Lauren Bacall At 70: Contented And Pleased

----------------------------------------------------------------- Book signing

Lauren Bacall will sign copies of her book at 1 p.m. tomorrow at Tower Books, 20 Mercer St., 283-6333. -----------------------------------------------------------------

Lauren Bacall enters a room with the posture of an empress, but her manner quickly turns democratic. She laughs often, with all the throaty gusto you'd expect. Her smile is frequent, her eye contact direct.

Discussing her new book - the reflective and poignant "Now," her first published writing since 1979's bestselling autobiography "By Myself" - she sounds proud but not prideful. She has the demeanor of a completely happy woman, but mention the word "happy" and her reaction is unexpected.

"Happy? That's a big word, maybe the biggest word in the dictionary," says the voice that fascinated audiences in films ("To Have and Have Not," "The Big Sleep," "How To Marry a Millionaire") and on stage ("Cactus Flower," "Applause").

"Frankly, I don't think I've been happy for years. Contented, yes. Pleased and proud, yes. But happy, no."

Part of this feeling, says the 70-year-old actress, stems from her profession. "In my line of work, you're always auditioning. You're always being tested. And I have a natural state of angst, anyway."

"Impossible to duplicate"

But professional concerns are only a fraction of her explanation.

"The kind of happiness that wipes out all concerns, takes precedence over every other emotion . . . well, that kind of happiness is possible when you're in your 20s. You don't have enough experience at that age to feel the need to be cautious. That kind of happiness is impossible to duplicate."

The happiness of Bacall's own 20s is part of Hollywood folklore. She met Humphrey Bogart when she was 19 and married him when she was 20. Despite their quarter-century age difference, they enjoyed a marital bliss rare in Hollywood. But in 1957, Bogart died of cancer, and in the following decades he attained a posthumous mythical status.

"The 11 1/2 years that Bogie and I were married were the happiest period of my life," she says. "I was a complete virgin when I met him. He was my mentor, my teacher and the love of my life. I remember every word he ever said to me, but I will never see him again.

"I'd love to believe that after I die, I will see Bogie walking toward me with his arms outstretched and that we'll be dancing forever on clouds. But I'm a common-sense-type person. I'd love to believe that will happen, but I do not believe that it will. I'm not an atheist. I feel that `somebody up there likes me.' But to believe that I'll see Bogie again? No."

After Bogart's death, Hollywood didn't know what to do with the outspoken actress whose identity was so closely associated with her iconoclastic husband. In any event, her first allegiance was to the stage, and she achieved Broadway success in "Cactus Flower," "Applause" and "Woman of the Year." In 1961, she married Jason Robards, considered by some a Bogart look-alike. They divorced eight years later. She and Bogart had two children, son Stephen and daughter Leslie; she and Robards had a son, Sam.

"A book of feelings"

"By Myself" was a well-written, literate autobiography; "Now" is described by its author as "a book of feelings." She discusses her enduring love for Bogart, her warm relationships with friends and children, and the uphill battle of her own post-Bogart career. The book emphasizes that she has lived alone since 1969, maintaining her own residence during romantic interludes. Regarding those interludes, she names no names.

"Some well-meaning executive was concerned that `Now' doesn't have any tidbits, any juicy gossip. Well, what's wrong with writing about feelings? That's what falling in love with someone is all about. I've never understood the `and then I slept with' autobiographies. Half of it I don't believe. Why would Burt Reynolds, at this point in his life, when he wants the respect of the public, want to write about sleeping with Candy Bergen? It makes all the columns, and it doesn't help anything. After the tidbits make the columns, the sales often fall off."

Although "Now" contains moving accounts of her friendships with Laurence Olivier and Leonard Bernstein, Bacall says most of her strongest relationships have been with women.

"I've always gotten along better with women than men," she says. "Maybe it's because I had such a wonderful relationship with my own mother. But also, I know that when any woman achieves something, she's had to put forth twice the effort of any man who's achieved the same thing. I just have enormous respect for women. When a man stands up for himself, he's considered gutsy. When a woman stands up for herself, she's called something other than gutsy."

Although she says she could never live anywhere but the United States, she takes an unblinking view of contemporary American life.

"There's a mean streak in the country right now. We don't value our talents, and Americans have not been trained to appreciate creative arts. It's so different in Europe, where people take the time to enjoy their friends and family. Here, we've been living in the midst of mediocrity for 12 years, with the accent on money, not on personal quality.

"I really blame the Reagan-Bush era for that. And yet people seem to want to deify Reagan and Bush - and now Oliver North, who is a crook and a liar! And everyone is so critical of Clinton, whose heart is in the right place and whose major mistake is trying to do too much too soon. The media has taken Clinton to task for everything, whereas they gave Reagan so much slack. I don't understand it."

Freely discusses Bogie

When Bacall toured 15 years ago to promote "By Myself," interviewers were begged by nervous publicists to ask questions about the actress's own life and bring Bogart into the conversation only when necessary. But when promoting "Now," she discusses her late husband freely.

"I don't know how to address that except to say that `By Myself' was a chronological autobiography. `Now' is a free-flowing exploration of my feelings. And when I explore my emotions, there's no way to avoid Bogie. No way I would want to avoid Bogie."