stylistic:tone, linguistic:translation
1960–1989: Return to Broadway and musicals

Bacall was seen in only a handful of films in the 1960s. She starred on Broadway in Goodbye, Charlie in 1959, and went on to a successful stage career. She played Stephanie in the farce Cactus Flower (1965). She won her first Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role as Margo Channing in Applause (1970). The musical was written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. She performed the role both on Broadway and the West End. Walter Kerr of The New York Times praised her performance declaring, "Take your breath away? Indeed. What's more, she never gives it back." Applause was a musical version of the film All About Eve (1950), starring Bette Davis, Bacall's idol as a child. A young and unknown Bacall had met Davis years earlier in New York. After a performance of Applause, Davis visited Bacall backstage and told her, "You're the only one who could have played the part." Bacall would later win the Sarah Siddons Award in 1972 and 1984, an award inspired by the fictional trophy in All About Eve.

She returned to Broadway in the musical Woman of the Year (1981) with book by Peter Stone and music and lyrics by Kander and Ebb. The musical is based on the 1944 film of the same name starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Frank Rich of The New York Times gave the production a mixed review but praised Bacall writing, "The people who concocted this musical know what their show is really about. Miss Bacall is on hand virtually the whole time, and she's vibrant whether no-nonsense or tipsy, domineering or moony, dry or wet. If Woman of the Year is tired around the edges, it is always smart enough to keep its live wire center stage." She went on to win her second Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical.

The few films in which Bacall appeared during this period were all-star vehicles such as Sex and the Single Girl (1964) with Henry Fonda, Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood; Harper (1966) with Paul Newman, Shelley Winters, Julie Harris, Robert Wagner and Janet Leigh; and Murder on the Orient Express (1974), with Ingrid Bergman, Albert Finney, Vanessa Redgrave, Martin Balsam and Sean Connery. In 1964, Bacall appeared in two episodes of Craig Stevens 's Mr. Broadway: first in "Take a Walk Through a Cemetery" with husband Jason Robards, Jr., and later as Barbara Lake in the episode "Something to Sing About" with Balsam. In 1976, Bacall costarred in The Shootist with John Wayne, with whom she had worked in Blood Alley (1955).

Bacall was featured in Robert Altman 's comedy Health (1980), which underwent a troubled process of release after the change of the top management at 20th Century-Fox and saw a very limited release in theaters. The following year, she appeared in the thriller The Fan (1981). The film received mixed reviews, especially following the recent murder of John Lennon and the similarities of the plot to the real event, but Bacall's performance gained a favorable reception. Variety magazine wrote that Bacall and director Edward Bianchi "make the audience care what happens" to her character. Bacall took a seven-year hiatus from films to perform on stage in Woman of the Year (1981) with costar Harry Guardino, for which she won her second Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, and other shows such as a 1985 adaptation of Tennessee Williams 's Sweet Bird of Youth under the direction of Harold Pinter. She returned to film in 1988 with supporting roles in Danny Huston 's Mr. North and Michael Winner 's Appointment with Death. She also starred in the British thriller Tree of Hands (1989), based on a novel by Ruth Rendell, and in a television adaptation of the 1933 classic Dinner at Eight for Turner Television.