Lauren Bacall

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this edition of Desert Island Discs. Whilst we're off air over the summer we're sharing some of the gems from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen seventy nine, and the presenter was Roy

Presenter0:35

Our castaway this week is a star of Hollywood movies and of the New York and London stage. It's Lauren Bacall.

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Miss Bacall, how important is music to you?

Presenter0:45

Oh, well music is very important. How did you set about choosing this miserable ration of eight records?

Lauren Bacall0:47

How could

Presenter0:52

It is a miserable ration,'cause you there are so many more things. I just thought that I would like to hear different sounds. Uh I would like a variety. Right. Where do we start? What's the first one?

Presenter1:06

Ella Fitzgerald singing Isn't It a Pity by George and Ira Gershwin. Why'd you choose that one particularly? Well, I love the whole Gershwin songbook that uh that Ella recorded and that

Presenter1:18

has always been one of my most favorite Gershwin songs.

Presenter1:22

I love the way she does it.

Presenter1:26

Here we are at last.

Presenter1:30

It's like a dream.

Speaker 21:32

The two of us are perfect team Isn't it a pity?

Lauren Bacall1:44

Yeah.

Lauren Bacall1:45

Yeah.

Speaker 21:45

We're never back.

Lauren Bacall1:45

We're never back.

Lauren Bacall1:47

Before

Presenter1:53

Ella Fitzgerald, isn't it a pity?

Presenter1:55

Now, you're a Brooklyn girl and you became stage drunk. Can you track that back to any particular event?

Presenter2:04

No. I I don't consider myself a Brooklyn girl, funnily enough. I lived there for five years, but I was brought up in New York, uh, in Manhattan.

Presenter2:14

And I cannot track it back to anything except that it seems to me that as long as I can remember.

Presenter2:21

I guess I wanted to be something that I wasn't. You went to the movies a lot, as you know. I went to the movies a lot, and I first wanted to be a dancer.

Lauren Bacall2:25

I went to the

Presenter2:29

Uh, ballerina. What about the theater? Did you go to the theater as well? Well, I went to the theater a couple you know, once or twice, but the theater was a little beyond me because it was too expensive.

Presenter2:39

And uh the first play I ever saw was John Gilgood in Hamlet.

Presenter2:44

Not a bad introduction. Oh, and that that no, not a bad introduction at all. And that absolutely did me in. I mean, I was I was so moved by it, even though I was really very, very young.

Speaker 32:44

Not a bad introduction.

Presenter2:57

That I I remember bumping into people as I was leaving the theater. I was really dazed. Did you see yourself as a dancer more than an actress? No. I saw my I mean, I I first wanted to be a ballerina, and then of course I realized at a very early age

Presenter3:11

That's with the help of uh of a pronouncement of a famous Russian teacher named Michael Mordkin who had been a a dancer.

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That I really didn't have the feet for it. I was just in constant pain when I was on point. No Margot Fontaine, I.

Presenter3:27

Now you went to the American Academy of Dramatic Art, but money ran out after only one year.

Presenter3:33

When you left, were there any jobs going?

Presenter3:36

Um, well, no. I mean, I was hoping they'd give me a scholarship, but they needed they needed young men more than they needed girls, so they, uh they gave the scholarships to the males, I'm afraid.

Presenter3:47

Um no, I just started to to look for work and then I went went into modeling because I had modelling on Seventh Avenue because I had to make some kind of money. And the usual things of up and down the agent stairs and auditions. You had one good idea to sell theater papers outside a theatrical restaurant, outside Sardis. Yes. So that your face got sort of familiar. That shows that I was crazy from the very beginning, doesn't it?

Lauren Bacall4:04

So the trophy.

Presenter4:09

That I was just determined that I was going to be noticed as I was going in and out of those producers' offices, pounding pavements, looking for work.

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And I decided that I was not just going to be one of the actresses that was just oh, yes, come back tomorrow or come back next week or whatever and I said they're going to remember me somehow differently and I

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prevailed upon the um the man that published Actors Q, his Actors' magazine, giving tips as to what was being cast, and I sold it outside of Saudi's during my lunch hour. I would come up from the garment center,

Presenter4:39

Rush into Walgreens, get the actors' cues, stand in front of Sardis, and buttonhole anyone that I recognized at all, hoping they would never forget me.

Presenter4:48

Well, you were a theatre usher, what we'd call a programme seller here, but in civilized New York they don't charge for programmes, and you were such a very good theatre usher that you were given the notice by one of the critics.

