Obituary:Joyce Buck

Joyce Buck was always beautiful, intelligent, generous, writes Lauren Bacall. She had grace, integrity, a great gift for friendship and, to top it off, wit.

We were friends for more than 50 years.

I remember, as we waited in the wings of the Lyceum Theatre to audition for a play called Franklin Street (by Ruth and Gus Goetz), looking at this girl - Joyce Gates (her stage name) - hoping we would not read for the same part as she, with her beauty, was sure to get it. As it happened we were both cast in the play , which was directed by George S. Kaufman. We were 17 years old.

Through a stroke of luck we ended up in California at roughly the same time and it was there that our friendship solidified. Two aspiring actresses, me under contract to Howard Hawks, Joyce beginning to make inroads of her own. On one occasion she accompanied me on a drive up Bogie's street off Sunset Boulevard to see if the lights were on in his house. This was followed by collapsing in hysterical laughter - as only 18-year-old girls can.

When I went to London to work and live for a year, it was Joyce who found me a house and showed me her antique haunts with which to furnish my home. She had charmed London as she did California - no one ever knew Joyce without becoming devoted to her.