The last movie star is dead: RIP, Lauren Bacall

There are lots of big names still out there, but the last person truly associated with the glamor, acclaim, classiness and talent of a genuine movie star has left the building:

Lauren Bacall, the smoky-voiced movie legend who taught Humphrey Bogart how to whistle in "To Have and Have Not," has died at the age of 89, according to her family.
Details of the location and the cause of her death were not immediately available. Her death was confirmed by Robbert de Klerk, the co-managing partner of the Humphrey Bogart Estate. Her daughter, Leslie Bogart, said no other information was available.

Lauren Bacall was everything a movie star was supposed to be: talented, beautiful, regal, glamorous. Her death is not the tragedy that Robin Williams' death is -- he was too young and still had much to offer -- but it is no less a loss. She was the last link to an era we'll never see again.

We still make icons out of actors, musicians, athletes and the like, but we are neither surprised nor especially disappointed when we are shown evidence that they are human. Hell, we have an entire media enterprise devoted to proving that they are in fact human, painfully so, and then revealing to us every aspect of those stars' lives. Long ago, those movie stars were put on a pedestal and practically worshipped. Probably not a good thing, but probably better than the situation lately, which most strongly resembles a race to the bottom. Lauren Bacall had class, and she never let go of it. She never would have partied with Justin Bieber. He should be so lucky. He might've enjoyed a moment like this, from "To Have and Have Not:"

It was her first movie, and it was where she met Humphrey Bogart, the great love of her life whom she later married. Movies today are loaded with hot women, but none more beautiful -- and all that entails -- than Laren Bacall.