Studio-era siren

By N.B.

Lauren Bacall, an actress, died on August 12th, aged 89

WHENEVER a Hollywood star of a certain vintage dies, somebody always pronounces them The Last Of The Greats—the final link to a hallowed Golden Age of American cinema. But in the case of Lauren Bacall the honorific is more appropriate than usual. As long as Kirk Douglas is still with us, one bridge remains between the Hollywood of today and the 1940s, but Ms Bacall was the last female star of the studio-system era and she seemed to embody that period.