finally had a happy marriage he finally was living in a beautiful house his work was going well but not Stephen doom waiting around the corner a close friend of Betty's was then married to Welsh actor Richard Burton she recalls when bogie first became ill I suspected it in London he had come to the Old Vic to see which to do a play and he was coughing all the way through the performance and I think Richard sent him as a little thing of pass seals in the intermissions as joked because we could hear it coughing yeah and and I remember being a little bit a bit alarmed then tests revealed bogey had cancer of the esophagus and I remember in the car going to the hospital bogeyed holding my hand and saying you know I've never been to doctors and now I'll probably spend the rest of my life doing to them I didn't know what was going to happen but I never thought in terms of endings sick as he was boogie encouraged Betty to star in the film designing woman with Gregory Peck you can sailing into the harbor there and tied up alongside our movie location they said hey kid I hear you're a Catholic I said yes I am you said we'll say a Hail Mary for me he said interesting and dramatic to do a comedy while bogey was on his last legs we knew that he wanted her to work and when the picture is over and he said well Betty stays home and looks after me so that's that's how you can tell the ladies from the broad she said I went to pick the children up from Sunday School and came home and he gone into a coma and that was it my Steve was eight but he wrote in his little book he said daddy died the word for bogey for Betty true by the way I think it's gallantry I had a series of horrible events after bogie died my mother had her first major major Eisenhower type heart attack out of the blue thank God I was in New York at the time I was not thinking straight at all I don't think for quite a while after I behaved it perfectly acceptable but I made a lot of wrong decisions lots of mistakes after bogie died Frank Sinatra paid great attention to his friend's widow I think I was just searching for continuity and he was part of our scene anyway he was he we saw so much of fact we became really good friends the last few years of bogies life he was very much a part of our lives so it was almost natural you know in any event it didn't work out and it was okay that it didn't work out with bogie gone Hollywood seemed more and more bleak to Betty Betty had to get out and make a living and Betty went maybe when the movie rolls began to slow down a bit sure back to Broadway I was so frightened for her wondering what you were doing she just came to New York and I was the best thing she ever did I think they all thought of me as mrs. Bogart anyway you know they never took me seriously as an actress so I felt the stage was it was time for me to be on the stage and to find out if I could do it after abandoning New York and the theater she so loved Betty was 35 years old when she returned to star in the play George Axelrod had written for her goodbye Charlie she played the role of a man reincarnated in a woman's body she got on a stage in front of a live on its first time I've ever really done in her life without nerve in her body or if she did boy she hit it man she was ice cold and toughened absolutely breathe well I found out that I could do it and that was a great reward for me because after all it was my original ambition and that's when I met Jason the star Lauren Bacall and brilliant actor Jason Robards jr. were instantly attracted to each other in the 60s Robards was best known for his roles in the place of Eugene O'Neill then again something wonderful happened in my life and I mean so it took a while because he was married see again I was there I was all the things that I had been told all of the things that I believed in end up with married man I don't understand how that happened but it happened twice in 1961 Betty and Jason were married they moved with her children into a spacious apartment a year later their son Sam was born concentrating on her family and husband Betty put her career on hold for two years Betty was eager to return to the stage her chance came in 1965 when she revealed her natural width and timing in the comedy cactus flower that play was a smash hit I stayed with her for two years never missed a performer and sold out all the time although her career was now back on track Betty had to face the tormenting fact that her marriage was falling apart it was clear that there were terrible problems I knew some of them a lot of them I did not know she was very matter-of-fact about she was in great pain and it was very difficult for her it took me a while it's not easy to you know to make that kind of break we liked a lot of things about one another Jason also had had a tough time in his life you know and he was he had his own demons as everyone does you learn a lot as you get older and then sometimes you don't learn anything as it was with bogeys death bad things come in clusters but he's eight-year marriage was over and then a beloved mother died Natalie was an extraordinary woman who spoke her mind about everything in the world and indeed everybody says about Betty that well she took her things from Bogart I think she took her thing from her mom what can you say your mother especially a mother you get on with itself it's enormous and they'd been such a with such a team you never get over it that loss but after all that is who has given you life the corn is a triumph of industry along with charisma and and talent that defies a lot of possibility there's no reason before the fact that she should have been able to star in a musical not only starred in musical but knocked down records across the country and abroad I mean this is this huge ability Lauren Bacall is among the few actresses who after the age of 40 transformed herself into a musical comedy star she accepted the lead role in a polls based on the film All About Eve starring Betty Davis as Margo Channing the book was written by friends Betty Comden and Adolph green husband of another good friend Phyllis Newman one of her absolute cores is her physical and sort of spiritual strength that when she pulls herself up it's like a great star does she becomes something else