Lauren Bacall

A publicity portrait of Lauren Bacall from 1958. She has reportedly died at the age of 89. Photograph: Archive Photos/Getty Images

Lauren Bacall, the tough-talking femme fatale who taught Humphrey Bogart how to whistle, has died at the age of 89. TMZ reported that she had suffered a stroke at her family home on Tuesday morning. The Bogart estate confirmed the news via Twitter.

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Lauren Bacall dies at 89

The actor, best known for The Big Sleep and How to Marry a Millionaire, reportedly dies at family home

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• Xan Brooks
• theguardian.com, Tuesday 12 August 2014 20.04 EDT

A publicity portrait of Lauren Bacall from 1958. She has reportedly died at the age of 89. Photograph: Archive Photos/Getty Images

Lauren Bacall, the tough-talking femme fatale who taught Humphrey Bogart how to whistle, has died at the age of 89. TMZ reported that she had suffered a stroke at her family home on Tuesday morning. The Bogart estate confirmed the news via Twitter.

Known for her smoky voice and sultry stare, Bacall raised the temperature in a quartet of hard-boiled 1940s thrillers, although her career went on to include musicals, melodramas and art-house controversies. She won Tony awards for her work on the Broadway stage and an honorary Oscar for her life’s work on screen.

Born Betty Joan Perske in New York, Bacall initially worked as an usherette and a Vogue model before moving to Hollywood at the age of 19. Director Howard Hawks paid her $125 a week for what would prove to be her breakthrough role in the 1944 thriller To Have and Have Not. “You know how to whistle, don’t you?” she purred at co-star Humphrey Bogart. “You just put your lips together and blow.”

Off-screen, Bacall threw her weight behind liberal causes, campaigning for Democratic hopefuls Adlai Stevenson and Robert Kennedy, and enjoyed a reputation for being fiery and outspoken; a woman who did not suffer fools gladly. “Happy schmappy,” she scoffed to Vanity Fair. “I don’t think anyone that has a brain can ever really be happy.”

In old age, she raged against what she saw as the mediocrity of contemporary Hollywood, as represented by everything from the career of Tom Cruise to the Twilight movies that her granddaughter dragged her to see. “She said it was the greatest vampire film ever made,” Bacall recalled. “After the film was over, I wanted to smack her across the head with my shoe.”