And the Rest Is History

by Marlene Wagman-Geller

  In January 1957, Lauren was getting ready to pick up her children from Sunday school. Before departing, she asked Humphrey if he felt better after his terrible night, to which he replied, “It’s always better in the daylight.” She kissed him, and he said his last words to his first love, “Good-bye, kid. Hurry back.” When Lauren and Humphrey had kissed in The Big Sleep, she had said, “I like that. I’d like more.” Her words were prophetic of how she felt at the loss of her beloved husband after twelve years of bliss.

  Postscript

  Humphrey Bogart’s funeral was accompanied to musical selections from Bach. On the altar was a model of the ship from The African Queen. In accordance with his wishes, he was cremated. Warner Brothers Studios and 20th Century Fox held moments of silence.

  Urban legend relates that Bacall placed in his urn the small gold whistle he had given his wife before their marriage. It was inscribed with the words If you want anything, just whistle.

  23

  Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis

  1950

  First Ladies have at times achieved renown apart from their famous husbands: Abigail Adams for promoting the rights of women, Eleanor Roosevelt for creating the March of Dimes, Jacqueline Kennedy for imbuing Camelot with elegance. Nancy Reagan’s legacy, however, is the love affair she enacted against the backdrop of the White House, wherein she walked, hand in hand, with her life’s leading man.

  Anne Frances Robbins was born in New York, the daughter of an actress and a car salesman. When the marriage disintegrated, Edith Luckett, unable to care for her infant, whom she called Nancy, left her in the care of her sister. Six years later Edith married Loyal Davis, a prominent Chicago neurosurgeon, who formally adopted her daughter.

  In her Smith College yearbook, Nancy wrote, “My greatest ambition is to have a successful, happy marriage”; however, still not having met Mr. Right, Nancy followed in her mother’s footsteps and began her Hollywood career. She did not become a star; however, through serendipity, she became the North Star to a Hollywood leading man.

  Nancy’s destiny, Ronald Wilson Reagan, was born in Illinois and lived over the H. C. Pitney Variety Store. After attending Eureka College, because of his compelling voice he was hired as an announcer for the Chicago Cubs until a screen test led to Warner Brothers Studios. He spent the majority of his Hollywood years in B movies, where, he joked, the producers “didn’t want them good, they wanted them Thursday.” His career was derailed by his stint in the army; when he returned, he was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild. It was through this position that he was to meet his forever First Lady, to whom he would later say, “God must think a lot of me to have given me you.” However, their first encounter had less to do with divine intervention than with Nancy’s own machinations.

  As a twenty-six-year-old starlet, Nancy was aghast to discover her name on a list of Communist sympathizers. MGM promptly placed an item in a gossip column noting that she was not that Nancy Davis; however, she saw opportunity in the mix-up. She had seen Ronald Reagan on the silver screen and she had liked what she saw. Deciding to kill two birds with the one stone, she cajoled her friend into persuading Reagan into inviting her to dinner, ostensibly to discuss her situation. Ronald agreed, but as protection from a bad blind date, warned her that it would have to be an early evening as he had a predawn call the next day. Nancy responded with a similar early-exit line.

  The first time Nancy met Ronald was on November 15, when they had dinner at LaRue’s, a glamorous restaurant on the Sunset Strip. After their meal, Ronald asked her to a Sophie Tucker performance, where they would take in the first act. They stayed for the second show, which ended at three a.m. The following evening they met once more at an Oceanside restaurant. Nancy later remarked, “I don’t know if it was exactly love at first sight. But it was pretty close.”

  From that first date Nancy knew she wanted Ronnie’s ring to grace her finger; however, Reagan, having recently divorced actress Jane Wyman, was cautious. After two years of dating, Nancy once more decided to nudge fate; she told him she was going to leave for New York City to star in a play. Shortly afterward, while they were having dinner at their usual booth at the Beverly Hills Chasen’s, he said, “I think we ought to get married.” Nancy responded, “Let’s.” At the onset of their union, no one could have predicted that the two actors would one day play their greatest roles: he as the leader of the free world, and she as the woman who loved him.

