Movie legend Lauren Bacall joins TCM host Robert Osborne for an episode of TCM's Private Screenings. In conversation with Osborne, Bacall recalls her colorful life and career, beginning with her days as a model for
Harper's Bazaar, which led in turn to a Warner Bros. contract and her first movie,
To Have and Have Not (1944). In addition to providing a sensational debut that had critics comparing her to Greta Garbo and Carole Lombard, the movie introduced Bacall to future husband Humphrey Bogart. "The romance was unbelievable," she says. "It was really fairy-tale time." She went on to make four more films with Bogart:
The Big Sleep (1946),
Two Guys from Milwaukee (cameo appearances, 1946),
Dark Passage (1947) and
Key Largo (1948). She reveals that she and Bogart had made costume tests for a planned film,
Melvin Goodwin, U.S.A., which they were unable to make because of the illness that led to Bogart's death, and the end of a story-book marriage in 1957.
Bacall reminisces about her relationships with Kirk Douglas, a friend from student days at the American Academy in New York and later her costar in
Young Man with a Horn (1950); Gregory Peck, the "stalwart, marvelous, marvelous man" who played opposite her in one of her rare comedies, the critically praised
Designing Woman (1957); and Katharine Hepburn, who admired Bacall because of her independence and lack of "airs."
Bacall also talks about her years as a star of the theater in such hits as
Cactus Flower and
Applause; and her book,
By Myself..and Then Some, a memoir updated to include the last 25 years of her life, including her ongoing film career with such contemporary associates as Barbra Streisand, Nicole Kidman and director Lars von Trier.
by Roger Fristoe
