by Mark Bailey
The panda fiasco immediately hit the tabloids, with Bogart protesting his innocence every step of the way. One reporter asked him if he’d struck Ms. Roberts. He said he would never hit a woman, “they’re too dangerous.” Another reporter asked if he was drunk at the time of the incident. He replied, “Isn’t everybody at four a.m.?” Fortunately for Bogart, the judge presiding over the case found it as ridiculous as he did, throwing it out after the first hearing. It turns out, being left alone, when you’re the biggest star in the world, requires a lot of people.
NEW YEARS EVE was the one night of the year Humphrey Bogart wouldn’t get drunk—for the simple fact that everybody else would. Still, that did not hold true for other celebrations. At the Bel-Air wedding to his third wife, actress Mayo Methot, described as “a blend of Zelda Fitzgerald and Tugboat Annie,” they served Black Velvets. The A-list event quickly degenerated into a drunken free-for-all, ending with the newlyweds, soon to be christened the Battling Bogarts, spending their wedding night in different beds—in different countries in fact. Drunk and angry, Bogart had driven off with pals to Tijuana.
There is an amusing Easter Day story as well. Bogart was to speak at the Easter service being held at the Hollywood Bowl. The night before, however, turned out to be a real humdinger, Bogie tossing back scotch until well past four in the morning—around which time he was expected to show up at the amphitheater. He walked onto the stage still tight and launched into a remarkably powerful recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. The crowd at the Bowl was brought to tears, rushing the star afterward, as he could only stammer, “I need to puke.”
As for Christmas—which happened to be Bogart’s birthday, too—that was truly a “make mine a double” affair. Bourbon Milk Punch was the cocktail of choice. Why? A yuletide tradition in the Holmby Hills home he shared with his fourth and last wife, Lauren Bacall, the Bourbon Milk Punch helped with Bogie’s hangovers—that throbbing, queasy, altogether uncomfortable hour that would come after he’d stopped celebrating Christmas and before his birthday party had begun.
BOURBON MILK PUNCH
20 OZ. BOURBON
1 QUART OF HALF & HALF
2½ TBSP. VANILLA EXTRACT
⅔ CUP CONFECTIONERS’ (POWDERED) SUGAR
FRESHLY GRATED NUTMEG
Pour ingredients (except nutmeg) into a large pitcher and stir until sugar is dissolved. Cover with tinfoil and let sit in refrigerator for a couple of hours. Stir again to recombine ingredients and serve in an Old-Fashioned glass (ice optional). Sprinkle freshly grated nutmeg on top. Pitcher should provide for about ten cocktails.
LON CHANEY, JR.
1906–1973
ACTOR
Director: “You cannot drink on the set.”
Lon Chaney, Jr: “Then I cannot work on the set.”
Actor and son of silent film legend Lon Chaney, Sr. (The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera). Lon Chaney, Jr.’s father discouraged him from show business and pushed him to attend business school. It wasn’t until the great man passed away in 1930 that his son started acting. Chaney, Jr.’s career would go on to span five decades and mostly consist of horror movies and Westerns. Although he first gained notice for his portrayal of Lennie in Of Mice and Men (1939), his breakout role was as the titular star of his best-known film, Universal’s The Wolf Man (1941). Chaney, Jr., is the only actor to play all of the studio’s trademark monsters: the Wolf Man, the Mummy, Frankenstein’s Monster, and Dracula. (Technically he only played the son of Dracula, but close enough.) Despite some commendable work as a supporting actor in a few A-list films—High Noon (1952), The Defiant Ones (1958)—he never rose above typecasting or cult status. Somewhat fittingly, Chaney’s final picture was Frankenstein vs. Dracula (1971). He was cast not as a monster, but rather Frankenstein’s mute henchman—a silent role of which his father would likely still have disapproved.
HE THOUGHT HE’D TAKE it easy this time. This was Lon Chaney’s third go-round as Frankenstein’s Monster. The last time, a year earlier, he’d done a goofy spin on the character for NBC’s The Colgate Comedy Hour with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Now he was playing a more traditional version for the ABC sci-fi anthology series Tales of Tomorrow. By “traditional version,” it meant he was supposed to break things: smash windows, bust chairs, shatter mirrors—monster stuff. But Chaney worried he’d been a little too overzealous during previous rehearsals, tearing apart the set when cameras weren’t actually rolling, and driving the prop masters crazy. So he figured, this run-through, he’d hold back—take it easy—just go through the motions.
