Lauren Bacall a visit to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on February 10, 1945. It was there that Bacall's press agent, chief of publicity at Warner Bros. Charlie Enfield, asked the 20-year-old Bacall to sit on the piano while U.S. Vice President Harry S. Truman played. After "To Have and Have Not", Bacall was seen opposite Charles Boyer in "Confidential Agent" (1945), which was poorly received by critics. By her own estimation, it could have caused considerable damage to her career, had her performance as the mysterious, acid-tongued Vivian Rutledge in Hawks's film noir "The Big Sleep" (1946), co-starring Bogart,
Lauren Bacall the 1950s by appearing as the leading lady in a string of films that won favorable reviews. Bacall was cast opposite Gary Cooper in "Bright Leaf" (1950). In the same year, she played a two-faced femme fatale in "Young Man with a Horn" (1950), a jazz musical co-starring Kirk Douglas, Doris Day, and Hoagy Carmichael. During 1951–1952, Bacall co-starred with Bogart in the syndicated action-adventure radio series "Bold Venture". In 1953, she starred in the CinemaScope comedy "How to Marry a Millionaire", a runaway hit among critics and at the box office. Directed by Jean Negulesco and co-starring Marilyn Monroe