"You knew here in a professional sense. I knew her ( peripherally, but in the flesh and up close and personal, with her in her underwear ) as she was when NOT working. And I saw her and sadly heard her, for YEARS."
This is true. However, when you spend a week or two on a set with someone, you usually get a pretty good picture of a person. The days can be long, and sometimes boring as hell while you wait for all the setting up. Tensions can get pretty twisted.
Try adding FX into the mix, and you get a real good idea how to separate the good people from the total schmucks.
I can only speak for what I saw. She certainly was a large presence while she was around, and unlike other actors I've been around, she treated everyone pretty well.
She's had a fairly interesting life. I would love to have been around the Industry during those times.
The smart ones treat the cast and crew well; they always did. Lots of things can go wrong, even for the biggest STAR, if they act like holy terrors, on a set or stage.
But what can an ordinary citizen do, when Miss/Mrs./Mr. STAR acts like an absolute POS, in public? Not much at all' especially when it's to their reps or product.
Trust me, from the neighborhood bakery ( which was EXCELLENT ! ), to the dress shop, to just about every local store in the vicinity of the Dakota, Lauren Bacall's name was and probably still is mud! And these people dealt with her for decades; not for two weeks on some film set.