Comparing the way the deaths of Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall are being reported

To be frank, Robin Williams became successful through his comic ability and ability to act a variety of parts.

Bacall became famous because she was beautiful and had sex with the leading men of her day.

If Dame Judi Dench had died (Dame Judi's an attractive woman but not held to be a great beauty) instead of Lauren Bacall and the obituaries focussed on her love life instead of her acting roles you may have a point.

The obituaries for both James Garner and Paul Newman spoke at length about how good looking they were. Their marriages were also mentioned, although admittedly because they lasted which is unusual in Hollywood.

I get what you're saying but RW's marriages are well documented too, all that info will be in autobiographies and biogs too though.
Two very different lives and deaths and people are interested, I don't think anything I've read was particularly judgemental.
The only nasty stuff I've seen was about RW and even that was roundly put down, felt very sorry for his family though getting twitter abuse.

It was an entire article about her having an extra marital relationship. Of what interest is that now? Who needs to know about that?

I disagree Nicki.

I review of somebody's like whole life would quit naturally include important relationships. How are her major life relationship not relevant to her life?

I agree with the OP and thought the same thing, the article that made me think was one describing how she had an affair with Frank Sinatra when married to HB. I couldn't see how that was at all relevant tbh.

weatherall but you could say exactly the same for the men that 5 of those actresses have been involved with. "Look good and marry well!' Go figure, beautiful Hollywood people have relationships with beautiful Hollywood people.

You don't think the obits of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt will one day be heavily influenced by their relationships with those women?

I think you may have got a more favourable response if you'd gone with Peter OT in the first place. As is your comparison of LB and RW looked like an attempt to find sexism were there was none.

In relation to LB and POT I do see the point that you are making but feel that female movie stars will always be judged on their looks more than male ones and that obituaries will always reflect this.

weatherall i think your comparison with peter o'toole is interesting. after all sian philips is well-known, though less so than humphrey bogart i would have said, and his daughter acts too

To add all the possible explanations, RW was more of a contemporary than Bacall. We grew up with some of his films and our children too. Bacall had an illustrious career, but her heyday belonged to a different era. The coverage of her death would be more formulaic and her filmography would not mean as much to the younger generations, hence the focus on her private life. Not trying to excuse it, we all know what the media are like, but that might partially explain it.

Lauren Bacall was a very respectable age and died of natural causes. Her death is sad but not a tragedy in the way that a man driven to suicide by mental illness is.

also, when Bacall started her career the job description was indeed 'look good and marry well'. At the time she would NEVER have got anywhere if she had not been good-looking. Indeed, that is how she started work - as a model. Times have changed.

BTW she was also that mumsnet demon, the Other Woman, when her relationship began with Bogart. He was in a violent marriage to an ill woman at the time.

allisgood1 I don't think he did sleep in a different room. It appears he went to another bedroom and died soon after his wife went to bed. I suspect they had a house with numerous bedrooms and he obviously was not going to harm himself in the marital bedroom.

OP, I think you are trying to make something out of something that isn't there.

Not sure about the comparison with RW, but I was struck by the focus on the radio this morning on LB's relationship with Bogart. Of course it was going to be mentioned, but R4 this morning played a long clip of an interview that was basically her talking about her first impressions of Bogart, how they'd got together, etc. To me it felt like too much emphasis on her marriage and not enough on her work.

in the context though of him allegedly having money troubles due to paying them alimony following the divorces

The front page of the DM shows RW with his two ex-wives!

I did notice that. Lots of slideshows with glam photos of Bacall. Also lots of talk about her husbands and other relationships, no mention I have seen of Williams' marriage troubles.

I don't quite agree either.

I have seen coverage of RW's wives but none of them was famous.

LB was married to two very famous men and her children are actors / have achieved fame too.

Nit sure you can compare in this case.

the mirror had the same stuff on the cover

No, I don't get your point at all.
Robin's ex wives have been mentioned a lot.
Their deaths are so completely different, I don't see the point in trying to compare them.

vicmackie that made me too

I think you'd need to compare her obituary with those of men of a similar age at death to see what the similarities and differences were. A suicide in mid life is always going to be reported very differently from a death in old age, before you get into considerations of gender.

Lauren Bacall died aged 89, and I expect obituaries covering all her whole life were already on the shelf.

Robin Williams' suicide was handled totally differently as a news story because of the unexpected manner of his death.

And I think it seems different to a British audience, because in all parts of the UK there is an Inquest system and medical/financial/other relevant details would be held back until the Inquest whereas in US they're published immediately (which gives quite a different impact to reports).

Pretty much all the coverage of RW's suicide in the Metro this morning was about how depressed and anxious he was about having to pay alimony to his 2 ex wives. Lots of stuff about unbearable financial burden etc. They didn't quite come out and say "those gold digging blood sucking bitches drove him to an early death" but it was very heavily hinted at IMO. It was very interesting.