The “Insolence” of Lauren Bacall

When Lauren Bacall was 17, she modeled for a season for the designers on 7th Avenue. By her own admission, she was not very good at it. Here is what she said, when she came to do a seminar at my school:

“I was flat-chested and very skinny. The clothes of that time just didn’t look good on me.”

She happened to meet a man during this time who arranged an introduction with Diana Vreeland, legendary fashion editor of Harper’s Bazaar at the time.

Diana Vreeland saw something in the teenage “Betty”. Now it is obvious that Vreeland saw what it was in her that would captivate an audience. She saw the “star”, the star that was already there.

So Vreeland put Betty Bacall on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar. The photo was taken in 1941 or 1942, and she was standing in front of a huge Red Cross. It is an arresting image. She looks like what models look like now. Think of the runway models now – how they stalk right at you – with this flat blank “Yeah, this is who I am” stare. That was what Bacall looked like on that cover.

Slim Hawks, wife of the famous film director Howard Hawks (who directed “Bringing Up Baby” with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn – one of my favorite movies of all time – and which was the basis for another one of my favorite movies of all time – “What’s Up Doc?”) saw the photo of Betty Bacall and showed it to her husband.

“What do you think of her? Do you think you could do something with her?”

He was relatively unimpressed (or so he said) – but the picture made enough of an impression on him to ask her to come out to Hollywood for a screen test.

Just a general test. In those days, they just put actors under contracts. You were under contract to one studio – yes, they could loan you out to other studios – but the studios controlled actors lives. There’s a story in the book I just read (The Making of Casablanca) that describes Bogart pleading with Jack Warner to let him have two weeks off in between films. Warner told him, “No way. We need to start on such and such a date.” Imagine a studio-head treating Tom Cruise that way!! Bogart was the biggest star of his day and he had to beg for a vacation!

Betty Bacall came out and did her screen test.

Howard Hawks became a bit obsessed with Betty. He had a fantasy about women, and a fantasy about how they should be on screen.

Bacall went into this iwhen she came and talked at my school.

This is a paraphrase of what she said:

“Hawks had an ideal in his head, of what women should be. He knew that when you are playing a dramatic scene, it is customary that your voice rises. He didn’t want that. He always wanted, no matter how dramatic the circumstances were, that my voice should stay in the lower register. He felt that women – in scenes with men – should not behave like women, but they should behave more like men. And answer back. Be completely equal to the man. Which was, of course, unheard of at the time. And he came to see me as the epitome of that fantasy. He wanted me to be the mystery woman, the girl who could not be pegged.”

Someone asked Bacall:

“So he wanted someone who could be as tough as Bogie?”

Bacall immediately corrected the assumption:

“Not tough. Not tough. Insolent. He wanted me to give as good as I got.”

Hawks immediately put Betty Bacall under contract. It was just a matter of time before he found the right material for this strange skinny insolent teenage girl. That film, of course, was To Have and Have Not

But before that came along – Hawks was very careful about her. He wanted her to maintain a sense of mystery and power. She was not just another starlet. He wanted to orchestrate her career- which he ended up doing – brilliantly.

Here is how Bacall described one of her conversations with Hawks. It epitomizes, beautifully, how so often we do not know what is best for us. It is only in retrospect that we understand.

Hawks said to me, ‘I have a feeling that you would be great in a movie with either Cary Grant … or Humphrey Bogart.’ And I thought to myself, ‘Ooooooh, Cary Grant! That sounds like a good idea!!

One last thing about Bacall:

When she came to my school, she said to us that she had spent the majority of her life “quaking in fear”. Hard to imagine, but true. At every step along the way, she had huge obstacles to overcome – of fear, shyness, self-confidence problems … She was terrified to meet Diana Vreeland. She was terrified to meet Howard Hawks. She was terrified of what would happen to her after Bogie died. She was terrified to star in “Applause” on Broadway – the musical version of All About Eve (she ended up winning the first of two Tonys by the way)

Her fear, at times, was so great that her head would actually shake back and forth a bit, in a slight tremor.

The only way Bacall found to stop this tremor – was to lower her chin. Keep her chin low. No matter what. This became known as “her look”. Her signature look of insolence and strength of character.

But it all originally was just a solution to stop her fearful shaking head.

Courage. Survival.