Legendary actress Lauren Bacall passed away today of a stroke. She was 89.

Bacall is best remembered for her on stage and off stage partnership with Humphrey Bogart to whom she was married for a dozen years until his death in 1957. They appeared together in her debut film To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Dark Passage and Key Largo. Bacall would later marry actor Jason Robards, Jr. 

Some of her other film credits include Young Man with a Horn with Kirk Douglas and Doris Day, How to Marry a Millionaire with Marilyn Monroe, and Sex and the Single Girl with Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood and Henry Fonda. Twice she co-starred with John Wayne two decades apart in Blood Alley and The Shootist.

Curiously, Bacall never received an Academy Award nomination until 1996 when she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in The Mirror Has Two Faces starring Barbra Streisand and Jeff Bridges. 

Let me end on two personal notes. First, we shared the same birthday – September 16th. Second, today I wrote a poem in which I made reference to Bacall. The subject of the poem was President Truman’s contentious relationship with his mother-in-law. In the poem, I make reference to the photo where Bacall sat atop a piano played by Truman at the National Press Club during his short lived stint as Vice-President. Never was Harry Truman ever happier. Perhaps now they can reprise their duet.