Lauren Bacall threatens children, but at least they are her own. She’s told The Independent newspaper, in a great interview, what she plans to do if her children ever authorize a posthumous biopic of her life.

“I’ve told my children I’ll haunt them forever if they do that.” You can’t even get her to stop working: she’s currently in Norway shooting the black comedy Wide Blue Yonder, set in a retirement home – the last place you’ll find her. “I just have to keep going as long as I can,” she smiles.

Kristin Scott Thomas said recently that “everyone is terrified of her”, and obviously her children should be too. Although I would haunt my children if they put me in a nursing home!

82-year-old Bacall also has a great view of getting older, and her career status.

“I’m old and I don’t give a damn.”

“If I’m a legend, I’m dead,” she says. “Do you want me to be dead? Legends are of the past.”

And a good attitude about being a celebrity.

“I have no respect for celebrities,” she continues, “and I object to being called one, so don’t try it! I’m an actress, not a celebrity.”

I think what Bacall is getting at here is that celebrities sometimes wind up so exposed that we can’t separate what we see on screen from what we read about. Nicole Kidman’s film career took a dive around the time of her divorce from Tom Cruise, and Lindsay Lohan’s film roles seem to be getting lost in her media overexposure too.

Then again, if Bacall was living her life over again in the noughties, we might feel a little overexposed. What a life! She started out as a model for Harper’s Bazaar, before moving into film and marrying Humphrey Bogart, many years her senior. They had two children, but eleven years later Bogart died of cancer when she was only 31. She married again and had another child, but also divorced second husband Jason Robards.

She was also involved with Frank Sinatra and a few other notable men, and wrote her biography in 1978. No wonder she doesn’t give a damn about being old – she hasn’t had time to even notice the years go by.