Product Description

The epitome of grace, independence, and wit, Lauren Bacall continues to astound generations with her audacious spirit and on-screen excellence. Together with Humphrey Bogart she produced some of the most electric scenes in movie history, and their romance on and off screen made them Hollywood's most celebrated couple.

But when Bogart died of cancer in 1957, Bacall and their children had to take everything he had taught them and grow up fast. In a time of postwar communism, Hollywood blacklisting, and revolutionary politics, she mixed with the legends: Hemingway, the Oliviers, Katharine Hepburn, Bobby Kennedy, and Gregory Peck. She was engaged to Frank Sinatra and had a turbulent second marriage to Jason Robards. But Bacall never lost sight of the strength that made her a superstar, and she never lost sight of Bogie.

Now, on the silver anniversary of its original publication, Bacall brings her inspiring memoir up to date, chronicling the events of the past twenty-five years, including her recent films and Broadway runs, and her fond memories of many close lifelong friendships. As one of the greatest actresses of all time turns eighty, By Myself and Then Some reveals the legend in her own beautiful frank words -- encapsulating a story that even Hollywood would struggle to reproduce.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #584626 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-01
• Released on: 2005-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 512 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Raised by her wise and loving immigrant mom and uncle, Lauren Bacall (b. 1924) knew, even in high school, that she wanted to be an actress. She took acting classes, modeled clothes, sold industry papers in the theater district, ushered at shows, danced at the USO—anything to get a break. Barely 18 when director Howard Hawks brought her to Hollywood for a screen test, she soon fell in love with Bogart, married and started a family. After Bogart's death a decade later, she rebounded with Sinatra, but tied the knot with Jason Robards before finding her way as a single woman, with friends and work as her passion. Bacall's intimates—from Katharine Hepburn to Adlai Stevenson—weren't the standard air-kissing, gossip-column regulars, but people who loved and respected each other for their work and their values. Sadly, like Bogart, they're also of a generation older than Bacall, so there's a lot of dying in these pages. Indeed, this sequel to 1978's By Myself is mostly a discussion of the deaths of some great friends: Roddy McDowall, John Gielgud, Gregory Peck and many more. Bacall does discuss the roles she's played as an older actress, but this work's real theme is the experience of surviving the death of so many wonderful friends. Readers looking for basic Hollywood romance and drama can stick to the first 400 pages; those seeking a more mature portrait can brave the final 100. Either way, Bacall's a class act. Color, b&w photos. (Mar. 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
Reading about the life of Lauren Bacall reminds us of a time when women were defined so narrowly by their roles in the lives of men that their second-class status was taken as a matter of course. The culture celebrated the color of their hair (always blonde) and the shape of their bodies (36"-24"-36"), subsumed their identities in those of their husbands (Mrs. Humphrey Bogart) and assumed, because men did, that once they had lost their virginal glow, they also lost what little prestige went along with it.

These thoughts are occasioned by this new edition of By Myself, the autobiography Bacall wrote in 1979, along with a brief summary of her life since that book was published, entitled "And Then Some." Bacall, now 80, was born in an era when to be beautiful and bright was a contradiction in terms, when women did not go it alone (or if they did, were social pariahs), did not consider themselves marketable over 40, and were willing to stay in any marriage, no matter how bad, for the economic benefit and whatever social respectability went with it.

Bacall was amazingly successful in overcoming these received handicaps. It was not enough for her to stand around waiting to be noticed and duly snapped up by the best available male. With all the strength of her youthful ambition, she went after an acting career. She did more than just sigh about it. She trained. She worked as an usher in theaters. She sold papers on the street. She wangled introductions to producers. She modeled for Vogue magazine. And of course she was slim, beautiful and most emphatically blonde.

While still a teenager, she was put under contract by Howard Hawks, groomed for stardom and then carefully placed in just the right part, one that would exploit both her precocious self-assurance and her vulnerability. By Myself is the right title, even if she did not exactly do it all alone.