  Not wanting to turn their wedding into a paparazzi buffet, the couple decided to wed in a private ceremony on March 4, 1952, at the Little Brown Church in the Valley, with only William Holden and his wife as guests. Nancy recalled of her nuptials that she was so far into the stratosphere that the only words she was able to hear were “I now pronounce you man and wife.” The bridal night was at the Old Mission Inn, where Ronald carried her over the threshold to a room that held red roses, followed by a Phoenix honeymoon to spend time with Nancy’s ecstatic parents. Later Nancy would adoringly beam, “What can you say about a man, who on Mother’s Day sends flowers to his mother-in-law, with a note thanking her for making him the happiest man on Earth?” Seven months later Patti was born; their second child was son Ron. Nancy was only too happy to trade in her career to be a full-time wife and mother. Later she wrote of her devotion, “My life began when I met Ronald Reagan.”

  During their first year of marriage, Ronald’s career constantly took him on the road. Nancy’s ritual for her husband’s departure was to slip little notes and jelly beans into his suitcase and then drive him to the station, where she would remain until the very last minute. Then, depressed, she would go home and knit him socks. Ronald’s ritual was to write her letters of longing on hotel stationery: “My Darling, I’m sitting here on the 6th floor beside a phony fire-place looking out at a gray wet sky and listening to a radio play music not intended for one person alone.”

  Ronald’s next job was as a host for the television series Death Valley Days until his passion for politics led him to two terms as the California governor. When he embarked on the campaign trail for chief executive, after an exhausting day of events, Nancy, too wound up to sleep, ate apples in bed while she read. Worried that the noise from chewing would disturb her man, she switched to bananas.

  When elected president, Reagan quipped that he was “living above the store again.” Though life changed greatly, one constant was that President Reagan continued to write love letters, though this time on White House stationery. That year, one read, “Our wedding anniversary. 29 years of more happiness than any man could rightly deserve.” And Nancy continued with “the gaze”: a long, adoring look that came to her eyes when she looked upon her spouse.

  One of the legacies of Reagan’s administration was his campaign in the cold war, wherein he called Russia “the evil empire” and, in front of the Berlin Wall, demanded, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” His most moving speech was on the night of the explosion of the Challenger: “The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.... We will never forget them ... as they ... ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth’ to ‘touch the face of God.’” For her part, as First Lady, Nancy Reagan embarked on many projects—such as her anti-drug campaign with its famous slogan, “Just Say No”—but first and foremost her job was as the fierce protector of her husband.

  Unfortunately, even as the dragon at the gate she could not be a talisman against harm. Three months after Reagan’s election, John Hinckley Jr., in an insane plot to impress actress Jodie Foster, attempted to assassinate Reagan. The bullet lodged an inch from his heart. In the operating room Reagan joked to the surgeons, “I hope you’re all Republicans,” to which one replied, “Today, Mr. President, we’re all Republicans.” When Nancy was allowed to see him, Ronald removed his oxygen mask and joked, “Honey, I forgot to duck,” a reference to the defeated boxer Jack Dempsey’s jest to his wife. Devastated, Nancy returned to the White House and slept on her husband’s side of the bed, holding one of
his shirts, where she was comforted by its scent. She wrote in her diary, “Nothing can happen to my Ronnie. My life would be over.” The bullet was successfully removed and Ronald said he believed God had spared his life so that he might go on to fulfill a greater purpose—and remain at Nancy’s side.

  Although he made a full physical recovery, Nancy never made a full psychological one. In the fashion of Caesar’s wife, to avoid any further ides of March, she began to consult astrologer Joan Quigley to assist in planning the president’s schedule. When word of this leaked, it brought her a storm of criticism along with ire over her out-of-control spending. Her inaugural gown cost $10,000, and other designer gowns earned her the name Queen Nancy. In an attempt to deflect the criticism, she donned a bag lady costume for a 1982 dinner and sang “Second Hand Clothes,” mimicking Streisand’s “Second Hand Rose.” Her detractors referred to her as “Mrs. President” and claimed that she ruled the Oval Office with a Gucci-clad fist.

