Lauren Bacall, who died yesterday at 89, was more than a movie star. The sultry icon of Hollywood glamor also conquered Broadway, appearing in numerous shows on the Great White Way and winning two Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Musical, for Applause (the stage adaptation of "All About Eve") in 1970 and for Kander and Ebb's Woman of the Year in 1981.
She also starred in Goodbye Charlie, Cactus Flower and Wonderful Town. In 1985 she triumphed in London with Sweet Bird of Youth. And she won two Sarah Siddons Awards for work in Chicago theater.
In her movie career she received one Oscar nomination, not for any of her famous noir films with husband Humphrey Bogart but for her supporting role as Barbra Streisand's mother in the Streisand-directed "The Mirror Has Two Faces" (1996). She received a Golden Globe for that performance.
In 2010 Bacall received an honorary Academy Award recognizing "her central place in the Golden Age of motion pictures."
Among her many other accomplishments were two memoirs--one of which won a National Book Award--and the Kennedy Center Honors in 1997.
But like so many actors of her time and ours, the very beginnings of her career took place in the theater.
Born Betty Joan Perske, Bacall studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, worked as an usher while in high school, became a fashion model to pay the bills, and appeared in plays on and off Broadway.
Her Broadway debut came in 1942, at age 17, as a walk-on in Johnny 2 X 4. The Internet Broadway Database lists her in the cast as "Betty Bacall."
Before her Hollywood breakthrough in 1944 in "To Have and Have Not," at the urging of Howard Hawks she changed her first name as well. One reason for the name change was to de-stress her Jewish heritage.
A resident for many years of the Dakota, the famous building overlooking Central Park in Manhattan, Bacall died Tuesday morning of a stroke. She leaves behind a lasting legacy on screen, and a distinguished career on stage as well, especially in New York, the city of her birth and of her death.
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