Lauren Bacall was barely 20 when she made her Hollywood debut with Humphrey Bogart and became an overnight sex symbol. Their romance on and off screen made them Hollywood's most celebrated couple and together they produced some of the most electric scenes in movie history. But when Bogart died of cancer in 1957, Bacall had to find a way of living beyond the fairytale and ironic way she had evolved. In a time of post war communism, Hollywood blacklisting and revolutionary politics she moved with the legends: Hemingway, the Oliviers, Katharine Hepburn, Bobby Kennedy, an engagement to Frank Sinatra and a second turbulent marriage to Jason Robards. Now at 80, BY MYSELF AND THEN SOME brings her story up to date including her recent films and Broadway runs, fond memories of her children and many close lifelong friendships, not least the greatest love of her life, Humphrey Bogart.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Raised by her wise and loving immigrant mom and uncle, Lauren Bacall (b. 1924) knew, even in high school, that she wanted to be an actress. She took acting classes, modeled clothes, sold industry papers in the theater district, ushered at shows, danced at the USO—anything to get a break. Barely 18 when director Howard Hawks brought her to Hollywood for a screen test, she soon fell in love with Bogart, married and started a family. After Bogart's death a decade later, she rebounded with Sinatra, but tied the knot with Jason Robards before finding her way as a single woman, with friends and work as her passion. Bacall's intimates—from Katharine Hepburn to Adlai Stevenson—weren't the standard air-kissing, gossip-column regulars, but people who loved and respected each other for their work and their values. Sadly, like Bogart, they're also of a generation older than Bacall, so there's a lot of dying in these pages. Indeed, this sequel to 1978's By Myself is mostly a discussion of the deaths of some great friends: Roddy McDowall, John Gielgud, Gregory Peck and many more. Bacall does discuss the roles she's played as an older actress, but this work's real theme is the experience of surviving the death of so many wonderful friends. Readers looking for basic Hollywood romance and drama can stick to the first 400 pages; those seeking a more mature portrait can brave the final 100. Either way, Bacall's a class act. Color, b&w photos. (Mar. 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Expanding on her best-selling 1979 autobiography, By Myself, Bacall entertains with her signature breathy prose, straightforward manner, and unmatchable style. The past is more elaborately drawn out, and the intervening 25 years add maturity and worldliness to this most respected of Hollywood icons. Much of what's discussed anecdotally in her 1994 book, Now, is delved into in more detail here. While readers will find Bacall's recollections of her days of hobnobbing with Bogart, Hepburn, and other stars of Hollywood's Golden Age as captivating as always, even more appealing are her personal stories--stories of family and single motherhood, of hope and tragedy. As a celebrity and as a woman, Bacall was always a bit more independent than the times usually allowed, but what shines through is her generosity and giving nature. She shares how her love for FDR and her travels to many foreign lands helped shape the bittersweet relationship she now has with the U.S., which, she feels, while making so many great strides toward inclusion and human rights, has also taken many steps backward in these and other areas. Certainly more intelligently written than your average celebrity autobiography, this memoir tells a fascinating story of one woman's journey through life with an intimacy that's sure to engage legions of readers. Mary Frances Wilkens
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
37 of 41 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I grew up with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall and one of the books I enjoyed as a teenager was the short biography of Mr. Bogart by Joe Hyams. One of my great pleasures was seeing Lauren Bacall in Applause when the show was touring in Chicago. I have not read Ms. Bacall's book about Humphrey Bogart but when I saw her being interviewed about her current book - By Myself and Then Some - I got a copy immediately,
The book is written in a conversational style that works very well. It is as if Betty Bacall were speaking to you, relating the story of her life. At first, I did not find quite as absorbing as I thought but as I began the story of her relationship and marriage to Humphrey Bogart, I could not put the book down. The story of Mr. Bogart's illness and death made me feel as if I had been a witness to his pain and suffering. I learned quite a bit more than I had even thought about "Betty and Bogie's" relationship and certainly much more about life with Jason Robards. I was very impressed on how Ms. Bacall was able to convey her emotions in her book. One comes away from the devastating deaths of Bogie and her mother with a real sense of the loss and the pain of her divorce from Jason Robards becomes your own. But there are also the triumphs, like Betty's winning her Tony award for Applause that are joyously written. I also enjoyed reading about her close relationships with her children and her devotion to them and the times that she wanted to do more. The stories Ms. Bacall relates about friends, like Roddy McDowell, are interesting and poignant, and in the latter case especially an introduction to someone I would like to have known.
