One of the virtues of being an 80-year-old Hollywood legend is that you can say pretty much anything you damn well please about anyone. Lauren Bacall rips into Tom Cruise in an interview in the new issue of Time. The actress, who has more to say during her own Turner Classic Movies special tonight, belittles Cruise as an actor (”When you talk about a great actor, you’re not talking about Tom Cruise”), echoing her comments a year ago about Cruise’s ex (and Bacall’s own two-time costar) Nicole Kidman, that she doesn’t yet deserve to be called a legend. Bacall also blasts Cruise for his recent public appearances. ”His whole behavior is so shocking,” she says. ”It’s inappropriate and vulgar and absolutely unacceptable to use your private life to sell anything commercially, but I think it’s kind of a sickness.” (Not that the cat food pitchwoman is averse to using your vocal talents to sell anything commercially.) Guess this means she’s not going to be invited to Tom and Katie’s nuptials.
Lauren Bacall joins the Tom Cruise pile-on
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Comments (1-27) of 27 Add your comment
I’m under 50, so somebody’s going to have to tell me who Lauren Bacall is so I can actually care what she has to say.
Gosh! old but not any wiser.. it’s a new sad thing.
Belle,
Her opinion on Cruise has a lot more validity than Hanoi Jane, Sean Penn, and the Dixie Chicks’ political views do.
Does anyone really believe the TomKat union? I’m sorry, but real people in love don’t act like total freaks. What cracks me up is Tom complaining that there are people out there that just “don’t want to see other people happy”, yet he slams Brooke Shields for taking meds and seeking therapy to make herself happy. Can someone say hypocrit? (I am sure I spelled that wrong, but you get the idea…)
Unless Tom Cruise is really a woman, he needs to keep his mouth shut about how Brooke Shields or any other woman deals with post-partum depression! One cannot totally control the physical and hormonal changes that take place in a woman’s body after having a baby. I used to be a fan of his, but now he just seems like a man having a mid-life crisis. As for his marriage to Katie Holmes…refer to the previous sentence.
You know what really drives me crazy more then anything else?! Is that people still think all this TomKat stuff was a publicity stunt for his movie. Since when does an actor whos been putting out great movies for 15+ years have to go and publically falsify a relationship just so he can get a couple more people in the seats? Give me a break. The man goes home and sleeps on a mountain of money. And sure the journalists don’t want to talk about how during filiming the crew stopped at a Dairy Queen in Virginia. Cruise saw a jar on the counter with a photo of Ashley Flint and her story. Flint was in a go-kart accident a few months earlier, leaving her family with a mountain of hospital bills. Cruise put $5000 cash into the jar. Such a horrible man…
Jefferson – she can have her opinion (as can the poorly informed and self-important trio you mentioned), I’m merely pointing out that she has no relevance today – she’s a dinosaur. She’ll be long dead when Kidman/Cruise, rightly or wrongly, receive their lifetime achievement Oscars. Noone will remember her senile babbling about who is and isn’t a great actor – it reeks of sour grapes….
You don’t have to be over 50 to know that Lauren Bacall is a Hollywood legend. If you knew anything about film, you’d know that she starred (sometimes opposite husband Humphrey Bogart) in many films now considered classics. She still works regularly, and if she has an opinion, why can’t she express it? “Steve, you know how to whistle, don’t you?”
Oh Belle, I’m under 50, too…and I have at least some sort of cultural literacy to know who Lauren Bacall is. Here’s a bit of info for you:
Her unforgettable instruction on whistling in her first film, 1944’s To Have and Have Not is the thinking woman’s variation on Mae West’s “come up and see me some time,” and that distinction provides a valuable clue to Bacall’s uniqueness. Although the beautiful, lithe ex-model was dubbed “The Look” upon arriving in Hollywood, it was more than the raised eyebrow that made her irresistible when she finally got before the camera. It was the way she delivered a line-worldly but never jaded, slyly cynical but never sour-that cinched her appeal. Bacall broke into pictures courtesy of the then Mrs. Howard Hawks, who showed a “Harper’s Bazaar” cover shot of Bacall to her producer/director husband. He had Bacall flown in from the East Coast almost instantly and cast her opposite Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not The 19-year-old ingenue and 45-yearold screen star fell in love on the set, and married in 1945. They appeared together in three other films: In The Big Sleep (1946, also directed by Hawks), their uncanny chemistry rescued that picture from its impenetrable plot. While 1947’s Dark Passage was the least interesting of their films together, 1948’s classic Key Largo exploited their chemistry in a darker, more mature context.
Few of Bacall’s other films were memorable; among her costarring vehicles were Confidential Agent (1945), Young Man With a Horn (1950), the very enjoyable How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), Woman’s World (1954), The Cobweb, Blood Alley (both 1955), soap opera supreme, Written on the Wind (1956), The Gift of Love (1958), and Flame Over India (1959). She spent much of the 1950s caring for her ailing husband, until his death from cancer in 1957. In 1961 Bacall married actor Jason Robards, Jr. (they divorced in 1969). Her film appearances in the 1960s and 1970s were sporadic; indeed, she took eight years off from the screen between 1966 and 1974, coming back in Sidney Lumet’s all-star adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. During her hiatus from Hollywood she worked on the stage, garnering kudos for her work in Broadway’s “Applause.” In 1981 she played a star terrorized by a crazed admirer in The Fan-touching a raw nerve in that era of John Hinckley and Mark Chapman-and since then has taken occasional supporting roles in telefilms and features, including that of James Caan’s agent in Misery (1990), a costarring part opposite Anthony Quinn in the unreleased A Star for Two and the hostess (originally played by Billie Burke) in the TV remake of Dinner at Eight (1989). In 1993 she reunited with Gregory Peck (her costar in 1957’s romantic comedy Designing Woman for the enjoyable TV movie The Portrait and costarred in A Foreign Field with Alec Guinness.
