During Hollywood’s Golden Age, Lauren Bacall brought charisma and boldness to the screen in classic films like To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep and How to Marry a Millionaire. Given her marriage to Humphrey Bogart, Bacall was just as well known for her personal life as she was for her performances, but her screen presence, particularly in the four films she starred in with Bogie, was undeniable.
When Bacall passed away at age 89 in 2014, Hollywood lost one of its few remaining Golden Age legends. Up until the very end, Bacall was a beacon of intelligence, beauty and grit. Here are 10 great Lauren Bacall quotes that capture her singular personality.
1. “Stardom isn’t a profession, it’s an accident.”
Bacall was well aware of just how much chance played into stardom, given that she was famously discovered when the wife of director Howard Hawks spotted her as a then-unknown teen model on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar in 1943, and she never forgot where she came from.
2. “I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that.”
Bacall, who got her start as a model, had a refreshingly positive attitude on aging, and though she got famous very young, she embraced getting older and wiser.
3. “Imagination is the highest kite that can fly.”
The actress understood that imagination is something to be cherished, and she never lost her creative spark.
4. “A life without humor is no life for me. I think humor is essential.”
While the star was associated with sultry roles, she always maintained a sense of humor, delivered with her inimitably deep, gravelly voice.
5. “There are a lot of people who don’t like me at all, I’m very sure of that. But I wasn’t put on earth to be liked. I have my own reasons for being and my own sense of what is important and what isn’t, and I’m not going to change that.”
Bacall always stayed true to who she was, and unlike many of her Hollywood peers, she didn’t care about being a people-pleaser.
6. “If there was one thing I had never been, it was mysterious, and if there was one thing I had never done, it was not talk.”
Bacall often had a mysterious aura onscreen, but she shared that in her offscreen life, she was far less aloof than the characters she played.
7. “Everything in this country has got to be good looks and unlined faces and thin bodies and people running around in skirts slit up to their ass. It has nothing to do with thinking or with being a human being. There is life in mature people; it’s not all over at 24½.”
The actress saw right through the superficiality of Hollywood and understood that with age comes wisdom and perspective.
8. “Facing a situation head-on was the only way to deal with anything. I learned the lesson early.”
While it’s not always easy to tackle one’s problems directly, Bacall knew that it was a necessity in life.
9. “I fairly often have thought how lucky I was. I knew everybody because I was married to Bogie, and that 25-year difference was the most fantastic thing for me to have in my life.”
Bogart and Bacall’s relationship started in scandal. When they met during the filming of To Have and Have Not, the actress was just 19, while he was 45 and still married to his third wife. The couple ended up overcoming these obstacles to have a storybook romance, and were married from 1945 until his death in 1957. Many decades later, Bacall still looked back at her marriage with adoration.
10. “Young people, even in Hollywood, ask me, ‘Were you really married to Humphrey Bogart?’ ‘Well, yes, I think I was,’ I reply. You realize yourself when you start reflecting—because I don’t live in the past, although your past is so much a part of what you are—that you can’t ignore it.”
While Bacall admitted that it was often hard being seen as Bogart’s wife first and an actress second, she also realized that it wasn’t productive to hang onto past grievances, and fully owned all the ups and downs of her past while finding joy in the present.
