American actress. It was born in New York, and its true name was Betty Joan Perske. It studied dance during 13 years and it attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before making debut in Broadway with his first work 2 January × 4 (2 January × 4). In 1943 Howard Hawks, when seeing its photo in the cover of the magazine Harper's Bazaar offered a contract to him by seven years, whose first paper was the one of protagonist in Having and not having (1944) next to Humphrey Bogart. The young person of 19 years robbed protagonism to Bogart, to whom fascinated, and contracted marriage in 1945.

Later Bacall rolled a series of successes (many of them also next to Bogart) that are between the classic ones of the history of the cinema like Confidential Agent (1945, Herman Shumlin), the eternal dream (1946, Howard Hawks), the tenebrous footpath (1947, Delmer Daves), Long Key (1948, John Huston), and Young man with to horn (the trompetista, 1950) and the king of the tobacco (1950) both of Michael Curtiz.

Later Hawks transferred its contract with Bacall to the Warner Bros. The actress had frequent problems with this study, reason why she rejected numerous papers and, although she recovered his freedom, was not able to repeat the magic of his first films, like Writing on the wind (1956, Douglas Sirk) and My distrusted wife (1957, Vicente Minnelli). When Humphrey died Bogart in 1957, Bacall was distanced of Hollywood. In 1961 it contracted marriage with Jason Robards. Of this time it emphasizes pricked It unmarried (1964, Richard Quine). Nevertheless, it was more successful in the theaters of Broadway with works like Good bye, Charlie (1959), Flower of cactus (1965) and Applause (1970).

Of all the films interpreted during his expanded race (initiated in the Forties) they honor like masterpieces rolled with Humphrey the Bogart and Howard Hawks: To be and not to have and the eternal sleepy.