| Acclaimed Actress Lauren Bacall & Famed Interviewer
Sir David Frost Come to Washington, D.C.
By Gregg J. Donaldson
Acclaimed Actress Lauren Bacall and famed Interviewer Sir David Frost, visited Washington, D.C., as part of the Greater Washington Society of Association Executives, (GWSAE) The Nation’s Capital Distinguished Speaker Series on March 1, 1999.
Actress Lauren Bacall graced the stage once again, and sat down for a candid 1 1/2 hour interview with Sir David Frost, spanning her life and career in the movies, stage and television, to a capacity-filled crowd at the Kennedy Center’s Concert Hall, Monday evening.
One of the hallmarks of Sir David Frost’s remarkable career is his landmark interviews. He has interviewed the six most recent U.S. Presidents, the five most recent Prime Ministers of Great Britain as well as many in the Royal Family and many other world leaders. However, Frost is no stranger to interviewing celebrities, the roster ranging from Orson Wells to the Beatles.
The audience was treated to brief clips of Ms. Bacall’s film career and an introduction of her by Jack Valenti, President and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, called Bacall “a friend of many years, Betty as she is known to her friends.” He then recalled a favorite story of Kirk Douglas’s emphasizing her kindness and generosity by him a coat to wear as he was leaving a party, because he had arrived in his shirtsleeves and it was cold outside. Valenti told the audience they were going to be in another picture together called, “Diamonds” and encouraged us to go see it when it is released. Their first was, “ Young Man With A Horn,” (1950).
Frost began the interview asking Bacall, “What was like being in a mini-series?” She just coming from playing Million-heiress Doris Duke in CBS’s Too Rich: The Doris Duke Story, her first one (which aired the last weekend in February). She answered, “I enjoyed the experience very much, although her life was very different and sad from how I grew up. Money has never one of my Gods,” she added.
A native New Yorker, she told Frost, how her Romanian mother raised her and imparted a strong work ethic. He asked, “Who is your heroine?” She said, “Betty Davis,” without hesitation. She then told stories of meeting her, first in high school, I was so nervous, I stammered. Then years later, when I was doing Applause, (a musical play about Margo Channing and All About Eve, (a role that Davis originated in the movie). “She came to see me backstage and as she left, she said ‘You’re the only person that could do it and you know I mean it,’” Bacall said.
The role gave her a Tony Award, a Sarah Siddons Award, a national tour, and her first year on the London stage, which garnered her an Evening Standard Award.
Always aspiring to act, she made her earliest forays into acting as a student at the New York School of the Theatre and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She also made a living briefly as a model. Although, she appeared in Harper’s Bazaar Magazine, and others, she said of modeling, ”I don’t think I was particularly good at it and it is hard to pose.”
The interview turned to her big break, her film debut in 1944. “To Have And Have Not,” with Humphrey Bogart and their relationship. “Was it love at first sight?” Frost asked. “No, Bacall answered, we would make each other laugh because he knew how nervous I was. It happened gradually.”
They also starred in such films as, “The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and John Huston’s Key Largo (1948).” They were married in 1945, and have two children Stephen and Leslie Bogart. She credits Bogart for teaching her much about life, show business and how to leave work, and keep it in the workplace. They also covered Bogart as a father and how they dealt with his cancer. “He was a wonderful father, he had a reputation of having a tough exterior, but he was a real softie,” she said of him lovingly.
She also said of her years with Bogart, “It was a romantic adventure.” As to his illness, you take your cue from the person that dealing with it. We never dwelt on it and tried to live each day fully,” Bacall said.
Ms. Lauren Bacall was also married to actor, Jason Roberts. They have one son, Sam. She has also written two best-selling books: her autobiography “By Myself” for which she won a National Book Award and “Now”. She spoke with forthright candor and seemed at first hard pressed, when asked, whom she admires today? She answered, “I like more foreign films, Roberto Benigni’s‘ Life is Beautiful,’ Sir Ian McKellen of ‘Gods and Monsters,” (She is pulling for him to win an Oscar). She likes Tom Hanks and admires the Redgrave sisters very much. She continued, “Actors used to under contract and there was a sense of family, today producers treat it as a business, they care more about money at the box office. I do admire Steven Spielberg, for making the films he wants to make,” she said.
Copyright (C) March 1999
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