Lauren Bacall in "The Mirror Has Two Faces" (1996). Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske on September 16, 1924, in The Bronx, New York, the only child of Natalie ("née" Weinstein; 1901–1977), a secretary who later legally changed her surname to Bacal, and William Perske (1889–1982), who worked in sales. Both her parents were Jewish. According to Bacall, her mother emigrated from Iași, the Kingdom of Romania, through Ellis Island, and her father was born in New Jersey to parents who were born in Valozhyn, a significant center of Jewish life, in present-day Belarus, then in the Russian Empire. Soon after her
Betty Miles Betty Miles Betty Miles (January 11, 1910 – June 9, 1992) was an American B-movie film actress and stuntwoman of the late 1930s and well into the 1940s, who later became an educator. Her father, George Henry T. Henninger, was a Texas cattleman, and had taught her to ride horses from an early age. Born in Santa Monica, California as Elizabeth Harriet Henninger, she attended the University of Southern California, graduating in 1931. While attending college, she took part in several debate competitions, winning three. Educated, athletic, attractive, and an accomplished equestrian, she began acting after graduation, playing in several