It was so good to see those rooms full of people again – to hear laughter. And it was all about Bogie, all for him. He wouldn’t have believed so many held him in such high regard. He wouldn’t have believed the more than a thousand telegrams from all over the world; from old friends like Jack Buchanan, Noel, Moss Hart, George Kaufman – new ones like the Oliviers, Cookes, Schlesingers – from people who had met him once – or never. From children of friends, like Bill Hayward from Lawrenceville, where he was in school. From many like Max Gordon, Irving Berlin, Howard Lindsay, who’d known him when he started in the theatre; tennis champions Pancho Segura and Tony Trabert; Aly Khan; Governor Knight of California, who’d met him once or twice; Cole Porter, Jerome Robbins, Averell Harriman. It was staggering.
I took all personal letters with me to Palm Springs to read when I had time. I would write a personal note to everyone who had sent a wire or letter. And all the clippings would have to be sorted out for the scrapbooks. I was very organized – I managed better when there was a lot to do.
Buddy and Carolyn Morris lived in Palm Springs and Steve and Leslie would have their Steve and Chris to play with. The Nivens were coming down for a weekend with Cary Grant. So we wouldn’t be too dismally alone. Sun and, hopefully, sleep would help us all. The children loved the desert – we went riding, swimming – but I started having nightmares, waking up in the middle of the night hearing Bogie talking to me – seeing his emaciated body upstairs, calling to me over the balcony – seeing him dead in our bed. One night, in a cold sweat, tears covering my face, hearing a thud and looking downstairs to see that misshapen white sack in the entry hall. The doctors had given me pills to help me sleep – not true barbiturates, Miltown at first, I think – but I stayed depressed. I couldn’t get used to not seeing Bogie, not talking to him. I started to read the letters I had brought. Sterling Hayden – ‘There are those who say our maker has things all worked out for us and whatever happens is for the best – there are times when I can’t agree and this is one of them.’ Fred Astaire (whose wife had died of cancer not long before Bogie) – ‘I know so very well what you’re going through.’ Sailing companions Ken Carey, Bob Dorris, Bob Marlott – remembering the joy on the Santana, their admiration and respect for Bogie the sailor, the side of him they were privy to – his love of the sea – how much he had given – how they wished they could do more. John Cromwell – telling me tales of early theatre days shared. A man from Photoplay in New York quoting Louis Bromfield when he told Louis he was leaving Cleveland for Hollywood: ‘The only good thing I can say about Hollywood is Bogart lives there.’ Ed Murrow – ‘There are times when people who work with words know that they are futile – this is such a time. Someone once wrote, “There are no pockets in a shroud. The dead hold in their hands only what they have given away.” Your husband gave much.’
Harry Cohn writing that last May he had been apprised of Bogie’s illness and ‘I became determined then and it became an absolute command at Columbia that nothing would be discussed at this studio concerning any change of plans re The Good Shepherd. It was to preclude any possibility of a leak to any column or paper. The only thing allowed was a change of date. It was my desire and Columbia’s that Bogie never suspect even the possibility of his not making that picture – and this was the reason I was afraid of making a personal visit to him – I was concerned that a slip of the tongue or facial expression when I saw him might give me away – and to give him any disheartening doubt. It was the least we could do for Humphrey Bogart – would we had been able to do more.’
And there were many more. From John O’Hara, impressing upon me the priority work must take above all else. From Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse with their memories of Humphrey. From actors who didn’t really know him. From Charlie Blair, dear friend, who had flown Bogie around Italy during the war, and flown Steve to meet us in London – saying how he’d learned from Bogie and because of him dared his record-breaking solo flight over the Pole – Bogie had convinced Charlie that anything was possible. From the president of his fan club for fifteen years. From Herb Shettler, the judge who married us. They all spoke of Bogie’s spirit – his heroic character – his laughter and his wanting to help others. Some of them made me cry – some of them still do. The impact of his death was great. I want whoever reads these words to have a sense of Bogie – what he was, the personal mark he left on many varied lives. I clung to the letters – they kept him close to me.
