I didn't know Lauren Bacall was Jewish

Maybe it was because she always referred to Passover as "Fancy Feast".

Her real name was Betty Joan Perske.

My favorite part of Passover is when it's over.

Amirite?

She was just Betty to me

Her mother's name was Natalie Weinstein-Bacal, which she later shortened to Bacal. After she was divorced, she didn't use her ex-husband's name, and Betty also went by the name Betty Bacal, or Bacall, which was changed by Howard Hawks to the stage name, Lauren Bacall.

FLAVAH!

She's a must see in SHOCK TREATMENT

Was she Jewish in that one?

she played Dr. a Beighley

Her other daughter in "The Mirror Has Two Faces" (the beautiful one) is a half-Jewish Scientologist.

She was a great actress.

^The half-Jewish scientologist, or Lauren Bacall?

I read somewhere once that she didn't (at least in her early career) make it known in Hollywood. People sometimes told her she "didn't look Jewish" which I think was a sore spot for her. I also don't believe Lauren was religious whatsoever—just ethnically Jewish.

My paternal grandmother somewhat resembled Bacall, especially in her older age, and even sounded a bit like her too (similar voice, husky and deepened by smoking). Her ancestry was almost entirely Swedish. Conversely, my maternal grandmother from Russia actually did have some Eastern European Jewish ancestry, and had traits more akin to the stereotypical "Jewish" look. I think the point is there is not really a concrete "Jewish" look, and most of the assumptions people make about Jews (or non-Jews) from appearance alone are based on long-held stereotypes, which are useless.

I give you LOX....not BAGEL!!!

Remember, she started her career at the height of World War II.

Just put your lipowitzes together and blowstein.

She got her husky voice from driving into the canyons of Los Angeles and reading aloud. She would holler the words into the canyon. Howard Hawks thought her voice was way too high and she needed to lower it, and this was the way it was recommended that she do it. The book she read (or screamed) aloud was "The Robe," by the way. This can all be found in her autobiography.

(But do we really need yet another Lauren Bacall thread? Seems like we have one every couple of months.)

Some Israeli Prine Minister was a cousin, was it Perez?

I think Nehemiah Persoff was also related to her somehow.

Interesting, r17. I assumed the voice resulted from smoking

R20 It may have, at some point, who knows? But there were many actors and actresses who smoked (like Bogart) who didn't have particularly husky voices. Many people smoked--my parents smoked (they both quit, eventually) but they didn't have husky voices

I think it matters how much one smokes a day and for how long, booze and High Point don't help neither. Of course it is more noticeable in women.

Joan Crawford smoke and drank a lot and she had a beautiful speaking voice even when she was older.

Anyway, Bacall had a deep voice. It wasn't rough or really "husky". And she didn't have as deep a voice as Barbara Stankwyck's.

(When Barbara was 40+)

R17 I personally love the Bacall threads and don’t mind so many. Something interesting always comes up with her. It’s DL catnip.

It's a fact that regular smoking and drinking will deepen the voice with time as it makes the vocal cords less limber, but this also happens naturally with age irrespective of smoking/drinking. Lana Turner smoked and drank herself to the point of throat cancer, and her voice still never deepened to the extent of Bacall's. I think it's true that Lauren just had a naturally deep voice to begin with.

R27 Your make good points, except she didn't have a deep voice to begin with. Her voice was so high, Howard Hawks needed her to deepen it (as I just wrote, above).

The wonder of the genetic crapshoot. Some people die younger with a fraction or none of the hard living, bad loving, smoking, drinking, bad diet, etc. of debauched peers.

I never found that drinking or smoking in any way affected my voice.

So was Leslie Howard, OP.

[quote] Your make good points, except she didn't have a deep voice to begin with. Her voice was so high, Howard Hawks needed her to deepen it (as I just wrote, above).

Celebrities often write a lot of nonsense in autobiographies. It's hard to see that that practice would give her a permanently lower voice. She may have had a deep voice to begin with and did an Elizabeth Holmes thing to make it sound even deeper.

She seemed to pretend to be Judy’s BFF during the highlights of her career.

Did she really start her affair with Sinatra while Bogie was dying?

Other vintage female stars who qualify for this theme: Piper Laurie, Stephanie Powers, Tina Louise.

STEFANIE!! R35

She didn't "pretend" to be friends with Judy Garland, they actually were good friends.

I assume most hollywood actresses are jewish unless stated otherwise.

People think of "The Rat Pack" as the Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis crew, but they were really an off-shoot of the original Rat Pack consisting of Humphrey Bogart, Bacall, Judy Garland and Sid Luft, and their Hollywood party pals.

Lauren Bacall had such an interesting career and life:

She was THE femme fetale in several film noirs, then married Bogie and focused on their family. After he died, Hollywood treated her coldly, so she moved to New York City and later London to reinvent herself. She found success on her own as a celebrated stage actress.

In her memoir, she said the only Hollywood actor to treat her kindly after Bogart died was Gregory Peck. In London, Betty befriend the likes of Alec Guinness, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, and Laurence Olivier.

She was a tough old Jewish broad who was resilient and could handle herself.

[QUOTE]After he died, Hollywood treated her coldly, so she moved to New York City and later London

What was this about? Was she a raving bitch even back then?

r41 Hollywood was a small town back then. Many preferred his first wife, an actress. Then the Frank Sinatra situation....

I will never forget the story Michael Biehn told about giving Lauren flowers when they first met on the set of "The Fan". She basically gave him the cold shoulder, and he later watched from a distance as she threw the flowers in the trash. I know she was a no-nonsense broad who probably didn't appreciate that kind of fawning "you're a LEGEND!" flattery, but there are more civil ways to handle a situation like that. Betty was never concerned with being nice. On one hand, I appreciate her brand of stubbornness to an extent, but on the other hand, the rudeness was often just too much.

Back in the day, Jewish women were notorious for being nasty bitches.

- Leona Helmsley, The Queen of Mean (a.k.a. Lena Mindy Rosenthal)

She loved Bette Davis but her husband (like Davis, a huge star at Warner’s) hated her.