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Screen siren Lauren Bacall passes away aged 89

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Lauren Bacall has died at the age of 89. The US actress, a star of  Hollywood's golden age of cinema, passed away at home after suffering a stroke. In a short statement, her family said, "With deep sorrow, yet great gratitude for her amazing life, we confirm the passing of Lauren Bacall."

lauren bacall © Photo: Getty Images

Lauren, who was best known for her husky voice and smouldering stare, had a Hollywood career that spanned a remarkable seven decades.

Born Betty Joan Perske in Brooklyn, New York, in 1924, she made her silver screen debut at the age of 19 in To Have and Have Not, opposite her future husband Humphrey Bogart.

Iconic couples: Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart

That film also gave her one of her most memorable lines – "You don't have to act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything and you don't have to do anything. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve?

You just put your lips together and… blow."

laurenhumphrey1 © Photo: Getty Images

She went on to star with Humphrey in Key Largo, The Big Sleep and Dark Passage. The couple were married from 1945 until his death in 1957, and had two children together.

She had a third baby with her second husband Jason Robards, to who she was married between 1961 and 1969.Lauren's other screen credits included How To Marry A Millionaire, which she starred in alongside Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable, and Murder On The Orient Express.

lauren bacall oscar © Photo: Getty Images

As late as 1996, she won a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for her work in The Mirror Has Two Faces, and in 2009 received an honourary Academy Award for "her central place in the golden age of motion pictures".