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Lauren Bacall Dies at 89

You may have barely caught your breath after yesterday’s terrible news about Robin Williams, but sadly, we have another Hollywood death to report: Film legend Lauren Bacall passed away this morning after suffering a massive stroke at her home in New York, according to TMZ. Robbert de Klerk, co-manager of the Humphrey Bogart Estate, confirmed the news and said she suffered no pain. “Her life speaks for itself,” her son Stephen Bogart told the New York Times. “She lived a wonderful life, a magical life.”

The Estate tweeted:

The husky-voiced star was born Betty Joan Perske in New York in 1924. After working as a fashion model, she made her scorching film debut in 1944’s To Have and Have Not at just 19 years old. Bacall shot to stardom after delivering one of the most classic lines in film history.

It was a fateful pairing, both personally and professionally. Bacall married Bogart, who was 25 years her senior, the following year. They had a son and a daughter, and were one of Hollywood’s most popular couples, starring together in The Big Sleep, Dark Passage, and Key Largo. Bogart died in 1957, and following a brief but highly publicized relationship with Frank Sinatra, Bacall went on to marry another Oscar winner, Jason Robards Jr. After eight years of marriage, they divorced in 1969. Their son, Sam Robards, is also an actor.

There were many ups and downs in Bacall’s long film career, and she won more accolades for her theater work. She earned two Tonys for her starring roles in 1970’s Applause, a musical based on All About Eve, and 1981’s Woman of the Year, a musical based on the Spencer Tracy–Katharine Hepburn movie.

She was finally nominated for an Academy Award in 1996, for her role as Barbra Streisand’s mother in The Mirror Has Two Faces. Though Bacall was heavily favored to win, Juliette Binoche took home the Oscar for best supporting actress in The English Patient.

Bacall received the Kennedy Center Honor a few months after her Academy Awards loss, and in 2009, she was given an honorary Oscar “in recognition of her central place in the Golden Age of motion pictures.”

“Listen, I never went into this business thinking of winning anything,” she said when she received the Kennedy Center Honor in 1997. “I went into it because I loved it and I wanted to be good at it. It was a form of expression for me. I love to hide behind characters. So [any recognition] I get is a perk. It’s just an extra. Just the fact that all that happened to me last year, it is — well — fabulous.”

This post has been updated throughout.