Directors who worked with Chaney applied an informal rule: No changes could be made after lunch. Chaney drank steadily throughout the day, the costumed six-nine, 284-pound brute sipping from a flask between takes, so that by afternoon he sometimes had no idea what he was doing. Word around town was: Get what you could from him in the morning.
The first time he played Frankenstein’s Monster, in Ghost of Frankenstein, the tipsy terror had gotten lost in the labyrinthine set, and even with the entire crew shouting instructions from nearby, it was ten minutes before he staggered out. In The Mummy’s Tomb, he’d banged his costar Elyse Knox’s head against a stone column while carrying her through a cemetery gate. In The Mummy’s Ghost, he’d nearly choked seventy-year-old actor Frank Reicher to death during a strangulation scene (Reicher in fact passed out), then punched his hand through a window he’d specifically been told did not yet have breakaway glass.
* * *
Chaney drank steadily throughout the day, the giant six-nine, 284 pound brute sipping from a flask between takes, so that by afternoon, he sometimes had no idea what he was doing.
* * *
At least now, on Tales of Tomorrow, he had realized he only needed to use brute strength when the cameras were rolling. So for the next run-through, in the scene in the dining room of Dr. Frankenstein’s castle where the monster knocks the maid and butler to the ground, then rips apart the furniture, Chaney went ahead and knocked the two down, but when it came time to throw a chair, he hesitated, then gently set it back down. Two scenes later, same thing: chair was lifted, chair was gently set back down. For good measure, Chaney threw in a pantomime of what he planned to do with the chair when it really counted, pretending to hurtle it to the ground with the full force of his massive frame. Sure, it looked ridiculous, but he’d nail it live. Problem was, this “run-through” was live—the actual broadcast going out live on network television. And Chaney had no idea.
MONTGOMERY CLIFT
1920–1966
ACTOR
“We drink to suppress our panic.”
Montgomery Clift was one of the original members of the Actors Studio and an early proponent of the Method. Noted for his portrayal of moody young men, at the height of his career he was rivaled only by Marlon Brando. He first appeared on Broadway at age fourteen. His Hollywood debut more than ten years later was Red River (1948), opposite John Wayne. Clift received three Best Actor Oscar nominations over the next five years, for The Search (1948), A Place in the Sun (1951), and From Here to Eternity (1953). A disfiguring car accident while shooting Raintree County (1957) caused him constant pain for the remainder of his career. Although he continued to work—appearing alongside Brando in The Young Lions (1958), Elizabeth Taylor in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), and Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable in The Misfits (1961)—his health and physical appearance were noticeably on the decline. Clift received his fourth and final Oscar nomination (Best Supporting Actor) for Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). He completed one last picture, The Defector (1966), before suffering a fatal heart attack in his New York City townhouse.
MONTGOMERY CLIFT WAS DRIVING TOO FAST. But then what proper leading man didn’t drive too fast? From Ramon Navarro to Clark Gable right on through to Steve McQueen, isn’t the history of Hollywood awash with tales of drunken drag racing? Only thing, Clift wasn’t drunk—at least that’s what everyone said. Later, when going over the circumstances of the car c
rash, Clift’s friends seemed at pains to stress his temperance that night—a glass of wine, if that—as if erecting a barrier against the rushing tide of scandal.
According to the other guests, Clift had been withdrawn and sullen at Elizabeth Taylor’s dinner party; then he’d decided to leave early. His good friend Kevin McCarthy, the respected character actor, offered to lead him down the winding Benedict Canyon road back to Beverly Hills, and a relieved Clift accepted. With McCarthy leading the way, the two men set off into the night.