On the surface the children were enjoying themselves – I was amazed at what resilient creatures they were. One day Leslie said to my Mother while I was out riding with Steve: ‘Why did God take my daddy away?’ Mother was nonplussed – could only think to say, ‘God needed him.’ Whereupon Leslie replied, ‘Did He think it was more important for Him to have him than his children?’ Mother couldn’t answer that – indeed, who could? So in that four-year-old head, all kinds of questions were being asked.
One night while the Nivens and I were having dinner at Cary and Betsy Grant’s house, David took me outside. He had lost his young first wife many years before and knew grief. He put his arm around my shoulder and said, ‘There is no panacea for this kind of loss. Just know that every day it gets the tiniest bit better – suddenly one day you can put it in a different perspective. You’ll never forget Bogie – nor would you want to. You’ll just one day be able to put him in a different place in your life.’ I never forgot what David said. Of course it had been deeply ingrained in me by Bogie not to mourn – that it did no good for the dead and was just self-indulgent. That was all well and good to say – not so simple to practice. But it almost forced me to keep things inside – and by keeping them inside, lengthened the time for me before I was able to put them in perspective.
The two weeks came to a close. I packed up the children and myself, and with Mother and Lee we headed back to reality. Lee would go back to New York and Mother would follow soon – I told her I’d have to learn to deal with life as it would be from now on. The children would be in school, I had endless letters to write, and I would have to think about work. I doubt that many producers thought of me as an actress at that point, I had been so much Bogie’s wife that last year – except for Designing Woman, I had not been near a studio. And no one seemed to be breaking down the door for my services. I hated that casual sloughing off of me – or of anyone, for that matter.
I had decided the children and I would have dinner together in the dining room from now on. At least routine could be understood. One night just before Valentine’s Day, while at the table, Stephen said, ‘I know, Mommy, I know how we can surprise Daddy – we can all shoot ourselves and be with Daddy on Valentine’s Day.’ I was shocked and unnerved. What had been going on in that young mind? I tried to stay close to Steve – it seemed to me that he felt the loss very deeply, but who really can say who feels what and at what age? I’m sure I was neglectful of Leslie in my over-concern about Steve, and that I made many mistakes, but I could only do what I could do with the arrival of each day. All our nerves were frayed and would be for months to come – for years. All of our lives had been indelibly scarred. Whenever Steve was angry with me, more often than not it was ‘I wish Daddy were here instead of you.’ I asked Dr Spivek about it – the other doctors – they all said it was perfectly natural, that Steve was full of resentment because his father had left him, that he probably felt he had done something wrong to make his father want to leave, that his father hadn’t loved him. So I tried to make up by loving him too much. As long as Mother could stay, I went back to leaning on her – I felt less alone in the house. When I had to see people regarding Bogie’s will – talk to anyone who came – answer letters – she more than took up the slack. And of course she was wonderful with the children.
I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I got up in the morning, talked on the telephone, ate meals, saw friends at home, played with the children – did what had to be done. I was breathing, but there was no life in me. I couldn’t think of the future,
I could only think of the man I had lost – the man who’d given me everything, taught me about people and living, with whom I had found my way of life. How could I continue alone? How would I fill the days – to what end? He had taken so much with him.
A letter from Moss Hart refused to start with the usual words of sympathy:
Perhaps what no one’s said is that in spite of the death, you’re a lucky woman. You’ve had 10½ [actually it was 11½] years of marriage with a fine man – not many women can achieve that in the sense that you and Bogie did. You and you alone were the one person in all of his life that Bogie loved the most tenderly and most deeply – that he took the most pride in and that he relished and enjoyed above all other human beings. It is a lucky woman indeed who can enrich a man’s life to the extent that you enriched Bogie’s, and now is the time to remember that. You are lucky too in the flowering legacy that Bogie left you in Steve and Leslie – a part of himself that is and will continue to be a constant reaffirmation of his life and not Death – and it is because I believe in such affirmation that I feel that in the realm that lies beyond your present sorrow you will find comfort in having had those wonderful years together. They do not come to everyone but they came to you – and Bogie – and to have had them is to have defeated Death and to have had life at its best.
