Lauren Bacall: The Queen of Cool

Film historian Uzarowski follows up his biographies of leading ladies Ava Gardner and Jessica Lange with an incisive sketch of film noir and Broadway actor Lauren Bacall (1924–2014). Bacall’s Hollywood career began after the wife of director Howard Hawks saw her modeling in Harper’s Bazaar, prompting a screen test that landed the 19-year-old the leading role opposite Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not. She went on to star in crime films like The Big Sleep and Dark Passage, developing a reputation as a sophisticated and sexy “ultramodern woman.” As Uzarowski writes, Bacall was capable even of “out-cooling” the ever-so-suave Bogart, whom she married in 1945. When Bogart died of cancer in 1957, Bacall, just 33, set out to prove to the industry she was more than simply “the most famous widow in Hollywood.” Uzarowski chronicles her turn to Broadway, where she won two Tony awards, and her continued relevance into the early 2000s, when she appeared in arthouse films like Lars von Trier’s Dogville and even voiced a character on Family Guy. Throughout, the author digs beneath Bacall’s cool facade, revealing her, at times, to be a nerve-wracked, insecure actor trying to prove herself. Film buffs will find much of interest here. (Feb.)