  After departing the White House, the Reagans were looking forward to constant togetherness in their Bel Air home. Reagan expressed this when he said that Nancy was his respite at the end of the day and could make him feel lonely just by leaving the room. Tragically, the golden years were anything but. In 1994 Reagan took pen to gold-embossed stationery: “I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease.... I only wish that there was some way I could spare Nancy from this painful experience.” Nancy now had to heed her husband’s words: “The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.” Nancy, who had centered her life on Ronald for the past forty years, became his fierce protector more than ever. At the same time she had to school herself for a life without her leading man.

  In 2004, her gaze full of agony, Nancy said good-bye to her dear Ronnie, comforted in the belief that he had “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.”

  Postscript

  When Ronald Reagan passed away, President George W. Bush declared June 11 a national day of mourning. Reagan lay in state in Washington, DC, where more than a hundred thousand people came to pay their respects. At his state funeral, President Bush said, “Ronald Reagan belongs to the ages now, but we preferred it when he belonged to us.” The Reagan Library in California held a memorial service and interment, during which Mrs. Reagan lost her composure for the first time. After accepting the folded flag, Nancy kissed the casket and mouthed I love you before departing.

  24

  Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor

  1952

  The Richard Burton-Elizabeth Taylor union was one of epic proportions, a two-decade odyssey as tumultuous as the twentieth century against which it was enacted. Their love affair called for the greatest roles the two larger-than-life actors had ever played and became a romance that shocked and mesmerized the world.

  Richard Walter Jenkins’s father was known as a “twelve-pints-a-day man” whose chief possessions were a shovel and a gift for words. When his wife died giving birth to their thirteenth child, Richard was sent to live with his sister. He started to smoke at age eight and began to drink regularly at age twelve. The stabilizing influence on him was his teacher, Philip H. Burton, who introduced him to theater ; his first role was in his school’s production The Apple Cart. In tribute to his mentor, Richard adopted his surname.

  When he was eighteen Richard left for London’s stage; he also married Sybil Williams, an actress who was also the daughter of a Welsh coal miner. They had two daughters with Shakespearean names: Kate and Jessica. His 1960 production of Camelot proved to be the turning point of his life. His performance as the king impressed 20th Century Fox, which signed him for the film that would make him a star and where he would encounter the woman who would cast him in the role of a lifetime.

  Richard’s destiny, Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, was born to American parents residing in England. When she was twelve, her ethereal beauty landed her the role that made her a star—Velvet Brown in MGM’s National Velvet. In 1960 Taylor attained superstardom when she was chosen to play the Queen of the Nile, Cleopatra, for which she commanded the unprecedented salary of $1 million.

  The first time Richard met Elizabeth was when she and her husband, Michael Wilding, were invited to a Sunday brunch at the home of Jean Simmons. Elizabeth, who was sitting by the pool reading a book, saw her hostess’s houseguest quoting Dylan Thomas. She felt that he was full of himself. She later recalled of the Welsh womanizer, “Ohhh, boy—I’m not gonna become a notch on his belt.” She said she gave him “the cold fish eye.” Burton recalled the event in his diary: “A girl sitting on the other side of the pool lowered her book, took off her sunglasses and looked at me. She was lavish. She was a dark, unyielding largesse. She was, in short, too bloody much, and not only that, she was ignoring me. Her breasts were apocalyptic, they would topple empires.” It would be another nine years before their paths would cross once more.

  Though Burton was still married to Sybil, his appetite for women was as insatiable as his alcoholic intake. Joan Collins told him she believed he would sleep with a snake if he had the chance, to which he replied, “Only if she were wearing a skirt, darling.” He romanced co-stars Claire Bloom, Jean Simmons, and Susan Strasberg and was often seen in the company of a woman dubbed “the Copacabana Cutie.” However, he always returned to Sybil, whom he considered his emotional rock, and their daughters.

  Elizabeth’s appetite for the opposite sex was as voracious as Burton’s; however, she ended up wedding the men she bedded. Her relationship with her fourth husband, Eddie Fisher, had earned her the reputation of card-carrying home-wrecker when she lured him away from Debbie Reynolds.

