Lauren Bacall

The International Museum of Photography is honoring the sultry-voiced Lauren Bacall with an award for her illustrious film career. Bacall will be given the George Eastman Award "for distinguished achievement in American film" at a fund-raising gala at the George Eastman House on Nov. 9. Previous recipients of the award include Gregory Peck, James Stewart and Lillian Gish.

A who's who of Hollywood -- Alec Baldwin, Warren Beatty and Steven Spielberg among them -- turned out Saturday night for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' 2009 Governors Awards. The academy bestowed its honorary awards during a three-hour-plus ceremony at the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland on 85-year-old actress Lauren Bacall, who made her film debut opposite Humphrey Bogart in 1944's "To Have and Have Not"; noted cinematographer Gordon Willis, 78, who brought new meaning to shadow and light in such classics as "The Godfather" trilogy; and maverick 83-year-old producer-director-writer Roger Corman, who excelled in making stylish films on a shoestring budget while giving up-and-coming directors such as Francis Ford Coppola and Jonathan Demme their start.

"I just wanted to have everything," Lauren Bacall says more than once in Part 1 of this autobiography, "By Myself," first published in 1978.

"I just wanted to have everything," Lauren Bacall says more than once in Part 1 of this autobiography, "By Myself," first published in 1978.

The voice--deep, sultry, dripping with its intriguing combination of classiness and moxie, allure and independence--has been triggering things in our psyche for more than half of this century. At the heart of it, when Hollywood still ruled our dreams, the voice was entwined in the "Bogie and Baby" legend. "You know how to whistle, don't you?" Lauren Bacall, Baby, asked Humphrey Bogart in "To Have and Have Not." In that film, her first, they met and fell in love--on and off screen.

If there's a heaven and Diana Vreeland made the cut, she's up there smiling. The legendary fashion editor "gave me my first break," says Lauren Bacall, herself alive and well with forearms dripping thin gold bracelets. More than half a century after she modeled for the cover of Harper's Bazaar, thus launching a film career, Bacall is playing a character inspired by Vreeland in Robert Altman's "Ready to Wear," which opened Sunday.

Lauren Bacall, who once met wealthy heiress Doris Duke, plays her in a miniseries featuring, of course, a butler.

"Hollywood is the only place in the world where an amicable divorce means each one gets 50% of the publicity." --LAUREN BACALL

Honors for Bacall: Lauren Bacall will be a prime honoree at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's 50th annual Golden Globe Awards banquet on Jan. 23. The group announced Monday that Bacall has been chosen to receive its Cecil B. DeMille Award for her "outstanding contribution to the entertainment field." Robert Mitchum was last year's winner.

This is one of the most enjoyable nespaper films ever made, maybe because the writer-director Richard Brooks used to be a newspaperman. Humphrey Bogart (picuted) is a beleaguered but scrupulous editor and Ethel Barrymore is his publisher. The rapport between these two should have kept Lauren Bacall awake nights.

The voice--deep, sultry, dripping with its intriguing combination of classiness and moxie, allure and independence--has been triggering things in our psyche for more than half of this century. At the heart of it, when Hollywood still ruled our dreams, the voice was entwined in the "Bogie and Baby" legend. "You know how to whistle, don't you?" Lauren Bacall, Baby, asked Humphrey Bogart in "To Have and Have Not." In that film, her first, they met and fell in love--on and off screen.

Lauren Bacall, who once met wealthy heiress Doris Duke, plays her in a miniseries featuring, of course, a butler.

Since receiving a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination last year for "The Mirror Has Two Faces," Lauren Bacall confesses she hasn't "had a decent offer of a movie." "They are not writing wonderful parts for women," Bacall says with a husky sigh. "That is the sad truth. They were certainly not breaking down the doors for me, anyway." So Bacall is checking into CBS' "Chicago Hope" tonight for a two-episode guest stint.

Five decades after Humphrey Bogart left his hand- and footprints in the wet concrete of Mann's Chinese Theatre's courtyard in Hollywood, sticky homage was again paid to him in the same spot Thursday. With a blast of multicolored confetti, a brass band and Bogie's widow and children in attendance, the Bogart postage stamp was unveiled in a red-carpet ceremony. The third issue in the U.S.

You have to admire Mayor Riordan as a guy who welcomes a diversity of opinion. In the reception area of his office there's a giant photo that shows a smiling Riordan at the start of a bicycle race with a couple hundred other pedalers suitably attired in helmet, tight pants, etc. Most of the competitors are waving in a friendly manner to the camera, with the exception of one black-bearded bicyclist off to the side. This scruffy fellow is giving a one-fingered salute.