It is disappointing to see that some reviewers gave this book one start because of Ms. Bacall's critical remarks about George W. Bush, which amount to a paragraph. Yet, again, we have an example of dissent being treated as disloyalty and someone's opinion being dismissed out of hand.
This is an honest autobiography, as one would expect from Ms. Bacall with not a boring page in it. There are many excellent photographs, many in color, that helps to add a family album qualtity to the book. If one has enjoyed her career on stage and screen you will want to have this book. Highly recommended.
The book is written in a conversational style that works very well. It is as if Betty Bacall were speaking to you, relating the story of her life. At first, I did not find quite as absorbing as I thought but as I began the story of her relationship and marriage to Humphrey Bogart, I could not put the book down. The story of Mr. Bogart's illness and death made me feel as if I had been a witness to his pain and suffering. I learned quite a bit more than I had even thought about "Betty and Bogie's" relationship and certainly much more about life with Jason Robards. I was very impressed on how Ms. Bacall was able to convey her emotions in her book. One comes away from the devastating deaths of Bogie and her mother with a real sense of the loss and the pain of her divorce from Jason Robards becomes your own. But there are also the triumphs, like Betty's winning her Tony award for Applause that are joyously written. I also enjoyed reading about her close relationships with her children and her devotion to them and the times that she wanted to do more. The stories Ms. Bacall relates about friends, like Roddy McDowell, are interesting and poignant, and in the latter case especially an introduction to someone I would like to have known.
It is disappointing to see that some reviewers gave this book one start because of Ms. Bacall's critical remarks about George W. Bush, which amount to a paragraph. Yet, again, we have an example of dissent being treated as disloyalty and someone's opinion being dismissed out of hand.
This is an honest autobiography, as one would expect from Ms. Bacall with not a boring page in it. There are many excellent photographs, many in color, that helps to add a family album qualtity to the book. If one has enjoyed her career on stage and screen you will want to have this book. Highly recommended.
46 of 55 people found the following review helpful
By F.Faulkner
Format:Hardcover
Ms. Bacall surprised me as an insightful, funny, real down-to-earth human being!
I always thought of her as this aloof ice-princess... tall, blonde, gorgeous, ethereal... marrying THE hunk of the day, having children by him, marrying Robards, more children, etc. But I was wrong. This is a real woman married as a child. Mr. Bogart truly fell in love with a mere child who grew up fast as a wife and mother and then was alone. Ms. Bacall describes the events following Bogart's death with incredible depth and realism. Those feelings are exactly what any young, widowed mother would feel. Especially being woo'd by Sinatra. I applaud her for being able to see he was not for her.
How can you not fall in love with this memoir? Such honesty is refreshing in a time when the comments from stars of the day are so censored and so carefully controlled. There's no honesty anymore, everybody's afraid to speak the truth. It's awful.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will recommend it to my four sisters and my Mother.
I always thought of her as this aloof ice-princess... tall, blonde, gorgeous, ethereal... marrying THE hunk of the day, having children by him, marrying Robards, more children, etc. But I was wrong. This is a real woman married as a child. Mr. Bogart truly fell in love with a mere child who grew up fast as a wife and mother and then was alone. Ms. Bacall describes the events following Bogart's death with incredible depth and realism. Those feelings are exactly what any young, widowed mother would feel. Especially being woo'd by Sinatra. I applaud her for being able to see he was not for her.
How can you not fall in love with this memoir? Such honesty is refreshing in a time when the comments from stars of the day are so censored and so carefully controlled. There's no honesty anymore, everybody's afraid to speak the truth. It's awful.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will recommend it to my four sisters and my Mother.
26 of 30 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Put aside your expectations; this is not your typical star autobiography
July 30, 2005
By C. Keene
Format:Hardcover
Everyone has their preconcieved ideas & expectations of someone as famous as Lauren Bacall. Put them aside for a day or two while you read this book, for Lauren Bacall let's you see inside her PERSON; she shares an intimate portrait of a life. She will be the first one to admit the luck (and gratitude)she feels, to have shared her life & enduring friendship with people who to all of us are only icons. As with her own life, her friends are those whom we've only glimpsed in their public personnas. We have seen them and devoured their movies and their "private life" in the arena of the world press.
Lauren Bacall shares her life, her fears, her triumphs, loves and friends with you in a setting so personal, so intimate, that you feel you actually share a kinship with them as you read this autobiography. That is the great thing about this book. She puts herself out there for you to care about or not, she offers no apologies for any choices she has made.
