How Lauren Bacall got her stage name: “Howard Hawks, he didn’t like the name”
The name we know actors by might not always be their real one. Especially in the golden age of Hollywood, where stars would be hired and put on contracts by a studio, higher-ups changing a performer’s name to something else was incredibly common, which is exactly what happened to Lauren Bacall.
In reality, Lauren Bacall isn’t called Lauren Bacall at all. Born in New York City in 1928, the girl who would go on to become one of Hollywood’s greatest stars was named Betty Joan Perske. Her mother would later change her surname after her parents divorced when she was five, and she became increasingly estranged from her father. She instead took on her mother’s maiden name, Bacal, but there’s no knowledge of where the extra L might have come from.
That was only just the start of her complete name makeover. By the time she made it big in Hollywood, her name would be completely different to the one on her birth certificate. However the major switch of her first name solely came down to style and a studio deciding that her birth name simply wasn’t quite chic enough for a new star.
As explained by Humphrey Bogart, her husband from 1945 until his death in 1957, Bacall’s name was changed by the famed golden age director, Howard Hawks. It was Hawks that first spotted the actor after he wife pointed out her photo in a magazine during her modeling days and urged him to call her in for a screen test for the film To Have and Have Not.
After their first meeting, Hawks instantly signed the actor to a seven-year contract, put her on a $100 a week salary and, crucially, changed her name. Bogart recalled, “Howard Hawks, he didn’t like the name Betty, so he gave her the name Lauren.” However, off-screen and in her personal life, the star kept to her real name with Bogart adding sweetly, “Everybody who knew her called her Betty.”
This still happens today. While there are thankfully fewer name changes simply because certain names aren’t as attractive or have connections to certain races or cultures as used to be common back in the day, stars adopting a stage name is still a regular occurrence. Sometimes, it still happens like it did for Bacall, where their name is changed without much choice in the matter.
Emma Stone has spoken about this as she couldn’t use her real name, Emily, as there was already an actor with her own exact name. However, behind the scenes, she goes by Emily and often implores interviewers and fans to use her actual name, talking candidly about the oddness of having her true identity replaced by a different first name. She said, “When I get to know them, people that I work with do [call me Emily]”, adding, “‘Then I freaked out a couple of years ago. For some reason, I was like, ‘I can’t do it anymore. Just call me Emily.’”
But especially back in the golden age of Hollywood, the names seen on the credits were rarely the performers’ birth names, as Marilyn Monroe was actual Norma Jean Mortenson, Bette Davis was Ruth Elizabeth Davis, Rita Hayworth was Margarita Carmen Cansino and so on, with Lauren Bacall being one of many.