I read and reread that letter endlessly. Of course I had been lucky – I had always known that – but Bogie hadn’t been, to die so young, and in such a way, leaving Steve and Leslie without the privilege of knowing him. The days continued, but with no point of view. The two small children became my focus – if I hadn’t had them to help me keep some semblance of sanity, God knows what I would have done. As it was, I did little right. I could do for Bogie, but it would be many years before I could do for myself. And the nightmares continued.
I knew I would not be able to keep the Santana – it was pure Bogie anyway and should be used and sailed by a man who loved it as Bogie had. I would have to go down there, though, to collect Bogie’s belongings. So I arranged it for a Sunday and took Steve and Leslie with me. It was not a day for sailing, but I wanted to go out anyway, so we started up the engine and we motored around the bay. It would be my last trip on board. So strange to be there without Bogie. As we moved around the bay on the cold, gray day, past familiar yachts of friends, pictures of sunnier, happier days flashed before me. When we got back to the dock and I’d sorted everything, I took a last look below – another on deck – another walking up the gangway to the car. It wasn’t only the Santana I was saying goodbye to, it was goodbye to a kind of life – a facet of Bogie I’d shared with him, and a way of life I’d never know again. It was the last time I saw that sailor’s dream, the fifty-five-foot yawl Santana.
There was also Bogie’s dressing room at home to deal with – how I dreaded that. Everything in it reminded me of some occasion somewhere. I didn’t want to do it quickly, and yet what was the point of keeping all his things when they could do someone some good? Finally I made myself do it – when the children were in school. I set aside everything I thought would fit Lee – gave Aurelio some things – gave Kathy anything her grown-up son could use – saved all handkerchiefs for Steve – kept some silk shirts for myself. It was ghastly. I tried to psych myself into a business-like approach as I fiercely emptied cupboards and drawers. That odor was still in the air. It took quite a while for me to recover from that day.
Even home had less meaning – all the things in it so assiduously collected, with such love, all meant to last forever because we were to stay there forever. What did it mean to have these tables and chairs, these cups and saucers – what good was it? And I had thought, ‘This is permanent.’ It was ridiculous to accumulate things, to feel that possession gave safety – it’s true of neither people nor things. Every object signified some portion of life with Bogie – I had brought nothing but myself to our marriage, and except for some original Maud Humphrey sketches which belonged to Bogie, everything we had lived with I had found since May 21, 1945.
And Steve was having problems at school. The teacher complained that he seemed withdrawn, but that suddenly during a class he would stand up and scream – very difficult to manage. What the hell did she expect? There he was surrounded by his school friends, hearing them talk about their mothers and fathers; he couldn’t do that ever again. I thought teachers were supposed to understand, have compassion, help. Did she expect him to behave according to her idea of normal?
At home he seemed much as usual, though a bit edgier – a bit more withdrawn. I had his friends over to play as often as possible, and Steve and Leslie went to their houses – lucky to have so many neighbor children. Every effort was made to keep the days normal. The home atmosphere was all right during the day, but at night – at dinnertime – it became tough. It was not an atmosphere of gloom, exactly, that pervaded the house, as much as the feeling of heaviness, emptiness – of a big something missing. There were no terrible crises with Stephen or Leslie, only the same one. I was mostly concerned with Steve – so much too much with him that I almost forgot my little girl. As I think back on Leslie’s mien, she just got quieter. All our emotions were raw.
Dore Schary had asked me if I would travel for three weeks to Boston, New York, Washington, Florida for publicity on Designing Woman. It was to open at the end of March. If I would go, it would take me through Easter, and Stephen and Leslie could come with me. I leaped at the chance – it was work of a sort, and a reason to be in New York, to see family and friends. A reason to leave Mapleton Drive. And it would give me something to look forward to.
Frank wanted to give a small dinner for me with only my closest friends before I was to leave for New York. He invited about ten people, including Spence and Kate. As they never went anywhere together except to our house through Bogie’s illness, I didn’t expect them to say yes, but, to my everlasting gratitude, they did. Katie even wore a dress, and I was so moved to see them sitting there in that living room, making that effort out of friendship – their sweetness was indescribable.
