Ep. 2 Lauren Bacall

Even the most seasoned (and jaded) journalists are faced with a subject who brings butterflies to the stomach, akin to what we felt at our first school dance. The prospect of chatting with the iconic Lauren Bacall had this effect on me. It was 2007 and Bacall had just finished work on Paul Schrader’s “The Walker,” opposite Woody Harrelson. Our chat on the phone became one of the great conversations, and personal connections, of my life. Most journalists avoid “phoners” whenever possible, as a conversation via Alexander Graham Bell (or Verizon) is rarely as intimate or revealing as a one-on-one chat. Originally, I was to interview Miss Bacall (aka “Betty” to her friends) at The Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. A longtime New Yorker who resided in the iconic Dakota Apartment Building, she had cancelled all LA press due a cold. Her publicist offered me twenty minutes on the phone as a consolation, and of course, I said “yes.” 

After 90 minutes of extraordinary conversation, this episode of The Hollywood Interview covers a vast and golden age of Hollywood as Bacall recounts it, from Bogart to Hemingway, Bette Davis to Robert F. Kennedy.  Bacall responds to Alex’s deep filmic knowledge with stories never heard before. Names drip from her lips like Hepburn and Harold Pinter, John Huston and Howard Hawks, Kirk Douglas and Woody Harrelson. Directors like Robert Altman and Lars Van Treer.  Lauren Bacall also shares her political disappointments and hopes for the future. Her political comments still ring true.

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Thanks to Deryn Warren for playing Lauren Bacall.  Deryn is a pre-eminent actor and director in Hollywood.  Connect with her at https://www.linkedin.com/in/deryn-warren-6b94a313/.

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