Presenter4:58

Oh, well, yes, George G. Nathan, who I I made quite a production of it. I mean, that was my part, you understand, and I was standing there and I would always at the interval I would say, No smoking, please and I would give this delivery, playing all kinds of I don't know what dramas. But he was he was very sweet. He used to once a year he wrote the bests and worsts of the year.

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And I was in the best column, fortunately, as the prettiest usher, he thought, at the Saint James' Theatre. Man of great taste.

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What was the first time you walked a stage professionally?

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Uh in a play called Johnny Two by Four.

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In which I had what I called an outstanding walk-on. I mean, to anyone else, a walk-on is a walk-on, but to me, if you walked on the stage in three acts, which I did, each of the three acts,

Presenter5:45

To me that was outstanding'cause I was given extra stuff to do. Of course. You see. And the first line you spoke, what was that in?

Presenter5:52

The first line I spoke was in a play called Franklin Street, which was directed by George S. Kaufman and produced by Max Gordon, one of the men I buttonholed outside of Sardis. Opened in Wilmington, Delaware, and where did it go from there? And it went to Washington from there and down the drain after that. Sad luck. Yes. So it was back to modeling for a bit. So then, yes. But then I was fortunate in that I was able to get into photographic modeling and thereby hangs a tail. We'll get to that tail in a minute. Let's have record number two. What's that to be?

Presenter6:23

That is to be

Presenter6:25

Rachmaninoff playing his own piano concerto number two in C minor, conducted by Leopold Stokowski.

Presenter6:34

Because I'll it's just beautiful.

Presenter7:35

An excerpt from the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto in C minor with the composer at the piano.

Presenter7:42

Now you were back to modeling, but this was rather superior modelling. This was photographic modelling. Yes, well this was the big money, you see. I mean for me, ten bucks an hour, that was not what we say in America, hey.

Presenter7:56

Now, of course, they get $500 an hour. I don't know, but I mean, it was $10 an hour then. That's a lot of money.

Lauren Bacall8:00

And

Presenter8:02

And how? And Harper's Bazaar? Now, there was a cover picture for Harper's Bazaar that is part of this tale that hangs on photographic modelling. Thereby, yes.

Lauren Bacall8:09

Photographic model.

Lauren Bacall8:11

Yeah.

Presenter8:12

Uh

Presenter8:13

Tell me about this cover.

Presenter8:15

That was a

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Blood donor standing in front of a of a of a Red Cross door with blood donor marked on it. This was war time. Yes, wartime we used to give uh everyone was prevailed upon to give a pint of blood or a quart, depending upon how much you could spare.

Lauren Bacall8:21

This was water.

Presenter8:29

Anyway, that kind of cinched my um

Presenter8:33

My position in Hollywood uh unbeknownst to me, you understand. I mean, Slim Hawkes, who was then married to Howard Hawkes.

Presenter8:40

had seen my photograph in other Harper's Bazaars, and then she saw the cover and

Presenter8:45

She just thought that I was worth looking at. She told Howard and So off on the train to California. How old were you?

Presenter8:52

I was seventeen.

Presenter8:53

So there there were tests and all that sort of thing. Oh yes. There was a lot of waiting though, I'll tell you, before the tests. Was there a long process of grooming and teeth straightening and all the rest of the shenanigans?

Lauren Bacall9:03

Oh no, T.

Presenter9:06

No, when I went for my test for my contract, of course, I was taken to Perce Westmore at Warner Brothers, and Perce Westmore sat me down in front of a mirror and looked at me and said, Well, now if we tweeze your eyebrows, make a thin line like Dietrich's, then we straighten your teeth, then we do something with your hairline. I thought, Oh, I was panic stricken, rushed to the phone to call Hawkes, said, Oh, they're going to change everything. Please, please come down, help, help. And he came down and he said, No, Perce, leave her just as she is. I want the crooked eyebrows, I want the crooked teeth, the crooked hair, the crooked everything.

Presenter9:38

And that's what he got. The real McClure. Yeah.

Presenter9:41

Were you broken in easily by playing bits and pieces at the studio? No, not at all. No. I was uh no, I was tested for a contract first, and I played a scene from a play called Claudia.

Presenter9:53

which Howard directed. And as a result of that test,

Presenter9:57

He signed me to a personal contract.

