A terrific remembrance of the great Lauren Bacall

[hifiguy]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/13/the-legend-with-the-look-remembering-lauren-bacall.html

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. The Look

" ... famously so green that her legendary “Look”—chin low, eyes glancing up in a come-hither but still better-than-you stare—was born out of a need to stop her head from trembling. "

Lauren Bacall was the ideal postwar star—as sexy as any pin-up, but she was a woman’s woman at heart, a reminder in the age after Rosie the Riveter that a great woman is exactly like a great man, only better. She looked better, she sounded better, she wore better clothes, she could flirt better, sing better, walk better than every man she ever shared the screen with, including her husband, and he knew it. Even decades later, the timeless pleasure of those Bogie and Bacall duets is in watching a pair whose delight in themselves was only eclipsed by their delight in each other.

<snip>

Bacall was a working mother in a time when most women were at home, and after Bogart’s death she was maybe the most visible single working mother in America. She was a sex bomb without a backlash, an actress whose career outlived her youth, and a movie star whose life seemed as happy as it was interesting. If it took a while to realize just how unusual Bacall really was, well, it was probably because she was too tough to criticize and too cool to ever break a sweat anyway.

Lauren Bacall never needed hosannas to know she was great. But today, I’ve got a glass, a hand, a cigarette, a flag, a proto-feminist rallying cry, and a salute to raise for her anyway. Even if they never ask, all great artists deserve a little thanks.

[hifiguy]

3. If there is a straight man that look doesn't melt to a puddle

I have yet to meet him. Tough as nails, whip-smart and gorgeous. A great dame, as Bogie surely said. We won't see another Bacall.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

4. Times have changed ...

she was at the right time and place to achieve her own individual brand of meteor rise to stardom and fame.

... There will never be another Bacall.

and ... that is how it should be, I think.

I don't smoke but, watching those old movies ... I can see the appeal
... and in her honor I would Smoke One of these ... just one draw


and a sip of

[hifiguy]

5. Mmmmm. Fine Scotch.

My favorite after-dinner drink. Martini before, Scotch after.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. IKR

cheers ... I too, have been on a martini kick lately before supper

... but spiced rum afterwards

because I can not afford that Scotch

[Octafish]

2. Made ours a better world in every way.

"...she sprung from his mind onto the screen like Athena, fully formed and armed with an intellect entirely her own."