Forging Ahead
The actress made her Broadway debut in 1959 in George Axelrod’s Goodbye Charlie. In subsequent decades, three performances stand out as Bacall’s most famed (and critically well-received) contributions to the stage: Cactus Flower (1965), a role she later lost in its film adaptation, Applause (1970), which earned her a Tony Award, and Woman of the Year (1981), a stage remake of the 1942 Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy vehicle.
In the early years of her relationship with Bogart, Bacall developed a close friendship with Hepburn, the longtime companion of Bogart compatriot Tracy. This friendship continued for the rest of Hepburn’s life and endured through the passing of both men, experiences that were the subject of many letters between the two as each worked to maintain both a life and a career in the late 1950s and 1960s. In one series of notes from 1968, Bacall lamented the lack of consistent opportunities for her in Hollywood:
“…if only I could get a decent job. You must know that Ingrid Bergman is doing [the film adaptation of] Cactus Flower. Must be a different script. …the only decent offers I get are in the theater so I may even have to face that again. Not before fall – but what the hell – if that’s where I’m really wanted that’s where I’ll have to go.”
