I was going to work again, so we had to find a permanent nurse. We were lucky, lucky, lucky. A great woman named Alice Hartley, Canadian, turned up. She was stocky, regular, easy. What convinced Bogie was the way she dealt with Harvey and Baby – the mate we’d bought for Harvey – when they jumped on her as she tried to get into the house. No nambypamby flower she – no babying of Stephen – she was full of love and good humor and the loneliness all such ladies had, with the difference being that she’d been married, had a daughter and a beau. The beau traveled – the daughter lived in Canada – she liked and wanted to work. She and May got along well – May was welcomed into the nursery, so there was not a moment’s strain in the house. It was a family, as it should have been.
My movie was Young Man with a Horn, directed by Mike Curtiz (who called actors ‘actor-bums’ – he was quite a character), and co-starring Kirk Douglas and Doris Day. I hadn’t seen Kirk in years. In 1946 Bogie and I met Hal Wallis on the train heading East. I told Hal about this fantastic actor who was in a play in New York – Hal had to see him, he was so talented. To Hal’s credit, he did see him and signed him. From then on Kirk had been in California with Diana and their two boys. We worked well together, liked each other, talked over old and new times, and flirted – harmlessly. Unhappily, the movie was nowhere near as good as it should have been. Strange – there was I being directed by the man who had directed Casablanca. He wore riding boots often, lost his temper occasionally – but only at those who were vulnerable. He was just a tiny bit weak and he was brilliant with the camera. He would tell me how much he loved Bogie – ‘How is dahling Bogie? Such a wonderful actor.’ Bogie and Peter Lorre had actually almost convinced Mike that there were weekend actors, but that did not include them – they worked Monday to Thursday, then the weekend actors took over. A funny idea and Mike almost fell for it.
Bogie was making another Santana film at Columbia, so we compared notes at night, but not too much. Unless there was particular trouble or a fascinating anecdote, Bogie believed in leaving his work behind at the studio. That was fine with me. Even during filming we’d have a couple of pals in for dinner. One night I’d planned a terrific menu for a group of eight friends, one being John Huston. Came 7:30, the invited hour, and they started to arrive – always time for a couple of drinks before sitting down at table. Eight o’clock, all there but John. At 8:15 I said we had to sit down or the squab would be ruined. John never showed. I was livid and told Bogie, ‘Friend of yours or not, I’m never asking him again.’ Bogie said, ‘Look – you’ve got to learn to take people as they are. John is fun – better company than most – but not too reliable at times. Social events aren’t that important to him. Enjoy him for what he is. He’s not going to change.’ About a week after that we went to some gathering at the Beverly Hills Hotel and John was there. Bogie went over to him and said, ‘My wife won’t speak to you, she’s really sore – you’d better fix it.’ John came over to me, put his arms around my rigid self – ‘Hello, honey’ – then wheedled, cajoled, charmed, laid it on till I was limp. I looked up at him and thought, ‘Bogie’s right – what the hell, he’s an original – there’ll be no one like him again – he’s crazy and funny and brilliant, and better a life with him in it than not.’ So I laughed with John – Bogie joined in – John had accomplished his mission. If he thought you weren’t with him, be you friend’s wife or bartender, he’d turn on that charm and work like hell till he’d won you over. That accomplished, he’d leave – it was just to prove to himself that he could do it. He proved his point, but still no sitdown dinners in my house.
We’d become friendly with David Niven and his ravishing Swedish wife, Hjordis – began to see a lot of them, and Dorris and Nunnally Johnson, whose son Scott beat Steve into the world by a few months – Nick Ray and his wife, Gloria Grahame – Joan Bennett and Walter Wanger – Jean and Dusty Negulesco. Those plus all the old group – and visiting New York chums. Our house was a happy one and friends were always glad to be in it.
Steve was growing hair – teeth – was more adorable and lovable each day. It was very hard for me to be away from him – as with everything else in life, motherhood was no half-measure for me. There is no question that work took third place after Stephen’s birth. I fear he became number one – Bogie two.
