ON THIS DAY SEPTEMBER 16 2023

This Day in History: September 16

Featured Event

1993







The sitcom Frasier—a spin-off of Cheers, starring Kelsey Grammer—debuted on NBC and became one of the most popular American television shows of the late 20th century.


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Featured Biography

Lauren Bacall
American actress







Lauren Bacall, original name Betty Joan Perske, (born September 16, 1924, New York, New York, U.S.—died August 12, 2014, New York, New York), American actress known for her portrayals of provocative women who hid their soft core underneath a layer of hard-edged pragmatism.



(From left) Lauren Bacall, Marcel Dalio, and Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not (1944).



Lauren Bacall and Gregory Peck in Designing Woman



Humphrey Bogart, Jack Brown, and Lauren Bacall



How to Marry a Millionaire
Bacall started modeling in 1941 and supplemented her income with jobs as a theatre usher and as a hostess at the Stage Door Canteen, which kept her next to the Broadway theatre scene that she loved. In 1942 she appeared as an ingénue in the George S. Kaufman-directed Franklin Street, but the play closed before reaching New York. Bacall’s photo on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar in 1943 caught the attention of the wife of film director Howard Hawks. Cast in Hawks’s To Have and Have Not (1944) as the leggy sardonic beauty who gives Humphrey Bogart a famous lesson in whistling, the 19-year-old Bacall was an overnight sensation. Nervous throughout the shooting, Bacall kept her head low to keep it from shaking; this, combined with her bedroom eyes and husky voice, resulted in a sultry aura that was touted in promotional campaigns as “The Look.” She and Bogart fell in love during the filming and were married in 1945; they subsequently costarred in the successful thrillers The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948). Bacall’s other successful films include Young Man with a Horn (1950), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), and Designing Woman (1957).


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