and it's very right for musicals because what she was playing you know a star the challenge of preparing for rolling applause was both strenuous and exhilarating for months daily voice lessons followed by endless hours of dance rehearsal [Music] one of the great songs was the first one was cut alive but I feel I feel itchy and twitchy and manic mother and panic but alive but alive but alive but that is the story of my life an actual work the fact I mean in many ways she was nervous to the bone but ready to make her debut the no coward had sent me an opening night wire don't be nervous darling it all depends on you when you spend a lot of your life in the shadow of somebody else you really need to have a sense of accomplishment of your own and I think I felt it solidly for the first time in applause [Music] Broadway had a new stuff I mean you can't imagine who I extraordinary audience jammed all the time Otto Preminger came back he said you were marvelous I said why do you sound so surprised he said because I am backstage one night Betty Davis paid the ultimate compliment to Lauren Bacall the quaking teenager she had met more than 30 years ago she stood at the door of my dressing room and said nobody could have done this but you and you know I mean that Walter Matthau presented Lauren Bacall with her first Tony incurably romantic she felt her co-star Len Carrie you we had a great romance absolutely never fall in love with your leading man get involved with the people you work with well I'm not a great example no yes oh yeah we had a really a lovely time though I spent five years of my life on that show but it was worth it after five years touring the world with applause betty was courted by feature films she starred in Murder on the Orient Express and The Shootist starring John Wayne in 1978 Lauren Bacall revealed a new talent she wrote her own autobiography by myself which won the National Book Award two years later she was back on Broadway starring in the musical woman of the year it was based on the film that starred her friend Kate Hepburn it was all done because of Betty it's one of those shows that was only done because she was wanted to do it woman of the year was a huge success and Betty won her second Tony she has never missed a performance on the stage never her understudy her standbys can forget about it and she gives all out every single performance she's quite something how do you keep it fresh they all say it's your job to keep it fresh the audiences are different every night you have to keep it fresh you cannot sleepwalk through a performance I've never understood how an actor can do that you have to give it everything you've got 150 percent in 1986 Betty had a triumph on the London stage in Tennessee Williams the sweet bird of youth it was wonderful I just arrived in England a few days earlier so I saw lots of the press coverage of it and I mean the stuffy old London Times said something that if the audience had imagined that they heard some applause in the distance it was probably bogie sitting in the gods applauding his baby what I think is important is we all have to get through our lives the way we get through them I mean the time goes to down quickly God knows and I keep looking at the obit page and look to see how old everybody is makes me very nervous but I don't dwell on that Lauren Bacall is blessed with boundless energy every year she visits her favorite cities Paris and London but her home is in New York is filled with mementos from her travels and photos of her family and friends but I've been lucky in my friendships I'm very fortunate I have some wonderful wonderful friends old-time friends that everyone cannot appear for me but by god they're great we took a trip to Paris once together just the two of us and we were like I mean we're not young that young then and we just were like two kids you know walking around feeling romantic talking about guys talking about guys you can to this day you can introduce her to somebody and she'll blush I mean she really is a romantic every sense of the word I'm she has crushes she won't come suddenly quite seriously about whether she's alright to kiss someone goodnight on a first date but it's very attractive it's very sweet you know she has a dick known for this this great sophisticated creature that she plays right represent what something just whistle so every whistle she and if she should fall in love I think it would be wonderful but I kid her all the time I said you wouldn't give up the closet space and there's a certain amount of truth to that yeah where would he hang his head his interpretation of the mother garnered her a coveted Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress with all the raves and predictions for an Oscar unexpectedly she did not win I was astounded the next day after that I went down to somewhere Costa Mesa furthest out know where she was doing a lecture for an audience of about 500 women and to see her with this bravura you know character because that's a big blow she's she has guts well Gus she has elegance and style plus in 1990s she won the highest praise Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998 the call who never attended college received an honorary degree from Columbia University while she has received numerous awards her greatest satisfaction comes from her family I love my grandchildren they love me all of them sweet spot adorable so he's buying stuff for the grandchildren this is something well he won't appreciate it but I'm gonna buy it I like it you know her mind is on those kids I think to have my children happy and healthy and going along and whatever direction they want to and have a fulfilling life I think you can ask too much more than that though she's immensely loyal and I mean when the chips are down if one really needed help she'd be the first one there you know to chiding you but there and helping you I wanted to function I want to be able to work my life I want to be able to continue to do that I think that she should do another show and I think another musical I might a little bit well I'd make it [Music]

Channel: Melina

Views: 515,006

Keywords: Lauren Bacall

Id: E92qk5KkXMo

Length: 40min 5sec (2405 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 19 2017