“I was always a dog yearner,” Lauren Bacall told her friend, actress Glenn Close, in a 2008 interview. “I didn’t have a dog, growing up in the city with a working mother. As an only child, I yearned for someone to talk to.”
Bacall finally got her first dog, a Cocker Spaniel, when she was 16. Four years later, in 1945, she and Humphrey Bogart received a Boxer puppy, who they named Harvey, as a wedding gift. Harvey died just six months after Bogey in 1957.
Bacall’s last furry friend was a Papillon named Sophie. She told Close that her favorite thing to do was snuggle with the tiny dog.
“In the morning I have breakfast in the kitchen, and I pick her up and hold her, and her little body warms my chest and makes me feel so good,” Bacall said. “She knows life is all about her. She’s spoiled.”
Sophie may have lost her beloved dog mom, but she won’t lose her lavish lifestyle — Bacall left her $10,000 of her $26.5 million estate, according to the New York Daily News. Sophie’s new pet parent will be Bacall’s son, Sam Robards.
Making sure your dog is provided for in case she outlives you is not that unusual. Yes, there are those infamous, over-the-top cases — like Leona Helmsley wanting to leave $12 million to her Maltese (which was reduced to a paltry $2 million after the “Queen of Mean” died). But it is becoming increasingly common for regular folks to set up reasonable trust funds that will prevent their beloved pets from ending up in a shelter, or worse
Rest in peace, Betty.
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