I was making a little progress. One afternoon I went to All Saints Church to sit and think. I was not – am not – a religious person. I would like to believe there is a God – I want there to be – but I’m not sure. Yet it seemed the only place where I could sit undisturbed for as long as I liked and think my own private, confused thoughts. There was an aura of peace in that church, a calm I needed badly. And it was familiar, yet not. It answered my need.
I arrived in New York on April 1. It was my first time out publicly since Bogie’s death less than three months before. The press were welcoming and warm – the picture was enthusiastically received everywhere – no questions were asked about Bogie, only about the children.
I was so happy to see my family again – I really needed them. And I did not lack company; I was pampered to within an inch of my life. For the first time in my professional life, I was functioning as an independent actress, as a single woman. And since I loved Designing Woman, I felt better about my work than I had in years. The dark area was that Bogie was not around to share my pride – I had so wanted him to see me in it, to give me his approval.
It was strange to be out in the world again, unprotected. But it was good. It made me aware of the existence of other things. Adolph Green took me to see Bells Are Ringing, which had opened just before Bogie died. We went out afterward with Sydney Chaplin, who was in the show. We’d been with Betty Comden and her husband, Steve Kyle, met up with Harry Kurnitz and Marty Gabel and Arlene Francis and the George Axelrods along the way, ended up singing songs from the show at dawn on Fifth Avenue. My God, it was fun – the most carefree time I’d had in over a year. The whole time in New York was filled with excitement – unplanned, loose, easy nights. There was no time to think of what the last year had been. I thought this must be what David Niven had meant. ‘I feel all right – I can’t believe it – is it possible I’m going to be all right from now on?’ I believed it then – fool that I was.
/> Frank called several times to see how I was – when I would be coming home. He was the only unattached man I knew, and I was glad he was around. I suppose that, without realizing it, I was starting to depend on his phone calls.
Adlai had called also, and asked me to bring Steve and Leslie to his farm in Libertyville for Easter Sunday. I was thrilled – knew they would love it, knew that I would. He came to New York, too, and I saw him at a small dinner. He took me back to the hotel, came up for a nightcap, and talked to me about my life, and about life in general. He was so full of care and thought – I adored him, and felt lucky to have a tiny part of that great heart and mind.
Everything went right on that trip – friends, family; the critics liked the movie, I liked talking about it; I made my usual trip to Loehmann’s with Mother to buy acres of Norell samples – for what I don’t know. If I bought, perhaps I’d have places to go – people to see – a life to lead. From the day I could afford it, I’ve shopped too much. As my mother used to say as she looked at my hundred pairs of shoes, ‘How can you ever wear them? You only have two feet!’
Suddenly it was time to head for Chicago and home. I never liked saying goodbye to Mother, but she’d come out to see us in a few months. Except for Bogie, she was my most solid rock of love and security, and though the balance had shifted away from her during my marriage, it was shifting back.
Stephen, Leslie, and I took the Twentieth Century to Chicago. We were met by a car on Easter Sunday morning and headed for Libertyville. As we pulled into the driveway, Adlai opened the front door. He laughed – kissed me hello – hugged the children. I was overjoyed to see him – he always made me feel better than almost anyone else. It was as though my brain shifted gears when I saw him – I reactivated the better part of it. He’d planned the day for Stephen and Leslie, had hidden eggs around the house for an Easter egg hunt with a prize for the winner. There was a terrific lunch – I remember Adlai’s ravenous approach to food, as though each bite would be his last. A substitute for other gratifications, I’d always suspected. We had a marvelous walk in his woods after lunch. His love of the land was clear – his longing to spend more time there, lead a life there. I felt his loneliness acutely through the light banter. He was affectionate with me – concerned about my frame of mind and any plans I might have. We had tea before the fire – an unpressured day, unusual for each of us, and one of the best I’d had in a long time. The children felt immediately at home. I hadn’t known until then that Adlai could do that.
By Myself and Then Some Page 40