From the time she was a small child growing up in New York, Betty (her real name) knew she wanted to be an actress. She was the child of an immigrant family from Romania and an American father who was absent from her life totally, to all intents and purposes. Her mother tried to love her enough to make up for any lack on his part, and her mother's family were devoted to loving and caring for her too. So surrounded by love but little in the way of worldy goods, she turned to her inner strength and her imagination. Some of that inner strength came from not having a father, but knowing he was "out there somewhere", but did not care about her, some of it came for the poverty and want she experienced in her childhood. Both her reserves of inner strength and determination would serve her well throughout her entire life to the present day. She is now 80 years old as this book ends and very much her own strong and inspirational woman.
She was "discovered" by Howard Hawks who saw her modeling in an ad for the Red Cross which ended up on the cover of Harper's Bazaar Magazine. As was the case in those days of the studio system, she was brought to Hollywood and groomed to portray a certain kind of woman, a fantasy of Howard Hawk's design. No one really cared back then, who you really were on the inside, they tried to mold you into a hot commodity. Bacall, an innocent, had entered into the "star system" of glamourous & smoldering sexuality and contractual servitude.
In the same sort of way as what happened to Orson Welles, her first picture thrust her into the straosphere of stardom on the screen and into the imagination of the American people. She reached a pinnacle while still in her youth. Yet Lauren Bacall managed to make for herself a lasting and lifetime career of spectacular achievement, not even dreamed possible by female actresses of the time from that luminous beginning. She is still making films, has starred on Broadway & stages of the world (both in musicals and dramas), acted on live television, appeared in mini-series', and written a remarkable book. In her tenacity she will try anything (despite her fears and insecurities) and that attitude has served her very well.
Before going to Hollywood, she had put herself "out there" countless times in her attempts to make her dreams & ambitions become reality. She had the courage to try anything and to put herself in the right place at the right time. Well before she ever was brought to Hollywood, she made what would be some of the most lasting friendships (and connections) in her life. She knew Burgess Meredith, John Carradine, Diana Vreeland, George S. Kaufman and many, many others from those golden days of Broadway in New York. They shared a mutual respect for one another, trusted one another and loved their chosen vocation.
During the making of her first movie, she met and fell in love with Humphrey Bogart. He was married at the time to a self destructive and viciously jealous alcoholic (who died after Bogart & Bacall were married). Bogart was resigned to spending the rest of his life in a loveless marriage with this woman because he felt her owed it to her to stick it out, no matter what.
Although surrounded by true friends, Bogart hungered for a more fulfilling life. When he fell in love with Bacall, he could not help himself from feeling that she was what he needed to fill the emptiness his personal life had become.
Lauren Bacall writes honestly and lyrically about their love and their life together. She marries Bogie and gives him a home and children and all the love he could ever need. He gives her a life of undreamed glamour and luxury and entree' to a world she'd only fantasized about. He shares honestly with her his way of dealing with those who wish to use you toward their own ends. He teaches her the "ropes". He lives in honesty and pragmatism. She learns survival from him. Their marriage was a meeting of two forces of life; they fought and drank (he did) and loved and settled down together to make a home. Bogart finally seemed to have it all; the love of a woman he adored and considered his equal, two beautiful children, and a welcoming home that was always open to friends and family.
Their 10+ years together are the stuff of Hollywoood legend but beneath that legend, that hype, Bacall lets us really see into their home and their relationship. She lets us share in Bogart's courage and the heartbreak of his decline and his death
She let's us see what happens when they find out that Bogart has cancer. (It's so interesting to read now of how little there was available back then in the field of medicine and how lucky we are to be livng in this age of rapidly emerging medical research). Back then, cancer was almost always a death sentence, no one ever came right out and said that out loud though. Cancer also carried a stigma in those days and it was kept quiet. Bogart did not feel that way about it. Together they bravely fought it with whatever the medical world could offer (little) and also let the world know he had it. It could have ruined his career but we'll never know. He and Lauren Bacall fought the good fight and lost. Bogart became an enduring legend. Lauren Bacall had to move on and fashion a life for herself. In order to do that, she had to move away from being identified as "Mrs. Humphrey Bogart". If she couldn't do that, she would live in his shadow forever. She took the treasure of what would be the greatest love of her life and carried on toward her own fulfillment as an actress and a woman.