Now, that’s a legend. As to who gets the “Lifetime Achievement” Oscar first, I’ll put my money on her. While Nicole Kidman is a fine actor, you can’t call her a legend. Tom Cruise coasts by on his smile and looks. The one time he really tried to go for an Oscar was “Born on the 4th of July.” The result was a laughable series of scenery chewing that would make William Shatner blush.
Next, I’ll have to teach you about Humphrey Bogart and Jimmy Stewart.
Its great to see people know how to cut and paste really long articles from other websites. Woohoo! Skillful!!
Oh, Brent…you flatter me. Now, go watch something where stuff blows up real good and think you’re being entertained.
Warren – So since 1985 we’ve seen her in 2 TV movies (Hollywood purgatory) and a supporting role in a film I love, but yet have no recollection of her being in. I think that may be the textbook definition of someone who is irrelevant in 2005. I’m not disputing her impressive resume pre-1970 and I’m sure she’ll win that Oscar lifetime award, if she hasn’t already, I simply find it laughable that she sees herself as an arbiter of Hollywood acting talent and behavioral standards in this day and age.
Re: Bogie and Jimmy Stewart, please head to IMDB right away and begin your research, I think one of them was on a Bob Hope Christmas special once. If that’s what passes for cultural literacy these days that makes me very sad…
Belle, if you’d like to give me a cultural literacy test, I’d be happy to take it. Remember, cultural literacy goes back before 1999. Too bad we seem to live in a society that doesn’t value its’ past more. I’m sure when Tom is 81 (like Lauren) and filming “Mission Impossible 37″ you’ll be in line for it. Until then, I guess you just see someone with a little experience in the world as old and unimformed. Pity.
Warren and Belle,
Are your lives so empty that you have to argue about a woman who at one time had an amazing career and an over rated, over paid smile. I truly believe that you need to get a life. You also need to stop throwing around $5.00 phrases. Let me guess you are 18-20 and in college studying liberal arts or better yet philosophy.
I banged her last night.
PS: Philosophy is a liberal art….
Belle, you ignorant slut. Just because a star is no longer ‘box office’ doesn’t make them irrelevant. It just means that they’ve slowed down. It happens in your 80s. The fact that Ms. Bacall is still working with the likes of Lars Von Trier, Nicole Kidman, etc. says that she’s still quite relevant. Now shut your friggin’ piehole! Thanks…
Ugly and offensive terms like “slut”, “whore”, “friggin”, “piehole”, “TomKat”, and “Lauren Bacall” have reared their ugly heads on this blog recently. Can we, as a community, take it upon ourselves to refrain from such nauseating profanity?
I’m so glad to see that we are resorting to name calling. Come on now can’t you come up with anything better than whore to argue your point. Your ignorance is obviously weighing on you.
Too bad the money that Mommy and Daddy are paying for your education isn’t paying off. Pity
Tiffany, thank you for your concern. For your information, I am no longer in college and my life is quite full, even away from work. I could run down my educational background for you if you’d like. I’m also sorry that my use of “$5 phrases” bothers you. I could write like this is a story for EW, complete with simple, short sentences that can be read by the average person during the average bathroom visit–but I won’t.
Dude I am also under 50 but I know who Lauren Becall is.
Time to wake up and look around you. Maybe invest in renting a movie that is not in color with special effects and explosions. You never know you might like it.
In her hey day Lauren Bacall was a classic sophisticated actress, specially with Bogart, but for her to take offense at Tom Cruise’s actions now days it is like “come into the 21st century Lauren”. Of course no one in the 1930’s would have acted that way, but now in 2005 the studios do not own or keep under wraps the stars and their antics. Let Tom have his fun, it doesn’t hurt anyone and really who cares if he jumps up and down??
People can say anything they want but have to accept the consequences of what they say whether it’s Cruise, Bacall or Shields.
I have nothing against Brooke Shields, but she did write a book about her postpartum depression and the measures she took to deal with it. She opened the door for people to give their opinion.
What bugged me more about Cruise’s comments isn’t so much that he’s not a woman or that he’s never given birth because he can give his opinion no matter how jerky it is. But he was so disingenuous in saying that Shield’s was someone he cared about. To my knowledge they’re not friends. He had the teeniest part in a film she starred in 20 years ago, and that’s about the only connection I know that they have. He “posed” as a concerned friend and used her to promote his religion.
Bacall is a legend and I like her. But in this case age has not brought wisdom. She can say whatever she likes too but I think it was uncalled for and she looks foolish. Ya know? Don’t make things worse, things have gotten nasty enough.
I’m sorry I assumed everyone already knew that Tom Cruise is gay, which is cool.
But, it is one thing to chastise Brooks Shields for opting to use antidepressants to right her emotional ship, but it is quite another thing to dupe a young lass, get her pregnant and father an unwanted child simply to keep up appearances.
Scientologists everywhere should be proud of Uncle Tom.
Tom and “Kate”, what a happy, out of wedlock pregnant couple. What is he going to do, stuff a sock in Kate’s mouth so she will obey his command of a silent birth. It just shows what a radical cult Scientology is. They are both idiots.
I am surprised at Lauren Bacall. Why does she care about what Tom Cruise is doing? He is not hurting her by his silliness. I hope it is not her age that has her mouthing off.
she starred in 20 years ago and that’s about the only connection I know that they have. He “posed” as a concerned friend and used her to promote his religion.
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