Lauren Bacall

Betty Joan Perske (September 16, 1924 – August 12, 2014), known professionally as Lauren Bacall, was an American actress. She was named the 20th-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema by the American Film Institute and was one of the last surviving major stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. She received an Academy Honorary Award in 2009 in recognition of her contribution to the Golden Age of motion pictures.

Bacall began a career as a model for the Walter Thornton Model Agency before making her film debut at the age of nineteen in To Have and Have Not (1944) as the leading lady opposite Humphrey Bogart, whom she later married. She continued in the film noir genre with appearances alongside Bogart in The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947) and Key Largo (1948) and she starred in the romantic comedies How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) and Designing Woman (1957). She portrayed the female lead in Written on the Wind (1956), which is considered one of Douglas Sirk's seminal films. She later acted in Harper (1966), Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and The Shootist (1976).

Bacall found a career resurgence for her role in the romantic comedy The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), for which she earned the Golden Globe Award and the Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for the Academy Award and the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress. During the final stage of her career, she gained newfound success with a younger audience for major supporting roles in the films Misery (1990), Dogville (2003), Birth (2004) and the English dubs of the animated films Howl's Moving Castle (2004) and Ernest & Celestine (2012).

In theater, Bacall made her Broadway debut in Johnny 2x4 (1942). She went on to win two Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Musical for her performances in Applause (1970) and Woman of the Year (1981). She also acted in the play Goodbye Charlie (1959), the farce Cactus Flower (1965) and Wonderful Town (1977). She made her West End debut in Applause (1970) followed by Sweet Bird of Youth (1985).