On page 303 of her book, Ms. Bacall says, " I want whoever reads these words to have a sense of Bogie-what he was, the personal mark he left on many varied lives". Her portrait of him is so successful on that front that you feel her loss (and that of everyone else who loved him) acutely.
After the death of Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall is left a widow with two small children and a $500,000 legacy. What she does with her life from here on out is of her own sense of determination and guts.
Although the book was written more than 25 years ago and recently reissued with another chapter of her life since then, it remains fresh and fascinating. You will find her inspirational and accessable. I read the book the first time it came out those many years ago and read it again this time with just as much relevence, joy and anticipation. Her life resonates on many levels and it is filled with the genuine kind of friendships we wish we all had. Of course, few of us will be in a position to know people intimately and as fascinating a Tracy and Hepburn or the multitude of others in the "biz" whose names she drops. We will have to be content to read a book like this one; a book that is insightful and honest. Ms. Bacall is an outstanding writer and chronicler of her own life. I wish she would write fiction too. I have a feeling she'd be great at it!
Lauren Bacall shares her life, her fears, her triumphs, loves and friends with you in a setting so personal, so intimate, that you feel you actually share a kinship with them as you read this autobiography. That is the great thing about this book. She puts herself out there for you to care about or not, she offers no apologies for any choices she has made.
From the time she was a small child growing up in New York, Betty (her real name) knew she wanted to be an actress. She was the child of an immigrant family from Romania and an American father who was absent from her life totally, to all intents and purposes. Her mother tried to love her enough to make up for any lack on his part, and her mother's family were devoted to loving and caring for her too. So surrounded by love but little in the way of worldy goods, she turned to her inner strength and her imagination. Some of that inner strength came from not having a father, but knowing he was "out there somewhere", but did not care about her, some of it came for the poverty and want she experienced in her childhood. Both her reserves of inner strength and determination would serve her well throughout her entire life to the present day. She is now 80 years old as this book ends and very much her own strong and inspirational woman.
She was "discovered" by Howard Hawks who saw her modeling in an ad for the Red Cross which ended up on the cover of Harper's Bazaar Magazine. As was the case in those days of the studio system, she was brought to Hollywood and groomed to portray a certain kind of woman, a fantasy of Howard Hawk's design. No one really cared back then, who you really were on the inside, they tried to mold you into a hot commodity. Bacall, an innocent, had entered into the "star system" of glamourous & smoldering sexuality and contractual servitude.
In the same sort of way as what happened to Orson Welles, her first picture thrust her into the straosphere of stardom on the screen and into the imagination of the American people. She reached a pinnacle while still in her youth. Yet Lauren Bacall managed to make for herself a lasting and lifetime career of spectacular achievement, not even dreamed possible by female actresses of the time from that luminous beginning. She is still making films, has starred on Broadway & stages of the world (both in musicals and dramas), acted on live television, appeared in mini-series', and written a remarkable book. In her tenacity she will try anything (despite her fears and insecurities) and that attitude has served her very well.
Before going to Hollywood, she had put herself "out there" countless times in her attempts to make her dreams & ambitions become reality. She had the courage to try anything and to put herself in the right place at the right time. Well before she ever was brought to Hollywood, she made what would be some of the most lasting friendships (and connections) in her life. She knew Burgess Meredith, John Carradine, Diana Vreeland, George S. Kaufman and many, many others from those golden days of Broadway in New York. They shared a mutual respect for one another, trusted one another and loved their chosen vocation.
During the making of her first movie, she met and fell in love with Humphrey Bogart. He was married at the time to a self destructive and viciously jealous alcoholic (who died after Bogart & Bacall were married). Bogart was resigned to spending the rest of his life in a loveless marriage with this woman because he felt her owed it to her to stick it out, no matter what.
Although surrounded by true friends, Bogart hungered for a more fulfilling life. When he fell in love with Bacall, he could not help himself from feeling that she was what he needed to fill the emptiness his personal life had become.
Lauren Bacall writes honestly and lyrically about their love and their life together. She marries Bogie and gives him a home and children and all the love he could ever need. He gives her a life of undreamed glamour and luxury and entree' to a world she'd only fantasized about. He shares honestly with her his way of dealing with those who wish to use you toward their own ends. He teaches her the "ropes". He lives in honesty and pragmatism. She learns survival from him. Their marriage was a meeting of two forces of life; they fought and drank (he did) and loved and settled down together to make a home. Bogart finally seemed to have it all; the love of a woman he adored and considered his equal, two beautiful children, and a welcoming home that was always open to friends and family.
