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Friday, September 16, 2011

Happy Birthday, Lauren Bacall!

Yes, yet another birthday post this week! Earlier we celebrated Claudette Colbert's birthday, and today we shall be celebrating the birth of yet another lovely lady: Lauren Bacall.



Lauren Bacall is one of the last stars of the Golden Age we are still lucky to have with us! She is turning 87 today.

A nice way to celebrate her birthday would be to write a review for "By Myself and Then Some", her autobiography, wouldn't it? Unfortunately, I have not finished the book in question yet. I started it some time ago and it's quite embarrassing for me that I haven't finished it, because I'm usually a fast reader and fly through books (not to sound arrogant). However, I have been reading one other book at the same time (I like to read one fiction and one biography at the same time, but it's harder than it looks to alternate between the two!), and between that and school....

However, I must say I do like it so far. I hope to have a review for it by the end of this month - and I swear. I WILL FINISH IT.

Anyway, back to Lauren. I'm learning some great new things about her (as well as discovered some real nice pictures which I think I will scan for my book review post) because of her autobiography. Like, for example--
  • She met Bette Davis when she was a teenager. (I AM SO JEALOUS!)
  • You know her famous "The Look" (pictured above) was created? She was an avid trembler (yeah, I know that's not a word). But seriously, she trembled a lot, at least according to her autobiography. Whenever she was nervous. To avoid doing so in her screen tests, she'd press her chin down to make it stop and look up. It's wonderful to know that big stars like Lauren got nervous, too.
  • The book in question won the National Book Award in 1980. So Lauren's a wonderful writer, too!
And now, some photos I love.


I really like this one -- Lauren is behind the camera, for once!


I cannot even tell you how much I LOVE this photo. I just can't express it. And, also: How can you not love Lauren by just looking at this photo?


This is just cool. Like Lauren.

I know that Millie over at Classic Forever (if you haven't subscribed, where have you been?) already shared these amazing home movies that were filmed at the homes of big stars like Roddy McDowall and Rock Hudson (with visitors like Paul Newman and Natalie Wood and of course Lauren). I also got a comment from one of my readers leaving me the link to these, and they truly are amazing. This one features Lauren and so that is why I have shared it, but go to Soapbox and Praeses, the Youtube channel home of these lovely clips, for many more with several other stars. But for today, here's Lauren! 


Before I leave, I've got a question to ask my fellow Bloggers: How do you add a GIF into Blogger? I made a GIF of some Lauren photos for this particular blog, but with no avail was able to upload them even though Blogger clearly states it accepts GIF files. I have seen them on other blogs and have been trying to catch up with the crowd, though I'm sure I would still post some or most photos the old fashioned way even if I do figure it out. Anyway, if you can just leave me your comments and let me know how to do it if you know how, I'd really appreciate it. You all are the best!

That's all.  TCM will be showing several of Lauren's movies today, so you can stop in to watch "Key Largo" or perhaps "Dark Passage" or whatever else suits your fancy. ;) Have a good one, Lauren! 

PS: I know I promised the key to the "Here's Looking at You, Kid" game on Monday, a full week since I orginally posted it. Well, it totally slipped my mind, I hope you forgive me! I'll post those tomorrow - promise. ;)

PSS: This also the two month anniversary of my blog!! :)

3 comments:

Tom said...

are you having the same trouble with JPG images or just GIF?

Rianna said...

No, JPG is fine, it only seems to be GIF that's giving me trouble.

Anonymous said...

I just discovered your wonderful blog and spent Sunday reading it as they say cover to cover...Where are you? No updates ?

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