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,
The Fountainhead (film) were disputes between Rand, Vidor, and Warner Bros. throughout the production. Vidor wanted Humphrey Bogart to play Howard Roark, while Rand wanted Gary Cooper to play the part. Cooper was cast alongside Lauren Bacall as Dominique Francon, but Bacall was replaced by Patricia Neal. Cooper criticized Neal's audition as being badly acted, but she was cast against his judgment; during the production, Cooper and Neal began an affair. Rand completed her screenplay in June 1944. The setting of "The Fountainhead" is a collective society in which individuals and new ideas of architecture are not accepted, and all buildings must be