Their 10+ years together are the stuff of Hollywoood legend but beneath that legend, that hype, Bacall lets us really see into their home and their relationship. She lets us share in Bogart's courage and the heartbreak of his decline and his death
She let's us see what happens when they find out that Bogart has cancer. (It's so interesting to read now of how little there was available back then in the field of medicine and how lucky we are to be livng in this age of rapidly emerging medical research). Back then, cancer was almost always a death sentence, no one ever came right out and said that out loud though. Cancer also carried a stigma in those days and it was kept quiet. Bogart did not feel that way about it. Together they bravely fought it with whatever the medical world could offer (little) and also let the world know he had it. It could have ruined his career but we'll never know. He and Lauren Bacall fought the good fight and lost. Bogart became an enduring legend. Lauren Bacall had to move on and fashion a life for herself. In order to do that, she had to move away from being identified as "Mrs. Humphrey Bogart". If she couldn't do that, she would live in his shadow forever. She took the treasure of what would be the greatest love of her life and carried on toward her own fulfillment as an actress and a woman.
On page 303 of her book, Ms. Bacall says, " I want whoever reads these words to have a sense of Bogie-what he was, the personal mark he left on many varied lives". Her portrait of him is so successful on that front that you feel her loss (and that of everyone else who loved him) acutely.
After the death of Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall is left a widow with two small children and a $500,000 legacy. What she does with her life from here on out is of her own sense of determination and guts.
Although the book was written more than 25 years ago and recently reissued with another chapter of her life since then, it remains fresh and fascinating. You will find her inspirational and accessable. I read the book the first time it came out those many years ago and read it again this time with just as much relevence, joy and anticipation. Her life resonates on many levels and it is filled with the genuine kind of friendships we wish we all had. Of course, few of us will be in a position to know people intimately and as fascinating a Tracy and Hepburn or the multitude of others in the "biz" whose names she drops. We will have to be content to read a book like this one; a book that is insightful and honest. Ms. Bacall is an outstanding writer and chronicler of her own life. I wish she would write fiction too. I have a feeling she'd be great at it!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wow
Any eye-opener book. I felt Laruen Bacall was so honest and gave a new insight in her life with the great Bogart and Robards and the relationship with her mother. Read more
Published 22 days ago by dsb
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good read!
Lauren Bacall had an interesting story; especially her life with Bogart. The book is well written, however the first book I've ever read that doesn't have chapters! Read more
Published 2 months ago by Y McLean
5.0 out of 5 stars
By Myself and Then Some - Lauren Bacall
It is a beautifully written book which speaks straight to the heart and mind. She is a very intelligent woman without being pretentious or vain. Read more
Published 3 months ago by ms l. ewing
4.0 out of 5 stars
By Myself and Then Some
This book was a really good read. It was insightful to a number of things I had heard about Katheryn Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Jeanette
5.0 out of 5 stars
great read
What an interesting life, and I love how the book just goes on and on, without chapters. Really a great read.
Published 4 months ago by jody
5.0 out of 5 stars
A conversation with Lauren
This book is amazing, just like Lauren Bacall. I feel like I'm sitting having a cup of coffee with her and she's telling me all about her extraordinary life in the most down to... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Samantha Crawford
5.0 out of 5 stars
Passion!
From the beginning Betty had one thing too many of us lack, passion! She had great desire, and for someone as young as she was she seemed to know what she wanted. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Tim Minn
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love Betty!
My mother was just a couple of years younger than Miss Betty, she and I watched all the movies of everyone that are mentioned in the book. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Diane L. Overby
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing!
This is without a doubt the greatest book ever. She is an amazing writer and wonderful person. This book will make you laugh and cry! Read more
Published 8 months ago by Morgan Paige
4.0 out of 5 stars
Classy lady, classy book Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall has written a classy book re herself. She is a classy lady and the books reflects this. Good read.
Published 9 months ago by Curlz
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 37
books:
See all 37 books this book cites
- Blithe Spirit (Methuen Modern Plays) by Noël Coward on page 13, page 252, and page 510
- To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway on page 75, and page 95
- Only Angels Have Wings on page 54, and page 55
- After the Fall: A Play in Two Acts (Penguin Plays) by Arthur Miller on page 357, and page 358
- Sweet Bird of Youth - Acting Edition by Tennessee Williams on page 445, and page 462
See all 37 books this book cites
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