Tuesday, August 12, 2014


Betty Joan Perske, who was born in Brooklyn to Polish immigrants from Poland and Romania, died at 91.

Who?

The woman who made these movie lines famous:
“You know how to whistle, don't you? You just put your lips together and . . . blow.”

Lauren Bacall oozed that to immortality in “To Have and Have Not,” her movie debut with Humphrey Bogart, her future husband and father of two of her children -- Stephen Bogart, named after Bogart’s character in the film, and Leslie Bogart, a daughter named after the actor Leslie Howard.

Lauren and Humphrey were married at the Malabar Farm home of Bogie’s friend, writer Louis Bromfield, in Lucas, Ohio. Bogart was 45, Bacall 20.

The last of their five movies together was “Key Largo” in 1948, the title of Bernie Higgins’ 1981 song with the famous lyrics: “We had it all, just like Bogie and Bacall.”

After Bogart died in 1957, Bacall married and divorced Jason Robards.  They had a son, actor Sam Robards.


To read the New York Times obituary of Lauren Bacall, click on http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/13/movies/lauren-bacall-sultry-movie-star-dies-at-89.html

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