Al Weisel
Idol Chatter: Lauren Bacall
By Al Weisel
Premiere, December 1996
LAUREN BACALL, 72, IS FAMOUS for the Look, that come-hither-if-you-dare gaze she gave Bogie when she was nineteen in To Have and Have Not. But there is also the withering, suffer-no-fools glance she uses to great comic effect in her new film The Mirror Has Two Faces, directed by Barbra Streisand and starring Bacall and Streisand as mother and daughter. A journalist intrepid enough to interview her is likely to encounter both.
Why did you do The Mirror Has Two Faces?
It's a terrific part. I thought it would be great fun to work with Barbra. I've never been directed by a woman before.
Is it different being directed by a woman?
It's different being directed by the person you are playing scenes with. Now and then we would be rehearsing together and she would give direction and I would be thrown, because it's not like another actor telling you what to do-it's the director. I had to get that set in my head.
Barbra Streisand has a reputation for being difficult.
So have I. I have been charged with being difficult when I have not been difficult. I think the same is true of Barbra. I put 150 percent of myself into whatever I do, and I must say I expect the same of whomever I am working with. I expect professionalism, and if it doesn't go that way, you get a little upset. Barbra was interested in every aspect of the movie down to the most minute detail. Everything that I wore, every earring, every ring, every sock, every color. It keeps you on your toes. You damn well better know what you're doing.
Was the character you played based in any way on Streisand's own mother?
She told me that some of my dialogue is very like some things her mother said. You can't get too personal in a movie. If she saw me as her mother, she would be wrong because I'm playing a part.
You were raised by a single mother. They seem to have come in for a lot of criticism lately.
I've been a single mother most of my life. It just seems to me to be the norm. You can't take the place of the father, although God knows we try. I think that children are scarred with one parent to some degree. I was, and I think my children have been. But it's better to have one parent than no parents. And often, if you have two parents, one of them is lousy. I think it's worse to have a really bad parent.
In addition to Mirror, you also play a former first lady in My Fellow Americans. It's been a banner year for you.
I'd like to work like I did this year. They're very fickle in La-La Land. I don't want to sit around. What am I going to do, give dinners, give cocktail parties, go to lunch? That would be such a bore. People who have worked all their lives, the minute they stop, they die. And I have no intention of doing that.
In The Way We Were, Barbra Streisand's character confronts the House Un-American Activities Committee, which is something you actually did.
I've always been politically oriented, and she has as well. Actors have as much right as anyone to have a political opinion.
It was brave of you.
Or foolhardy. A lot of people thought I was a pinko. You hear what they say now about liberals. I'm a liberal. What's wrong with being a liberal? I'm proud of it, and I resent the fact that it's considered an epithet now.
Did you encounter anti-Semitism in Hollywood?
Howard Hawks [director of To Have and Have Not] was anti-Semitic. I was so frightened. I was nineteen. I had no guts at all. I was afraid Hawks would find out I was Jewish. I said to my agent, "What do I do, I'm so nervous!"
You thought he might fire you for being Jewish?
Oh yes.
Is it true your singing voice was dubbed in To Have and Have Not by Andy Williams?
Supposedly he dubbed one note. But he didn't dub a whole song, because I know how many times I recorded those songs. You can just listen to it and know it's me. It's possible he dubbed one note, but I don't know which one. A higher one probably.
Who was most unlike the image people have of them?
Bogie was sometimes perceived to be a tough guy, which really he wasn't. He was a sentimental and emotional man. Katie Hepburn has all the strength of character you would expect her to have, but she too is a pushover emotionally. Spence Tracy had a lot of darkness in him that didn't show. I think most of us become actors because we want to pretend were somebody else.
Are men intimidated by you?
I think men can be intimidated. But I think it's the fault of the man. I don't think its mine. They have preconceptions of what I am because of parts I've played and they're unsure of themselves. If a man knows what he's about, it shouldn't be a problem. There are actresses I won't name who have been known as perfect virgins but are made of solid steel. I, who appear to be tough, am anything but.■
Al Weisel is the co-author, with Larry Frascella, of Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause, being published in October 2005.