Lauren Bacall in Houston

[Sue Sue Applegate]

“To Have and Have Not”


She certainly has it. So did her husband, Humphrey Bogart, and their friends Spencer Tracy, and Katherine Hepburn. And Lauren Bacall told patrons Wednesday evening, March 11, at the Landmark River Oaks Theater how lucky she felt about having it—some sort of electricity, or photogenic quality, “but as Katherine Hepburn once said, ‘whatever it is, I’ve got it.’”

Lauren Bacall was the featured speaker in “A Film and Conversation” in the ongoing “The Brilliant Lecture Series” at the historic River Oaks’ venue at 2009 West Gray in Houston. Audience members were first treated to a screening of To Have and Have Not, the 1944 Howard Hawks’ film featuring Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan, Hoagy Carmichael, Sheldon Leonard, and in her first screen role, Lauren Bacall. Bacall arrived in a limousine a few moments after the film screening of To Have and Have Not began and stepped onto a brilliant red carpet as she held the leash to her puppy, who seemed as used to grand entrances as her owner.

Bacall sat near the back of the theater with international socialite Lynn Wyatt, Chairman Emeritus of The Brilliant Lecture Series, and viewed her first onscreen appearance with obvious joy, and fond memories as she laughed during certain scenes, and whispered confidences to Wyatt. The audience, an eclectic mix of first, second, and third generation fans, laughed and clapped at all the appropriate moments during the film. Bacall seemed especially fond of her moments on film when she chastised Humphrey Bogart for showering too much attention on another beautiful woman in the movie, Dolores Moran, who played Mme. Hellene de Bursac, the wife of a freedom fighter.

After the film, Wyatt ran to the stage to introduce Bacall, and then returned to escort her, arm-in-arm down the aisle to stage center. Program emcee Scott Brogan explained that Bacall would answer 9 questions, and ushers walked up and down the aisles with microphones so that audience members with questions could be heard.

One of the first audience members asked Bacall why she became so interested in acting, and she explained that she started dancing lessons at the age of three but soon realized that acting on the stage was her true calling. “If you want to learn, I think the theater is the greatest teacher of them all,” stated Bacall, “it teaches you to deliver the goods each evening, eight times a week.” Her success in the Broadway musical Applause in the early 1970’s validates her beliefs, but it was her first “walk-on” in Johnny Two By Four that still helps her remember how her initial bout with professional stage fright is still a painfully fresh memory.

Another patron broached the subject of her first husband, Humphrey Bogart, and she immediately launched into one of her most famous reveries. “Bogie and I just clicked, she claimed. “We had the same sense of humor. We were similar in many ways, and we each made the other laugh.” In lamenting that so many of her friends have passed away, she bemoaned the fact that “it’s so terrible that nobody’s around any more.”

Reminiscing about the filming of The African Queen in Africa with director John Huston, Katherine Hepburn, and Humphrey Bogart, Bacall reminds everyone that she wasn’t in the film, but she went to Africa for the filming of the epic movie. Her fondness for the beauty of Africa and “what it used to be” was obvious as she began recalling the night she and Hepburn woke up with red welts from an attack of soldier ants, the moment the boat The African Queen sank accidentally yet was still needed for more scenes, and every day how she prepared lunch and brought it from camp to the film set “somewhere in the African jungle.”

One young patron was obviously nervous and confused about her series of questions, and the quick-witted Bacall quipped “You’re getting off task, dear.” As the audience laughed and reveled in her comments, she kept smiling.

As for her favorite film actress, Bacall claims to be “an enormous fan of Bette Davis” because she could “do it all.” As for life? “Life is peculiar. I was lucky I had a goal.” Without her determination to work in the theater, Bacall feels that she would never have had the extraordinary life she was lucky enough to experience.

After her lecture, Bacall was treated to a private reception at the Wyatt estate which benefited Brilliant's youth leadership program.

Event Attended and Article Written by Sue Sue Applegate

[Professional Tourist]

Very interesting, Sue -- thank you for sharing this.

I did a quick google search and found some photos of the event. Ms. Bacall still looks great.

[feaito]

Thanks for the thorough account Christy and for sharing your experiences with us. It must have been thrilling to see a real star in the flesh!

[Sue Sue Applegate]

Thank you, feaito and professional tourist. My flash decided to quit working the moment she stepped out of the limo. I have some good shots, but they are not professional quality. Houston, the photographer for the "Brilliant" series, is a great guy, by the way, and all the photos of the event are his. (Much better than mine! )

AP photographer Bob Levy was also there. (But please follow the link to Houston's great photos of the event in professional toursist's post.)

I was standing to the right of the lobby doors during Bacall's entrance. Several folks had brought copies of her books, but there were no autographs or signings.

She did, however, take one photo with an audience member who was her namesake.

The print of the film was a little scratched in places, but it was so exhilarating to see that film
on the big screen. Bacall also seemed to enjoy hearing herself sing, and discussed how Hoagy Carmichael devised his "gimmick" of always chewing on a toothpick when he was onscreen during the filming of To Have and Have Not.

It was such a fun evening!