This was during production of an MGM film titled Raintree County. Heading down that winding road in June 1956, Clift’s image was still frozen in the amber of stardom; he was the dashing lead of A Place in the Sun and From Here to Eternity, the sexy brooder whom audiences had come to adore. Only those closest to Clift knew that his taste for good whiskey had become an endless thirst. His best friend, Elizabeth Taylor, and his one-time companion, Jack Larson—they knew that during a dinner at Treetops, the 110-acre Connecticut estate owned by torch singer Libby Holman, Clift’s face kept falling into the soup. Or that after just a few cocktails, Clift might drop to all fours and begin barking like a dog. Kevin McCarthy, driving ahead, he knew all these things, too. In fact, McCarthy no longer even let Clift in his house after Clift drunkenly dropped his son Flip on the floor.
So when, some distance down the hill, McCarthy looked in his rearview mirror to see Clift driving too fast, he sped up, thinking that it was either a hopped-up prank or the beginning of a blackout. Either way, McCarthy wanted no part of it. A few seconds later, Clift swerved out of control and smashed into a telephone pole.
Biographer Patricia Bosworth described the scene: McCarthy ran back to Clift’s car but didn’t see Clift anywhere. After pointing his headlights at the accident, he realized that Clift was crumpled on the floor beneath the dash, his nose broken, the bones of his jaw shattered, his face (as McCarthy described) “torn away.” Afraid to touch him, McCarthy thought Clift wouldn’t survive until the ambulance arrived.
He drove back to Taylor’s to get her then-husband, English actor Michael Wilding, but Taylor insisted on going down to the accident. The front door was jammed shut, but Taylor, unstoppable, went into the back and climbed over the front seat. She cradled Clift’s head—he was choking. Then she reached her fingers down into Clift’s mouth and pulled two teeth out of his throat. When the paparazzi arrived, she was heard to scream, “You bastards! If you dare take one photograph of him like this, I’ll never let another one of you near me again!” (You go, Elizabeth Taylor.)
MGM was forced to shut down production of Raintree County while Clift recovered. He was hospitalized for two weeks, his face reconstructed, then moved to a convalescent home. Taylor, who was also starring in the film, visited him almost daily, as did Kevin McCarthy. With his jaw wired shut, Clift couldn’t eat solid food, but he was able to drink martinis through a straw. Although his face would never look the same again, after more than two months, he was ready to go back to work.
This time, MGM assigned Clift a chaperone, what is a modern-day sober coach, to help him control his alcohol and drug intake. But Clift didn’t much like the idea. En route to the location, while laid over in New Orleans, Clift disembarked from the plane absolutely loaded to the gills. A phalanx of reporters were waiting in the terminal and so Clift took off sprinting. He sprinted through the airport with the newsmen, as well as his chaperone, nipping at his heels, until finally Clift managed to lose them. Then he went and found a bar.
FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953)
Harry Cohn’s Folly.” That’s what people were calling it. Cohn, the president of Columbia Pictures, had paid $82,000 for the rights to the James Jones novel From Here to Eternity, but the odds of it ever being produced looked slim. The story of a group of soldiers stationed in Hawaii in the months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, the book’s less-than-flattering portrayal of Army life, sure to draw the ire of the military were it ever to be depicted on film (and don’t forget this was the McCarthy era), seemed like an insurmountable obstacle.
But the entire production of From Here to Eternity, it turned out, was a series of long shots that delivered. The cooperation of the Army, for instance, was happily granted (thanks in part to the connections of producer Buddy Adler, who’d been a Lieutenant-Colonel during World War II) on two conditions: that the stockade would never be shown, and that Captain Holmes, the film’s villain, would be given an unhappy ending. (In the book, he’s promoted to major.)
Adler’s choice of director, Fred Zinnemann, landed the job despite the objections of Cohn, who considered him too “art house” for the project. (Zinnemann’s breakthrough, High Noon, had yet to be released.) Donna Reed, of all people, was picked to play a prostitute; Deborah Kerr, a sex maniac. Frank Sinatra campaigned relentlessly for the part of Private Maggio, an event fictionalized in The Godfather when producer Jack Woltz wakes up with a severed horse head in his bed. In truth, Sinatra was cast in the role only after Eli Wallach fell out—and even then, Sinatra had to agree to a meager salary of $1,000 a week.
