Bette with wisecracks (her's not mine)

OK, I have five minutes before I have to wake the man and feed the boys. How many Bette photos and quotes can I post?




I do not regret one professional enemy I have made. Any actor who doesn't dare to make an enemy should get out of the business.



I was thought to be 'stuck up.' I wasn't. I was just sure of myself. This is and always has been an unforgivable quality to the unsure.



It has been my experience that one cannot, in any shape or form, depend on human relations for lasting reward. It is only work that truly satisfies.



My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.



To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given the chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy. As everyone else, I love to dunk my crust in it. But alone, it is not a diet designed to keep body and soul together.





Love is not enough. It must be the foundation, the cornerstone - but not the complete structure. It is much too pliable, too yielding.



This became a credo of mine...attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.

Lauren Bacall

I'm reading her autobiography.

Jeez, I found her tedious in the first part of the book.

She goes on and on about how fresh and funny and gauche she was as a young woman. Perhaps she was, but there's no sense of that in her tedious ramblings about the first part of her career.

Then she meets Bogie, but sadly she seemed to have loved and respected the man so much she wasn't giving any juicy secrets away. Bless.

But now, half way through, it's starting to get interesting. Bogie's just died after a harrowing illness and we're beginning to see the real Bacall. I'm beginning to like her, feel less disappointed by her. She's becoming more three-dimensional; something more than the femme fatale wallowing in her own gorgeousness. Now she's a mother, grief-stricken, and facing life outside the magic bubble she existed in as Mrs Bogart.

I'm still not sure I like her. Or dislike her. I'll let you know if she ever develops into a woman of substance. At this rate I'll have finished the book in 4 months (v. slow reader).

Enough witter, her pictures are far more compelling than her prose.