Lauren Bacall has died at the age of 89
Lauren Bacall has died at the age of 89 after suffering from a stroke at her home in New York.
Born Betty Joan Perske in Brooklyn, 1924, Bacall’s Hollywood career spanned over 70 years after she made her debut in To Have And Have Not, aged just 19, starring opposite her future husband Humphrey Bogart.
Her subtle performance and famous lines ‘You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow’ made her an instant star.
After marrying Bogart in 1945, the couple starred in three more films together; Key Largo, The Big Sleep and Dark Passage. They had two children, Stephen and Leslie, and were married until Bogart’s untimely death in 1957. She had a third child, Sam, in her second marriage to Jason Robards.
Bacall starred in over 40 more films, including How to Marry a Millionaire in 1953, with fellow icons Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable, and Murder on the Orient Express with Ingrid Berman and Albert Finney.
Her incredible sense of style, distinct husky voice and sultry eyes, made her one of the silver screen era’s most celebrated beauties. (See even more stunning images in the gallery above.)
Lauren famously exclaimed 'a man at last!' when she won an honorary Oscar in 2009, recognising her 'central place in the golden age of motion pictures.’ She had previously been nominated in 1996 for her role opposite Barbra Streisand in The Mirror Has Two Faces.
Tributes from former co-stars, friends and family have been flooding in since the news broke.
'What a terrible loss for us all,' Barbra Streisand said in a statement. 'It was my privilege to have known her, to have acted with her. And, most of all, to have had her as a wise and loving friend. She was an original. Even with all those great films we can visit again and again, she will be missed.'
