best known for roles in films like To Have and
Have Not and The Big Sleep, has died at the age
of 89.
Bacall suffered a massive stroke Tuesday morning
at her home in Manhattan, a family member told
TMZ, which first reported the news. The
Humphrey Bogart estate then confirmed the news
with a tweet: "With deep sorrow, yet with great
gratitude for her amazing life, we confirm the
passing of Lauren Bacall."
Known for her husky voice and her May-
December romance with actor Humphrey Bogart,
Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske in the Bronx.
She made her acting debut as a walk-on in a
Broadway performance of Johnny 2x4 at age
17, but it was her performance opposite Bogart
in To Have and Have Not two years later, in
1944, that saw her emerge as a Hollywood leading
lady.
In her 1979 biography Lauren Bacall By Myself,
the actress chronicled her quick rise to fame at age
19 after being spotted on the cover of a fashion
magazine in 1943 by the wife of director Howard
Hawks, who then cast her opposite Bogey in the
film.
Her 11-year marriage to Bogart—the two wed in
1945 at Malabar Farm in Ohio when she was 20
and he was 45—was cut short when he died at age
57 in 1957, but many of her most popular films,
including The Big Sleep, Dark Passage, and Key
Largo featured the pair acting together. After his
death, Bacall married Oscar-winner Jason
Robards in 1961, but the pair divorced in 1969.
In 1982, Bacall was awarded the Cecil B. DeMille
Award for Career Achievement from the
Hollywood Foreign Press Association. In 1996,
she received her only Oscar nomination for her
performance as Barbra Steisand's mother in The
Mirror Has Two Faces. She didn't win, but she
was awarded an honorary Academy Award
several years later, in 2009, "in recognition of her
central place in the Golden Age of motion
pictures."
Bacall was also a talented stage performer,
earning two Tony Awards for her performances
in Applause (1970) and Woman of the Year
(1981).
Bacall is survived by her three children, Stephen
Bogart, Leslie Bogart, and Sam Robards.
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