Presenter10:00

And then before I was put into to have and have not, which was, mind you, lap dissolve of some months, nigh unto a year,

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had to test for that so that Jack Warner

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Who owned the studio could give his approval and also buy half of my contract in order for him to allow me to play in the film.

Presenter10:23

So straight away a starting part

Presenter10:25

Opposite Humphrey Burgard. Were you a fan of his? Was he one of your favorite? No. No. I mean, I knew he was a good actor, but he was not my type. I didn't think.

Presenter10:37

He'd already had, of course, terrific successes, petrified Paris, Casablanca, whatever.

Presenter10:42

Now, during the shooting, you and Bogart fell in love and and you stayed together in a number of pictures. The big sleep from uh

Presenter10:50

Raymond Chandler. Nice story about the big sleep that in the middle of it the producer had to ring Raymond Chandler and ask who did the killing because who pushed Owen Taylor off the pier? That was funny. Yes, Howard did that, yeah.

Lauren Bacall10:57

Yeah.

Presenter11:02

That was fun. Bogie walked in one day and said, Howard, who pushed Owen Taylor off the pier? Oh, now let me see, he said, I don't know. Couldn't figure that out. The big sleep was

Presenter11:14

Was uh quite a mystery. Yeah. But it was terrific. So you became Mrs. Burgott. How many films did you do together?

Presenter11:21

Altogether four.

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And I haven't been in that many more, actually. I mean, I have been in more, but maybe about fifteen.

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Your third record, what's that to be?

Presenter11:35

Sir John Gilgood reading a sonnet from Ages of Man

Presenter11:40

Because I have seen the production of Ages of Man, I saw it several times, because I love John Gielgud on the stage and personally.

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And because it's it is a record of such variety that on that island.

Presenter11:54

I could go from youth to middle age to old age and I could let my imagination

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Run wild.

Speaker 312:01

I love to hear her speak yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound I grant I never saw a goddess go My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground And yet, by Heav'n, I think my love as rare As any she.

Speaker 312:19

Belied with false compare.

Presenter12:24

Sir John Gielgood. Now you were launched with a a terrific publicity barrage wi with your first picture. The look. And there you were looking sexily from under your eyelids. Whose idea was that? I mean, was th this was the studio's

Presenter12:39

Rather desperate thing. How are we going to launch this girl? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You've got it all wrong.

Lauren Bacall12:42

Yeah.

Presenter12:46

It wasn't the studio at all, it was Howard Hawkes. But it also was because I was a nervous wreck and because I used to shake.

Lauren Bacall12:49

But

Presenter12:53

All the time. Now I only shake some of the time.

Presenter12:57

But in order to keep my head still I discovered that if I held my chin down I was able to keep my head a bit steadier. And then I looked up at Bogart and

Presenter13:09

That became the look. That combined with Howard Hawkes' placement of the camera and angle and all of that, and then he decided that he liked it, and that's the way we did it.

Presenter13:20

But that was Howard, that wasn't the studio.

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Did you find the great Jack Warner who took half your contract and had to have give approval of everything did you find him a very difficult man?

Presenter13:30

I found him very difficult and not great.

Presenter13:34

Right, that sums him up.

Presenter13:37

Now the other Hollywood films you made without Humphrey Bogart. I loved How to Marry a Millionaire.

Lauren Bacall13:42

I loved how to

Presenter13:45

And I I enjoyed Woman's World very much. I liked my role in it.

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I liked uh

Presenter13:53

Well kind of like Young Man with a Horn, some of it.

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I adored Designing Woman, that probably is my favorite film.

Presenter14:01

And uh I loved Murder on the Orient Express. Yes. I haven't been in that many films, you know. I have not been in that many good ones, certainly, and I haven't been in that many alt altogether. You had the extreme misfortune to lose your husband. Did you stay on and live in Hollywood, or did you go back to make films after that?

Presenter14:18

Oh no, well I went back to make a film after that. I stayed on for

Presenter14:24

Oh, I guess just under two years, and then I really couldn't hack it any more.

Presenter14:31

I mean, I just didn't feel that I belonged there any more.

Presenter14:34

So I came to England.

Presenter14:35

and then went back to New York because I was offered a play.

Presenter14:39

And that gave me a reason to go to New York.

Presenter14:42

And I had my two young children with me, so I it's uh

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It takes a while, you know, to try to

Presenter14:50

organize your life again so that you know that you have one.

Presenter14:55

We've got to record four. Watch that.

Presenter14:57

That is

Presenter14:58

Moskowski's Etude in A-flat played by Vladimir Horowitz.

