Lauren Bacall screen test for "To Have and Have Not". Hawks asked his secretary to find out more about her, but the secretary misunderstood and sent Bacall a ticket to come to Hollywood for the audition. After meeting Bacall in Hollywood, Hawks immediately signed her to a seven-year contract, with a weekly salary of $100, and personally began to manage her career. He changed her first name to Lauren, and she chose "Bacall" (a variant of her mother's maiden name) as her screen surname. Slim Hawks also took Bacall under her wing, dressing Bacall stylishly and guiding her in matters of elegance,
Lauren Bacall "Miss Bacall – generates quite a lot of pressure as a sharp-eyed, knows-what-she-wants girl", wrote Bosley Crowther of The New York Times of her performance. And, in 1948, she was in John Huston's melodramatic suspense film "Key Largo" with Bogart and Edward G. Robinson. In the film, according to film critic Jessica Kiang, "Bacall brings an edge of ambivalence and independence to the role that makes her character much more interesting than was written". Bacall turned down scripts she did not find interesting, and thereby earned a reputation for being difficult. Despite this, she further solidified her star status in