Filming began in March 1953 and lasted eight weeks. While on location in Hawaii, Sinatra, Kerr, Zinnemann, Burt Lancaster (playing First Sergeant Warden), and Montgomery Clift (playing Private Prewitt) had dinner together most nights. Afterward, Sinatra and Clift—who’d taken Sinatra under his wing as an acting protégé—would slink off to Sinatra’s hotel room, where they passed ungodly amounts of time calling Nairobi (where Mrs. Sinatra, Ava Gardner, was shooting Mogambo and apparently boinking the entire continent) and getting absolutely trashed. It was messy stuff. They’d throw beer cans out the window, stumble through the lobby shouting obscenities. One night Sinatra threatened to commit suicide over the problems he was having with Gardner. (Clift talked him out of it.) Many nights, Lancaster and Kerr had to physically put each of them in bed.
This all came to a head the final night of shooting in Hawaii, when both men showed up for a scene together drunk. Sinatra decided he wasn’t happy with the blocking, which required the actors to stand up. Sinatra wanted to sit down, as the drunk frequently do. Zinnemann insisted he stand and Clift agreed. Sinatra’s response: slapping Clift in the face, then unleashing a torrent of expletives at Zinnemann. The situation grew so volatile that Adler called Cohn (who was dining with an Air Force general) and insisted he get to the set. Cohn showed up, chauffeured in an Air Force limousine, and threatened to shut the entire picture down if Sinatra didn’t pull it together.
Apparently Sinatra did. From Here to Eternity went on to become one of the biggest successes in Columbia’s history, nominated for thirteen Academy Awards and winning eight, including Oscars for Zinnemann and Sinatra. The film would reignite Sinatra’s acting career.
JOHN FORD
1894–1973
DIRECTOR
“I didn’t show up to collect any of my first three Oscars. Once I went fishing, another time there was a war on, and on the third, I was suddenly taken drunk.”
Arguably the most influential American filmmaker in the history of cinema. John Ford’s career spanned six decades and nearly 150 pictures, including more than 60 in the silent era. (First film: The Tornado, 1917; last: Chesty, 1976). In between, Ford won a record four Academy Awards for Best Director: The Informer (1935), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), and The Quiet Man (1952). He had a unique visual style characterized by long shots and vast landscapes. Ford worked in all manner of genres—war films, period pieces, comedies—but is most closely associated with Westerns, of which his The Searchers (1956) is considered defining. He established a stock company of actors, including such heavy hitters as Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda, and was instrumental in the development of John Wayne’s character and career, directing him in over twenty features. Repeated use of Monument Valley as a location earned the region the nickname of “Ford Country.” Legendarily efficient, he was known for shooting a bare minimum of footage, often in sequence (especially impressive, as he didn
’t utilize storyboards). Despite his reputation as a tough and abusive taskmaster on set, Ford was hugely respected by his actors, particularly by Wayne. Film scholars, auteur theorists, and fellow directors consider him a master to this day.
THIS DID NOT RESEMBLE a John Ford production. Having already directed literally dozens of films, Mister Roberts was to be an adaptation of a popular stage play, starring Henry Fonda, James Cagney, William Powell, and Jack Lemmon. It was a big project, partially shot on location in Hawaii, but Ford—in contrast to his normal demeanor on set—was treating it much like a vacation. First of all, he was drinking. Second, he was drinking a lot. This had rarely ever happened on the job. Yes, there was that time on Arrowsmith when he went on a bender to Catalina and got canned, but that was more than twenty years ago, and had proven to be an anomaly.
Ford’s immigrant Irish father had been a saloonkeeper, so it is not altogether surprising that Ford developed the drinking habit. That his binges were severe and prolonged wasn’t a secret. But like, say, Spencer Tracy, they typically only happened between films. During Prohibition, as soon as a picture wrapped, Ford would give his wife, Mary, two thousand dollars for booze. If the bootlegger couldn’t handle the order, they’d call in some friends from the Navy, who’d provide some of the 180-proof grain alcohol used to power torpedo motors. The stuff had a poisonous additive that made it unsuitable to drink, but if you were savvy enough, you could figure out how to remove most of it. Ford would mix up big batches of “torpedo juice”—grain alcohol and pineapple juice—in the tub. It might still make you sick, but it was better than nothing.