5 Facts About The Legendary Actress Lauren Bacall's Jewish LIfe

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Religion News Service By Lauren Markoe


(RNS) Lauren Bacall, who died Tuesday (Aug. 12) at 89, had mixed feelings about her Jewishness. In “By Myself,” her autobiography, she wrote that she “felt totally Jewish and always would,” yet chided herself for not being more open about her Jewish identity.

Below, five facts about Lauren Bacall’s Jewish life and — in her own words — how she felt to be Jewish:

1. She was born Betty Joan Perske.

Bacall was born in Brooklyn to a Jewish family, but her Jewish-sounding name just wouldn’t cut it in the Hollywood of the 1940s and ’50s. She changed it to a version of her mother’s family name, Weinstein-Bacal.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/13/lauren-bacall-jewish_n_5676454.html?utm_hp_ref=religion