Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske, on September 16, 1924, in the Bronx, New York, to salesman William Perske and his secretary wife, Natalie. At the tender age of five, her parents divorced.
After Bacall graduated from Julia Richman High School in New York, she attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Bacall began working as a model and she also performed in some off -Broadway prdouctions. In 1943, film director Howard Hawks noticed Bacall when she appeared on a magazine cover. He gave her a movie contract. Her first film, was To Have and Have Not (1944)
opposite future husband Humphrey Bogart. Bogart and Bacall felt an instant attraction to each other. The happy couple married in 1945. The Newlyweds co-starred in three more films: The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948).
Bacall skyrocketed to stardom at the age of 19. Studio publicists dubbed her “The Look” after the sultry, come-hither way she glanced upward at the camera. This earned her a nod as the most sensational newcomer of 1944.