She clearly had a devoted and loving family. But she had one serious handicap, through no fault of her own: an absent, feckless, emotionally distant father. Perhaps it was inevitable that, during the making of her first film, "To Have and Have Not," she should fall madly in love with her co-star. He was a famous older actor who was, as Jack Miles wrote, "Hollywood's beau ideal of American masculinity." Beau he may have been, but Humphrey Bogart was far from ideal. He was working on his third marriage, to Mayo Methot, a promising actress who was disintegrating into chronic, ugly, violent alcoholism and taking him along with her.

Only a teenager could delude herself into thinking that she will heal an older man's wounds and bring happiness into his life simply by being there. The miracle is that their marriage in 1945 did more for Bogart, by common agreement, than anyone had a right to hope, including her. It's difficult to get a feeling for how their relationship worked from Bacall's account here. From the biography Bogart by A.M. Sperber and Eric Lax, one gets a clearer picture: "A friend described them as having 'a kind of Thin Man relationship. Very tart. Give and take. But done with a lot of warmth and humor. You got the feeling he adored her and she worshipped him.' "

As successful as their marriage was -- Bogart died of what one assumes to have been a cigarette-induced cancer in 1957 -- aspects of that relationship could not have been easy. Although "Bogie" moderated his drinking after he met "Betty" (her real name), he never gave it up, and there were still occasional wild and irrationally violent scenes. Like her father, he was sometimes emotionally out of reach. Both Bacall and Sperber and Lax refer to the period before their marriage when she would go to him and gleefully count off the remaining days and hours on her fingers. But only Bogart's biographers record his reservations, to Earl Wilson, the columnist: "That tigress, I have the feeling of a mouse that's going to be torn up by a rabbit."

Bacall, however, has begun to suspect that her single-minded drive may have had something to do with the disintegration of her decade-long second marriage, to Jason Robards Jr. -- by no coincidence another brilliant actor with a drinking problem who was even less dependable and more elusive than Bogart. She somehow realizes, as she tells the story, that she had been too anxious to dispel Bogart's ghost, too ready to find a new life, too eager to overlook the problems that were clear enough to her friends -- and besides, she was pregnant. (She had two children with Bogart: a son, Stephen, and a daughter, Leslie.) She hardly bothers to mention the fact that abortions were illegal in those days. And she cannot help, despite herself, being a child of her times, echoing the need "to belong" to someone, to subsume herself in the personalities and careers of her husbands even as she chafes against the nature of the role.

Bacall's autobiography should be read in conjunction with Sperber and Lax's book, published in 1977, because each sheds light on and illumines the other. From Bogart's biography, one has a better understanding of the mettle of a man who survived a hideous childhood and went on to become both a brilliant actor and a sensitive, aware and basically kind person. Bacall reveals herself as someone with the same kind of inner resilience and resourcefulness, even if the later pages of her book are shadowed by the loss of many people she has loved. And those who see her as a model of evolved womanhood, a questioning, self-realizing person who also understands the role she plays in the lives of her family and children, will find much to admire. She herself wrote, "The climb has been mostly upward, and I'm still climbing." What a treasure.