Presenter16:04

Horowitz playing Moskovki's Etude in A flat. You play the piano?

Presenter16:09

No, I studied my my sweetmother.

Presenter16:12

did what many mothers do and that is she she gave me lessons and I learned to play By the Spring by Mendelsohn and I played it over and over nine thousand times and that's all I ever could play.

Presenter16:24

Because I hated practicing.

Lauren Bacall16:24

Yeah.

Presenter16:27

As you said, you went back to the theatre, and at last a starring part on Broadway. But uh it didn't work all that well, that first. The first one, no. But it gave me a taste of the theater, which was my first love. And

Presenter16:43

Also, I um

Presenter16:46

I mean, I knew I could I could sense that I functioned well on the stage and I really loved it. And it w gave me a reason to go back to New York, of course.

Presenter16:54

And that changed my life. That was Goodbye Charlie. That was Goodbye Charlie by George Axelroth.

Lauren Bacall16:54

And that

Presenter17:00

who was a great friend of mine, and still is.

Presenter17:03

And the next play was a a much better proposition altogether. Yes, the next play came uh a few years after that, was Cactus Flower. A French play? A French play, translated by Abe Burroughs and directed by Abe Burroughs. It had been a great success in France and it was a booming success in New York. And it was my first hit, and it was wonderful. How long did you play it?

Presenter17:27

I played it two years non-stop with one week's holiday in between. I was oh, I thought it was my finish. And then an even more exciting success, your next stage venture. Yes, applause. Applause based on all about Eve and you played the Betty Davies part. Yes, you see. Your life does come back to haunt you, doesn't it?

Presenter17:50

Betty Davis was the first movie actress you ever met, is that right?

Presenter17:54

Oh, yes, yes. And she was my

Presenter17:57

Great heroine. She was my imagination, my fantasy, that big screen, all those p dark victory and all that so dramatic. Oh, so wonderful.

Presenter18:07

And um

Presenter18:09

To finally be be playing a musical version of the part that she created, uh was very curious. I mean, made me feel very strange. That was a good long run, too. That was a very good long run. That took up five years of my life, including the American Tour.

Presenter18:25

Broadway and London. You you played in London for, what, about a year? Yeah. I mean, I I played that part too long. It made me really gaga. I was crazed by by the end of it.

Presenter18:38

And you stayed on here for a film, one you've already mentioned, Murder on the Orient Express, one that you liked. So you've got a new film coming up.

Lauren Bacall18:43

F.

Presenter18:45

Yes, called health.

Presenter18:47

uh to be directed and produced by Robert Altman, and in it will be Yor Glenda Jackson and Carol Burnett and James Garner.

Presenter18:57

And I play, so Robert Altman tells me, an eighty three year old virgin.

Presenter19:03

Which I think is

Presenter19:06

Wonderful.

Presenter19:10

Where are you making it? In Florida. Well, at an old folks' uh hotel.

Presenter19:15

Lord.

Presenter19:16

Oh, I don't know. But I mean

Presenter19:19

I mean, I you know, when you say yes to Robert Alban, you say terrific.

Presenter19:22

Uh and whatever he says is what you what you do because he's uh

Presenter19:27

I mean, I'm just thrilled to be working with a man that has that much talent. A new vista.

Presenter19:33

Right, record number five. Where have we got to?

Presenter19:36

We have got to Brom's violin concerto.

Presenter19:40

Played by Isaac Stern, a friend of mine.

Presenter19:44

and conducted by Eugene Ormondy.

Presenter20:37

An excerpt from the Brahms violin concerto in D, Isaac Stern with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormondy.

Presenter20:45

Now, you've written a book. Yes, I have indeed. And you wrote it all yourself, no foolish. All by myself.

Lauren Bacall20:47

Yeah.

Lauren Bacall20:52

That is cool.

Presenter20:56

A very emotional book. At times I I found it unbearably sad book.

Presenter21:00

Really? I hope you laughed though, all the time. I mean I wanted people to laugh.

Speaker 221:02

Some of the time.

Lauren Bacall21:03

Why would we

Presenter21:05

It's a long book. How long did it take you to write? It's not as long as I wrote, I can tell you.

Presenter21:10

Aren't you glad that someone has been caught?

Lauren Bacall21:12

It's been caught.

Presenter21:14

Uh it took me over three years to write. Do you plan to write another?