  In 1963, 20th Century Fox embarked on the epic film Cleopatra. When production continued in Rome, the replacement director was Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who had filmed the classic All about Eve, and the replacement for the doomed lover, Marc Antony, was Richard Burton. At first Burton dismissed his diva co-star as “Miss Tits”; she told her friends that Burton was a “duffer” who tried to flirt with her with the uninspired “Has anybody told you you’re a very pretty girl?” Of this pickup line Taylor later recalled, “Oy gevalt, here’s the great lover, the great wit, the great intellectual of Wales, and he comes out with a line like that.”

  One morning, Burton, in his first big scene with Taylor, appeared on the set with a hangover. Elizabeth, never particularly maternal, immediately became so and felt an urge to not only mother, but smother him with attention. She gazed into his intense green eyes and, as she recalled: “And that was it—I was another notch.”

  When it came time for the love scene between Antony and Cleopatra, Burton and Taylor were no longer playing a role. When Mankiewicz told them to cut after a passionate scene, his order went unheeded. The director recalled, “To be on the set was like being locked in a cage with two tigers.”

  Fisher tried to get his wife to stop, but that was akin to telling Niagara not to fall. When it appeared Richard was not going to leave his wife, Taylor took an overdose of pills. Perhaps touched at this display of love, Burton proposed to Taylor with a Bulgari pendant, platinum set with an 18.61-karat emerald surrounded by diamonds, designed so it could be detached and worn as a brooch. The diamonds he lavished on Liz would become as legendary as their romance. He later said of his destiny, “I cannot see life without Elizabeth. She is my everything—my breath, my blood, my mind, and my imagination.”

  Mankiewicz realized that although his earlier film had been all about Eve, Cleopatra was going to be all about Liz and Dick, as the international press, which was swarming the location, had dubbed them in tabloid shorthand. The fallout exceeded even the opulent production: The Vatican accused Taylor of “erotic vagrancy,” tabloids preempted John Glenn’s orbit of Earth, and the cold war tensions heating up were back-burnered. The rapidly aging director joined the media circus when a paper stated that he was the one dating Taylor and was using Burton as a decoy. Mankiewicz called
a press conference and said, “It’s time for the real story to be told. I am in love with Richard Burton and he is in love with me—and we are using Elizabeth Taylor, with her consent, as our cover-up.” He ended by kissing Burton full on the mouth. Liz dubbed the period “le scandale.”

  During filming in Italy, six thousand extras had been hired to cheer Queen Cleopatra’s entrance, a scene that Elizabeth felt might instead result in her impromptu stoning, a fear predicated on the Vatican’s condemnation. Nevertheless, in the spirit of “the show must go on” and reassured by her co-star, she allowed herself to be hoisted atop the sphinx. Her fears were unfounded; the crowd instead burst into a wild chorus of “Leez! Leez!” During the screening of both the on-screen and off-screen epic, Darryl Zanuck remarked to Mankiewicz, in a tongue-in-cheek reference to its leading actors, “If any woman behaved toward me the way Cleopatra treated Antony, I would cut her balls off.”

  The Burton-Taylor marriage took place on March 15, 1964, in Montreal. The only jewelry the bride wore was the Bulgari pendant. When they stopped over at a hotel in Boston, a hysterical crowd clawed at the newlyweds. Burton’s coat was ripped and Taylor’s ear was bloodied when someone tried to steal one of her earrings. The age of Liz and Dick had begun.

  As a token of his affection for Valentine’s Day 1969, Burton presented his wife with the 50-karat La Peregrina Pearl, which had once belonged to Mary I of England. To showcase the gem, Richard also acquired a portrait of Queen Mary wearing the pearl.

  However, Richard’s gifts were not just material in nature. A lifelong wordsmith, he wrote countless letters to his lady love. In one he stated, “Well, first of all, you must realize that I worship you. Second of all, at the expense of seeming repetitive, I love you. Thirdly, and here I go again with my enormous command of language, I can’t live without you.”