I took it all naturally and totally. Nothing unusual about that, I suppose. I loved walking into that nursery, breathing that rarefied baby air. I loved to feed him – to hold him. When I gave him his bottle he always grasped my little finger with his hand and held on very tight. I wondered if my mother had felt the same when she was feeding me. Being a mother is a fact – when you have a baby you become a mother. Simple. I turned to Jell-O when Stephen looked at me, smiled at me, fell asleep in my arms or with his head on my shoulder. All else was blotted out at those moments. Of course it changed Bogie’s and my life. We not only weren’t two anymore, we were four, because there had to be a nurse – more so that I could be with Bogie than for any other reason. He didn’t want our relationship changed – he became just the littlest bit jealous. He wanted my attention in the evenings, and when he talked to me he wanted my mind all there. I still hung on his every word, but I was willful, too – and if I wanted something badly enough, I usually got it.
For the first time in my life I didn’t have to worry about money. It’s amazing how quickly I put my first nineteen years of budgeting behind me. If I liked a pair of shoes, I didn’t buy one pair – I bought six. I wanted everything perfect in our new home, so I bought ashtrays, cigarette boxes, gradually began taking an interest in antiques. Every table was covered with things. Mother used to go to auctions and came up with a huge ancient Bible for me which I proudly displayed in our living room. That tickled Bogie. He said I wanted instant tradition – that the Bible and all the antiques made me feel more secure, as though I’d been collecting for years instead of months.
We were happy people of fame and fortune then. I met no one who might have threatened my marriage. If I flirted harmlessly on occasion, I was only doing what I hadn’t done when I was younger. We were becoming a more and more popular pair – the word was getting around that it was fun at the Bogarts’. Everyone looked forward to our Christmas parties, and the year Steve was born I began one more tradition – our anniversary party. That was terrific fun. The weather was always warm – women looked pretty – flowers were in bloom. There was always a mixture of East and West coasts – our New York writer friends, any pal who was in town, and some chic, some not-so-chic movie folk. We never had a member of the press present – we wanted our friends to relax, have a good time and not look over their shoulders every five minutes. I adored giving those parties – always tried to think of something a little different for the menu. It was all part of my wife-hostess role – and, of course, people were brought into the nursery to view the perfection that resided there.
Gradually two not so normal people were beginning to live fairly normal lives. Though I must confess that, now as then, I have never known what ‘normal’ is. Perhaps it means regular – trying to make order out of chaos. Imperceptibly our lives took on a pattern. Bogie’s drinking habits improved. He moved away from mixed drinks and from mixing his drinks. Not to say he stopped drinking, but he got much less angry when he did drink. He liked life more and he was beginning to feel more secure in our marriage. But you had to stay awake married to him. Every time I thought I could relax and do everything I wanted, he’d buck. There was no way to predict his reactions, no matter how well I knew him. As he’d said before our wedding, he expected to be happily married and stay that way, but he never expected to settle down. He liked keeping people off balance. He was good for me – I could never be quite sure what he would do.
We made our first trip to New York away from Steve in September. Miss Hartley was steady as could be – there were no apprehensions. It was World Series time. And South Pacific was a big hit on Broadway. I was more than a little enamored of Ezio Pinza – me and every other
woman who heard him sing and saw him perform. We saw the show, went backstage after. Bogie led me into Pinza’s dressing room, we were introduced, then Bogie just left me there. I went into my shaking routine with Pinza – totally tongue-tied was I, and furious with Bogie. It was a typical Bogart maneuver – ‘She’s so mad about him – sure – let her have him.’ Oh, what a smart man he was. He knew the illusion was better than the reality, though in this case the reality wasn’t bad! After I told Pinza I knew the entire score of the show and congratulated him on his beauty and talent, there was nothing more to say. Thanks a lot, H.B.
One night we had dinner at ‘21’ with some friends, including Billy Seaman, an old drinking buddy of Bogie’s. It was a long dinner – much booze consumed – and the three of us walked back to the St Regis Hotel. Then Bogie wanted to go somewhere for a drink. I did not. I tried to get him to come upstairs – he’d have none of it. Oh, he made me mad when he was drinking and stubborn – although he didn’t need drink to be stubborn: when he made up his mind, that was definitely that. I marched upstairs – he and Billy went off for their nightcap. About four in the morning Bogie awakened me – with an enormous stuffed panda on either side of him, wearing red Stork Club suspenders – to tell me there’d been a little trouble and he thought we’d hear more about it the next day. The next day started about four hours later when an assault summons was delivered to Mr Bogart in person – at 8:00 a.m. Those people do rise early.
