Don't Call Kidman a Legend - She's Just a Beginner, Snaps Bacall

Lauren Bacall, the veteran film star famous for her smouldering eyes and sexy voice, launched an attack yesterday on Nicole Kidman, who co-stars in her latest film.

Bacall, widow of Humphrey Bogart, with whom she appeared in classics such as The Big Sleep and Key Largo, took offence at the Venice film festival when Kidman was described by an interviewer as a screen legend.

The two actors were at a press conference to promote their controversial new film Birth, by the British director Jonathan Glazer.

As question after question was directed at Kidman, the tension was palpable as she pleaded: "Please ask somebody else." She was keen to play down her status as one of the world's most famous actors, insisting: "I certainly don't feel like a big star in Hollywood."

Then GMTV's Jenni Falconer asked Bacall a seemingly innocuous question. "And now you've worked alongside another screen legend, Nicole Kidman ... " she began. Interrupting her in mid-sentence, Bacall snapped: "She's not a legend. She's a beginner. What is this 'legend?' She can't be a legend at whatever age she is. She can't be a legend - you have to be older."

Despite a career spanning 50 movies, it was the 79-year-old Bacall's first time at the Venice festival. "I'm glad I've lived long enough to have it happen," she added.

Bacall's acting career began 60 years ago with To Have and Have Not. She was nominated for an Oscar for her role in The Mirror Has Two Faces, but failed to win it. Kidman, however, won an Oscar as best actress for her performance in The Hours.

In the controversial film in which they co-star, Kidman plays Anna, a wealthy New Yorker, whose husband dies while jogging in Central Park. A decade on, she is poised to marry again. Bacall plays her imperious mother.

Anna's engagement party is interrupted by a 10-year-old boy who claims to be her dead husband. At first, she is sceptical, but she begins to fall in love with him and they share a bath together and a kiss on the lips.

The film is seen as a front-runner for Venice's top prize, the Golden Lion. But despite this, Kidman was booed at a preview screening yesterday. She arrived at the festival on Monday, three days after her former husband Tom Cruise left, having promoted his film Collateral.

Kidman defended the film and said she had been touched by the story. "I read the script and it immediately affected me," she said. "There is something in this woman I felt I understood and knew. I responded to this woman who was in mourning. It wasn't that I wanted to make a film where I kiss a 10-year-old boy, I wanted to make a film where you understand love. I read a lot of scripts and this is the one that spoke to me."

The two women previously co-starred in Dogville last year, with Bacall playing a supporting role to Kidman.

Despite her comments, she maintained that she did not have a problem working with the younger actor. "Nicole and I worked together on Dogville and we were friends when we started this," she added. "That laid the groundwork for our fabulous relationship - on-screen and off."