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 manners, and taste. At Hawks' suggestion, Bacall was also trained to make her voice lower and deeper, instead of her normal high-pitched, nasal voice. Hawks had her, under the tutelage of a voice coach, lower the pitch of her voice. As part of her training, she was required to shout verses of Shakespeare for hours every day. Her height, at 5 feet 8½ inches (1.74 m), unusual among young actresses in the 1940s and 1950s, also helped her stand out. Her voice was characterized as a "smoky, sexual growl" by most critics, and a "throaty purr". During her screen tests