He decided Uncle Charlie should be his lawyer. Charlie loved it – it was one of his all-time favorite trials. The press had a field day. It seemed Bogie and Billy had bought two pandas at the Stork Club, taken them into El Morocco, sat down with them as their dates. The Morocco publicity man and a gossip columnist who was always trouble got Robin Roberts, a young woman around town, to try to take Bogie’s panda. As she grabbed it, Bogie gave her a shove, saying, ‘Get away from me – I’m a happily married man.’ She fell – and sued. When Bogie was asked if he’d been drinking, he replied, ‘Isn’t everyone drunk at 4:00 a.m.?’ He always felt the whole world was three drinks below normal anyway. When asked if he’d hit her, he said, ‘I’d never hit a lady – they’re too dangerous.’ If he hadn’t been a hero before, the panda incident made him one. Our Hollywood friends loved it – wires came by the dozen – they all wished they’d been in New York. Charlie’s argument in court was that Bogie was defending his property – that this woman was just looking for publicity and using Bogart to get it. She’d arrived in court all done up with two black-and-blue marks painted on her chest. Charlie was impassioned. The Judge summed up, ‘Mr Bogart was protecting his rightful property and using sufficient force to do so. Whether he used too much is the question. There is not enough evidence – summons dismissed!’ The crowd outside the courtroom hailed Bogie – they loved him for protecting his rights. Bogie hailed the decision and his lawyer. We all had lunch at ‘21’ and Steve and Scott Johnson each got a panda. The reason Bogie never got into any real trouble was that his derring-do was always innocent. He just didn’t like hurting people. No wonder he was everyone’s hero. All through our life together, the most fun was where he was.
Bogie had a joke dream – that a woman should be able to fit into a man’s pocket. He’d take her out, talk to her, let her stand on the palm of his hand, dance on a table; when she got out of order – back in the pocket. And she could be made life-size when desired. And despite how wonderful he was, there were times when I would have liked to do the same thing to him.
We were back in California and on the boat when news came over the radio that Walter Huston had died. We rushed back to town. Walter had been staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel – we’d all been together just a few nights before. It was all sudden and very sad. I was more than ever aware of John’s very real love for his father. John Huston’s life had not been based on attachments. He felt things, of course, but I don’t believe that a life blow had ever been dealt him until Walter died. There was a small service, with a bust of Walter on a stand and Spencer Tracy reading the Twenty-third (my favorite) Psalm. It was beautiful and moving. There was a moment about halfway through when a deep, half-muffled sob emanated from John. A chilling sound. I looked at him and thought of him differently from then on. I was very glad he was married now to lovely Riki Soma and that she was to have a baby. John had done everything but that, and he wanted someone in his image. It was one of the things he envied Bogie for. One ending – one beginning.
I was in my last Warner Bros. picture in 1950 – Bright Leaf with Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal, directed once more by Mike Curtiz. ‘Coop’ was one of the most attractive men I’ve ever seen, with his cornflower-blue eyes. He was a pro, but not always on time. One morning he was late and Mike was livid – so much so that he screamed at me. He wouldn’t dare let go at Coop, knowing he’d just walk off the set. Now, I have never handled myself well in screaming situations. I become inarticulate, usually cry. On this occasion with his ranting and raving – ‘Goddamn actor-bum!’ – I took myself tearfully to my dressing room. Finally Coop arrived, not all that late, and Mike was all over him: ‘Gary, dahling, how are you – how do you feel?’ Coop knew that Mike was full of it, but played the game.
