Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske in Greenwich Village on this day in 1924. Of her childhood she said, "I loved to dream about other worlds and other lives...I loved to pretend, and all that was in tandem with my wanting to be an actress."

Tall, angular, and sexy, she appeared on the cover of Harper's Bazaar at 19, with head lowered and eyes smoldering, she was dubbed as having "The Look."

"I used to tremble from nerves so badly," she explained, "that the only way I could hold my head steady was to lower my chin practically to my chest and look up at Bogie. That was the beginning of 'The Look.' I still get the shakes from time to time."

The magazine cover led to director Howard Hawks casting her in To Have and Have Not with Humphrey Bogart, where she delivered the now-famous line, "You know how to whistle, don't you? You just put your lips together--and blow."

And Bogie whistled. He and Bacall married a year later and starred in five pictures together. "Bogie was a very complicated, fascinating man," Bacall remembered about her great love. "Trouble for a nineteen year-old because I didn't know anything, but totally solid and totally dependable. Character just oozed out of his pores."

"No one has ever written a romance better than we lived it."

Known for her husky voice, beautiful eyes, and no-nonsense style, Bacall in recent years has triumphed on Broadway, was nominated for an Oscar for The Mirror Cracked, and chosen in 1997 by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World.

Continue to be.