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Here - in her own
words, her own voice -is the life (so far) of Lauren Bacall, the nice,
bright New York Jewish girl who at sixteen was working as an usher in
Broadway theatres while scrambling around for the Big Break; who was
"discovered" first as a model by Diana Vreeland, then as a
potential movie star by Howard and Slim Hawks; and who - at age nineteen -
found herself in Hollywood with a new name, a starring role, and sudden huge
fame as a funny (she was) and tough (she wasn't) sexpot. And who found
Bogart, and became his "Baby," in one of the greatest of all
Hollywood romances. Here, too, are the wonderful years of Mrs. Humphrey
Bogart - the young wife so intensely loved and in love; the Cinderella,
astonished and entranced to be moving - as one of them! - among the very
same royal figures of Hollywood she had so recently adored from afar, a
teen-age fan like millions of others. She takes us into that dream-life that
was made real by the absolute realness of both Bogie and herself - into the
happiness that after earlier years was shattered when Bogie died, horribly,
of cancer. And here also, after the long anguish that followed, are the
years of Bacall remaking her life, redefining herself. Her career and her
emotional life have been more than ordinarily full of ups and downs. We see
her triumph in movies and on stage - one of the very few screen sirens to
become an equally great Broadway star. |
