October by [Bacall, Lauren]; Isherwood, Christopher; Bachardy, Don (illus.) - 1983

London: Methuen, 1983. Paperback. Very Good+. Wraps; tall 4to; pp. 85, [3], illustrated in b/w throughout (portraits of artists). Mended tear to bottom half of front wrap. Inscribed by Isherwood and Bachardy to Lauren Bacall on the title-p., "for dearest Betty, with our lasting love, Christopher and Don / 11 September 1983." (Lauren Bacall was born in the Bronx as Betty Joan Perske, and only close friends and loved ones used her real name.) Covers a little dust-smudged; spine somewhat tanned; corners thumbed. Internally nice and clean. Thirty-two portraits by Don Bachardy, including Christopher Isherwood, Joyce Howard, Frank London, Julia Alexander, Nicholas Wilder, Gore Vidal, David Hockney, Joan Didion, Malcolm McDowell, and others -- and accompanying text by Isherwood. With an invitation to the gallery exhibition, held September 14 - October 15, at the James Corcoran Gallery in Los Angeles. Isherwood and Bachardy were a much-loved couple (David Hockney painted their portrait in 1968), whose home was a safe haven for friends and celebrities. Bachardy sketched or painted portraits of Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Aldous Huxley and Tennessee Williams, director John Boorman, actors Charles Laughton and Montgomery Clift, composer Igor Stravinski as well as painter Hockney, but also countless Hollywood legends, among them Marlene Dietrich, Katherine Hepburn, Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart as well as Warren Beatty, Henry and Jane Fonda, Mia Farrow, Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski and Jack Nicholson. Though Bacall's portrait is not included in this volume, it is highly unlikely that Bachardy would've let such a beautiful portrait slip through his fingers without at least a sketch.

Lauren Bacall (1924-2014) was an American actress known for her distinctive voice and sultry looks. Howard Hawks (director, producer, screenwriter) changed her first name to Lauren, and Perske adopted "Bacall," a variant of her mother's maiden name (of Romanian Jewish descent), as her screen surname. The young Lauren Bacall, worked as an usher at the St. James Theatre, and as a fashion model. She made her acting debut on Broadway in 1942, at age 17, as a walk-on in "Johnny 2x4." By then, she lived with her mother on Bank Street, Greenwich Village, and in 1942 she was crowned Miss Greenwich Village. Though Diana Vreeland is often credited with "discovering" Bacall, putting her on the cover of "Vogue" in 1943, much of the iconography surrounding Bacall she cultivated herself with the help of Nancy Hawks, Howard Hawks's wife, who advised Bacall on clothing, elegance, manners, and taste. Even Bacall's trademark voice required arduous training -- at Hawks's suggestion, Bacall worked with a voice coach to make her voice lower and deeper. Her screen debut as the leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film "To Have and Have Not" (1944) made her an instant star. She married Bogart in 1945, and continued in the film noir genre alongside him in "The Big Sleep" (1946), "Dark Passage" (1947), and "Key Largo" (1948). She starred in the romantic comedies "How to Marry a Millionaire" (1953) with Marilyn Monroe, and "Designing Woman" (1957) with Gregory Peck. She co-starred with John Wayne in his final film, "The Shootist" (1976). Bacall worked on Broadway in musicals, earning Tony Awards for "Applause" (1970) and "Woman of the Year" (1981).