Reviewed by Meryle Secrest
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

From Booklist
Expanding on her best-selling 1979 autobiography, By Myself, Bacall entertains with her signature breathy prose, straightforward manner, and unmatchable style. The past is more elaborately drawn out, and the intervening 25 years add maturity and worldliness to this most respected of Hollywood icons. Much of what's discussed anecdotally in her 1994 book, Now, is delved into in more detail here. While readers will find Bacall's recollections of her days of hobnobbing with Bogart, Hepburn, and other stars of Hollywood's Golden Age as captivating as always, even more appealing are her personal stories--stories of family and single motherhood, of hope and tragedy. As a celebrity and as a woman, Bacall was always a bit more independent than the times usually allowed, but what shines through is her generosity and giving nature. She shares how her love for FDR and her travels to many foreign lands helped shape the bittersweet relationship she now has with the U.S., which, she feels, while making so many great strides toward inclusion and human rights, has also taken many steps backward in these and other areas. Certainly more intelligently written than your average celebrity autobiography, this memoir tells a fascinating story of one woman's journey through life with an intimacy that's sure to engage legions of readers. Mary Frances Wilkens
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Loved it! I loved her honesty and frank writing.
Ms. Bacall surprised me as an insightful, funny, real down-to-earth human being!
I always thought of her as this aloof ice-princess... tall, blonde, gorgeous, ethereal... marrying THE hunk of the day, having children by him, marrying Robards, more children, etc. But I was wrong. This is a real woman married as a child. Mr. Bogart truly fell in love with a mere child who grew up fast as a wife and mother and then was alone. Ms. Bacall describes the events following Bogart's death with incredible depth and realism. Those feelings are exactly what any young, widowed mother would feel. Especially being woo'd by Sinatra. I applaud her for being able to see he was not for her.

How can you not fall in love with this memoir? Such honesty is refreshing in a time when the comments from stars of the day are so censored and so carefully controlled. There's no honesty anymore, everybody's afraid to speak the truth. It's awful.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will recommend it to my four sisters and my Mother.

An Extraordinary Autobiography
I grew up with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall and one of the books I enjoyed as a teenager was the short biography of Mr. Bogart by Joe Hyams. One of my great pleasures was seeing Lauren Bacall in Applause when the show was touring in Chicago. I have not read Ms. Bacall's book about Humphrey Bogart but when I saw her being interviewed about her current book - By Myself and Then Some - I got a copy immediately,

The book is written in a conversational style that works very well. It is as if Betty Bacall were speaking to you, relating the story of her life. At first, I did not find quite as absorbing as I thought but as I began the story of her relationship and marriage to Humphrey Bogart, I could not put the book down. The story of Mr. Bogart's illness and death made me feel as if I had been a witness to his pain and suffering. I learned quite a bit more than I had even thought about "Betty and Bogie's" relationship and certainly much more about life with Jason Robards. I was very impressed on how Ms. Bacall was able to convey her emotions in her book. One comes away from the devastating deaths of Bogie and her mother with a real sense of the loss and the pain of her divorce from Jason Robards becomes your own. But there are also the triumphs, like Betty's winning her Tony award for Applause that are joyously written. I also enjoyed reading about her close relationships with her children and her devotion to them and the times that she wanted to do more. The stories Ms. Bacall relates about friends, like Roddy McDowell, are interesting and poignant, and in the latter case especially an introduction to someone I would like to have known.

It is disappointing to see that some reviewers gave this book one start because of Ms. Bacall's critical remarks about George W. Bush, which amount to a paragraph. Yet, again, we have an example of dissent being treated as disloyalty and someone's opinion being dismissed out of hand.

This is an honest autobiography, as one would expect from Ms. Bacall with not a boring page in it. There are many excellent photographs, many in color, that helps to add a family album qualtity to the book. If one has enjoyed her career on stage and screen you will want to have this book. Highly recommended.

the big sleep
A BIG disappointment for Bacall fans!!! Turns out this invitingly hefty tome *isn't* a sequel to "By Myself," her wonderful 1978 best-selling autobiography (or her early Nineties follow-up "Now")--just a reprint to which she's added a very cursory, if heartfelt, update covering the exceedingly gloomy highlights of her intervening years. (The new material, spanning more a quarter of a century, runs fewer than 80 pages. Bacall actually dispenses with an entire decade of her life--the Eighties--in less than five pages!) The end result comes across as a haphazard salvage effort, as if Bacall had agreed to write a full-scale follow-up she couldn't deliver. In keeping with this misguided tone, the publisher erroneously heralds this sorry effort as a "silver anniversary edition"--even though that momentous occasion passed two years ago! If you've never read Bacall's original book, you're still in for a treat: Just save yourself a bundle and score a copy of the earlier title at any thrift store.