The sultry upward gaze known as The Look was born when a terrified 19-year-old pressed her chin to her chest to stop it from quivering during a screen test. This episode follows Lauren Bacall from her birth as Betty Joan Perske in the Bronx in 1924, the daughter of Jewish immigrants and a second cousin of Shimon Peres, through her parents' divorce, her work as a theater usher and model, and the 1943 Harper's Bazaar cover that reached Slim Keith and her husband, director Howard Hawks. A secretary's misunderstanding sent her a train ticket to Hollywood, where Hawks signed her at $100 a week, renamed her, and had her shout Shakespeare in canyons to lower her voice.

We cover her debut opposite Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not, the flop of Confidential Agent, her noir run in The Big Sleep, Dark Passage, and Key Largo, her refusal to leave ...