This blog is dedicated

This blog is dedicated to Nancy, who gets it.

Lauren Bacall

Lauren "Betty" Bacall put her lips together and blew out enough smoke to pollute both Los Angeles and New York combined. Her throaty rasp occasionally lent itself to a tune or two, most memorably on Broadway in Applause and Woman of the Year. But the movies gave her a chance to warble as well.




In To Have and Have Not, she crooned "Am I Blue" (with Hoagy Carmichael) and "How Little We Know." This was the first film she would make with Humphrey Bogart. Notice his expression while watching her sing in the video below. It was love at first sight.


Then, decades later, came The Fan. A stalker thriller that was turned into a slasher, mostly in post-production, leaving Bacall cold when publicity time rolled around. According to The Terror Trap she disowned the film due to its amped-up violence. And trailers at the time had a disclaimer denying any connection to the John Lennon assassination, which happened between filming and release.



The flick also boasted several musical numbers (with Bacall as the centerpiece) written by Marvin Hamlisch and Time Rice. Can the dame sing? You decide. One thing's for certain: she's got the "raw" factor.