Jack Warner kept giving me terrible scripts and I kept going on suspension. He was one of the most ill-at-ease human beings I’d ever encountered. When you’d try to talk to him about the script (which he’d probably never read), he’d crack a joke. When you’d try to reason with him, he’d tell you how hard he worked – how the only reason he didn’t come to the studio early in the morning was that he waited for his wife, Ann, to wake up so he could have breakfast with her. It was well known that he adored Ann much more than she did him. That side of him was sad – but his uneasiness with actors made it impossible to have any reasonable exchange. I tried to get Charlie Feldman to persuade him to let me out of my contract, but it was no deal. I was also getting restless about Charlie. He was a pal of Jack’s and Darryl Zanuck’s and wanted to produce – I felt I’d been with his agency too long and nobody there gave a damn about my career. A funny thing happened to my career after the first few years of being Mrs Bogart. Funny-peculiar. Everyone thought I was terrific personally, but they stopped thinking of me as an actress. I was Bogie’s wife, gave great dinners, parties, but work was passed over. It was very frustrating. I wanted my career to go on. From the beginning Bogie had made it clear that he would never interfere – never try to get me into one of his pictures, never make it a condition of his working. He’d give me advice if I asked, but he never called a producer or director to try to get me a job. He went along with the director’s choice always. It became apparent to me that, overjoyed as I was to be Mrs Bogart, I had no intention of allowing Miss Bacall to slide into oblivion.
John had spoken to Bogie about The African Queen. Bogie had never wanted to go to Europe – just had no curiosity about it – but I was longing to go, to see and do everything. Bogie liked his life as it was; going to New York was all the traveling he wanted to do. Finally Sam Spiegel told Katharine Hepburn that he had Bogie and John – told John that he had Bogie and Katie – told Bogie that he had John and Katie – and The African Queen was put together. I was wildly excited, but Bogie knew that John would find the most inaccessible spot in Africa as a location and he dreaded it. We planned to go early in March, by ship, to Paris first, then London, before filming began. The only thing I hated was leaving Steve, who would join us with Miss Hartley in London after Africa.
Mother was on her yearly visit to California, early this time, for Stephen’s first birthday party. One morning I received a call from Uncle Charlie telling me that Jack had died while on holiday in Jamaica with Vera. I would have to tell Mother. God, why was it always I who had to tell her? Jack was the baby of her family, only forty-four years old. I remember looking out my bedroom window and watching my mother walk toward the front door, looking forward to a smiling baby and her prize of a daughter. I opened the front door. She knew, as she always did,
that something had happened. I hugged her and blurted it out. A gut sound came from her – she must get back to New York. The phone calls started. When one of a family goes, and the youngest at that, the remaining members get even closer for a while. I’d been close to Jack – I shed many tears over his death. And I loved Vera and felt so for her. I grasped my husband very close to me through that.
All ghastly shots were completed – farewell parties given – passports gotten, including Steve’s and Miss Hartley’s.
We were leaving on a night flight to New York. Miss Hartley and Steve came to see us off, as well as Lynn Spiegel and Carolyn’s mother, since Carolyn was on the plane too. I have a pain in my solar plexus when I remember how it felt to leave Steve behind – you suddenly say to yourself, ‘Why the hell am I going – what am I doing?’ Then, of course, you know what you’re doing – you’re going with your husband, who believes in no separations in marriage, who is working. Your life with him cannot stop for your son. And – admit it – you want to see those unseen places. So the brain whirs – the heart tugs – the gut aches. I must have turned around a hundred times to look at Steve and wave and throw kisses and get teary-eyed.
In those days there was a stop in Chicago en route to New York. When we landed there, a man from the airline came aboard and said there was a phone call waiting for us. What could it be, for God’s sake? It seemed that as our plane became airborne, Miss Hartley, with Steve in her arms, had had a stroke and was taken immediately to the hospital. Steve was fine at home, Lynn and Carolyn’s mother were with him. My poor baby – poor Miss Hartley. I asked them to notify Dr Spivek and tell him I’d call them on arrival in New York. Bogie and I were in shock. How terrible – that seemingly strong, feisty woman. As soon as we got to the St Regis, we called home – Miss Hartley was dead. She had never regained consciousness. May was her sturdy, reliable self and knew just what to do for Stephen. I called Mother and told her. I had a sore ear from hours on the phone that first day. Mother volunteered to go out immediately – Lee could join her in a few weeks. Dr Spivek did not feel I should return. He would interview nurses, tell me whom he liked best, I could interview her on the phone – it was only a few months. Bogie wanted me to stay with him. If the doctor said it was okay, I mustn’t worry – and with Mother there, no problem. I was worried about my baby – I wanted to be with Bogie – I wanted to get to Paris, London, Rome, Africa – too many things to want.
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