Presenter21:19

I would love to be able to write another. No, I can't write another autobiography, right? So I have to think of something else. But I mean, it's too early. I ha I have to enjoy this one first.

Presenter21:29

I would love to be able to write again, because I th I love writing.

Presenter21:32

Another record.

Presenter21:33

Now we have Noel and Gertie. We have them playing a scene from Red Peppers. Why'd you choose that one?

Presenter21:42

I think it's such fun. I mean, I love the whole record, but I just think that is uh

Presenter21:47

Just terrific fun. And I I knew Noel very well. He was a good friend of mine. And I uh

Presenter21:53

I just love to hear him do it.

Lauren Bacall21:55

Right.

Presenter21:58

What's to be done with a drunken sailor, so the saying goes. We're not tied for an anti-broiler's cot, I don't suppose. We lost our way, and we lost our pain, to make the thing complete. We've been and gone and lost the blooming fleet.

Presenter22:13

Has anybody seen our ship? The HMS peculiar

Presenter22:17

Been on shore for a month or more, where we see the captain which you get what for?

Speaker 322:21

He home the horties, sing glory, and in

Presenter22:24

Red Peppers from The Night at Eight Thirty, Noel Card and Gertrude Lawrence. Now, Desert Island Problems, are you a practical lady?

Presenter22:33

Could you look after yourself?

Presenter22:35

Well, I always thought I was practical, but I don't know. Are you an open-air type? Do you like

Presenter22:41

Yes, I love the I love the out of doors, but I mean on a desert island that's it. You'd better love the out of doors. Where else do you go? You've done a fair amount of sailing, of course. Yes, I have, but I mean, that's not going to help me on a desert island. Well, if some kind of craft or a raft became available, would you try to escape?

Presenter23:00

I think if I could not see land anywhere, I don't know if I would. I don't think I would probably. I think I'd just rot.

Presenter23:08

On this island.

Lauren Bacall23:08

Yeah.

Speaker 323:08

Where the fuck?

Lauren Bacall23:08

Ellen

Presenter23:09

Well, you have another record to rot to. What would you want to do?

Lauren Bacall23:13

Yes.

Presenter23:14

Oh well, uh this one I'm writing to Nat King Cole just because I like Nat King Cole.

Presenter23:23

Why you keep fooling little cold cats?

Presenter23:31

Making fun.

Presenter23:34

Of the ones who love you

Presenter23:41

Breaking hearts you are ruining little coconut

Presenter23:50

Nat King Cole, which leaves you with just one record, one more.

Presenter23:55

Watch that to be.

Presenter23:57

That is Giacomo Puccini's Laboème, The Love Duet.

Presenter24:03

between Rudolpho and Mimi, sung by Placido Domingo and Montserrat Caballet. And you can hardly do better than that.

Lauren Bacall24:22

Let's receive it.

Lauren Bacall25:02

Uh

Presenter25:14

The love duet from the end of Act One of Puccini's La Boème, Placido Domingo and Montserrat Caballe.

Presenter25:21

If you could take only one of

Presenter25:23

The eight discs you played for us, which would it be?

Presenter25:27

That's a dirty trick, I know. Taking seven of my records away from me. You are mean.

Presenter25:34

Well, I suppose, as I would have to hear a voice.

Presenter25:39

And I don't think I could listen to the music over and over again as much as I love it.

Presenter25:43

I think I probably would have to choose The Ages of Man. John Gilgood's The Ages of Man. And one luxury to take to the island with you.

Presenter25:52

I thought some suntan lotion. Of course. I mean, overexposure, we know, is bad. It'd have to be a very large bottle, though. Certainly as many as you like. Oh, good. Oh, thank you. You're so generous.

Speaker 326:01

Good, I'll say

Speaker 326:03

So generous.

Presenter26:05

And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare.

Speaker 326:07

which are already on the island and we put the bar up on big encyclopedias.

Presenter26:12

Oh, we did. Uh I think as of this moment I would probably choose the stories of John Cheever.

Presenter26:20

Because John Cheever, I don't know if you're familiar with him, I'm not, but he is, I think.

Lauren Bacall26:23

They are not

Presenter26:25

Our greatest American Writer. This is a collection of short stories of his that has um just been been published in America.

Presenter26:33

And it's a wonderful, I mean, great cross-section of twenty years or thirty years of his writing.

Presenter26:40

Short stories of John Cheever, and thank you, Lauren Bacall, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Presenter26:46

And thank you for taking seven of them away from me. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 227:00

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.