Here are two amazing images: the first real--the hair and make up tests for "To Have and Have Not"; and the second, a clever internet fake of a nude Lauren Bacall.
As readers of this blog know, I've written about Bacall, the most sultry starlet. So you know that Lauren, first Betty, made her huge Hollywood debut at age 24 in "To Have and Have Not" alongside the great Humphrey Bogart, and that the two fell in love, and eventually married, and went on to star in four more films together before his death.
It's a well known fact that young, beautiful aspiring starlets were subjected to Hollywood's infamous "casting couch." Studio executives and casting agents had an almost unfathomable level of unchecked power in those days...
In these two images, it's not hard to imagine that these could be the "test" of young Betty, posing for hair, make up, and then the request for a shot "out of wardrobe," to show her figure. "You do want to be in pictures, right doll?"
It is a sexist, offensive, and almost terrifying thought. I'm ashamed to even think about it. But isn't that the most powerful fuel of fantasy?
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