Many film actors are smaller than ordinary people, but Bacall's energy blows light bulbs. She walked in the room and bellowed, "well that's the first time I've had to ride the elevator on my own," dripping with disdain, ready for a fight.
Hours later, I told her I'd had a miserable afternoon, she told me I looked like I was going to the electric chair. She had laughed at my opinion about some of her films, we had disagreed about Rock Hudson. She'd told me she's done many stupid things in her life and that she's never made a great film.
It was 100 degrees outside in downtown New York and the vitriolic, sublime dragon beside me, the woman with the sexiest wiggle in the world, the woman who said of vodka martinis "one is too many, two is not enough," told me that I had to take her to dinner each time I go to New York.
And therein in the indescribable strangeness of my job. In an afternoon, in the blink of an eye, this woman who had been part of the history of cinema for me, had become someone who might or might not be a drinking buddy. And I thought many things: Do I like her? Do I like how cool and detached she seems from things?
I am entirely unfazed by celebrity, even suspicious of those who have experienced it. It often blinds them to anything but themselves. Lauren Bacall was lucky in this regard. Her emigre family taught her to read the newspapers and keep her feet on the ground. Bogart taught her not to go to many parties, not to give too many interviews (hence my two year marathon), that all that publicity stuff is shit. And that seems to have been her armour. She and I talked of how her friend Judy Garland was crushed by the weight of the publicity machine. Bacall's conclusion? That the industry is awful, it's the medium that's great.
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