Lauren Bacall Speaks

— Has your marriage affected your work in the art?
— No, not at all. I have worked, and still work, with devotion at my profession; indeed, my husband supplies me with the guidance he acquired in the long years he spent working in the cinema.

— Has your marriage reduced the number of your admirers?
— I do not know; and in any case the Gallup institute, of world-wide fame, has not taken the trouble to conduct a poll on the number of my admirers before my marriage and after it, so that we might know.

— Do you owe your success and fame to skill, or to luck, or to beauty?
— I say luck, without hesitation; but beauty also has a part in the success of many women — even though there are girls in Hollywood who are considered marvels of beauty and yet do not work in the cinema. I should not be far from the truth if I said that luck enters in to the extent of fifty percent, while the other fifty goes back to skill, beauty, and hard work.

— What was the moment that played the leading role in your life?
— It happened when my picture was published in the American fashion magazine "Vogue" and my husband saw it; he brought me to Hollywood, where one of the roles was entrusted to me, and from that day began my march along the road of fame and success.

— Is there a story that changed the course of your life?
— I know many girls who try to deny or conceal the turning point in their lives which lifted them suddenly from the depths to the heavens of fame and brilliance, because they do not wish to go back to the memories of a painful, harsh past. As for me, I rarely forget that event which lifted me to the heavens of fame — and it is, as I have told you, the publication of my picture in the fashion magazine "Vogue."

— Have you ever regretted working in the cinema?
— No; my private life has never been affected by my work in the art, for our work means a great deal to my husband... and to me.

— What is the happiest moment of your life?
— The happiest moment of my life was when Humphrey Bogart and I decided to marry; and the happiest hours of my life of all are those I spend with my husband in a corner of our country house or on the deck of our little yacht "Santa," on a short trip for fishing or for rest.

— And what was the most awkward of moments?
— The moment I stood for the first time before the camera.