By Myself and Then Some

by Lauren Bacall

  Jason was going to be in Boston with The Devils while I was still rehearsing in New York, and he’d open in New York when I was in Philadelphia. My head was into my work and my own life. They would come first now, and we’d see what the future would bring. I was making no plans of any kind, and I’d absolutely decided it was up to him which way our marriage would go – I wouldn’t work against him, but I needed tangible evidence that his effort was real. I’d told him this plainly and I meant it for the first time – I wanted us to stay together, but on a different basis. It was up to him now. Ridiculous to give him ultimatums, when logic or reason had no bearing on the case. I only knew I’d tried everything I was capable of trying, and had finally reached a point where emotionally I had had enough, where there were no more threats – or compromises – to be made. A plateau. I at last had that strength – the positive work atmosphere obviously added to it, making me feel part of something again and cared about.

  So I left for Washington, knowing the play was bound to succeed. I was nervous, but on opening night everyone’s nervous. Ours went well, except that I knew there was a lack in my big scene with Joe. But the audience laughed a lot, and the curtain came down to enthusiastic applause. I was sitting in my dressing room about to remove my makeup when David Merrick walked in and said, ‘You were great, but I’m going to replace Campanella.’ David didn’t talk to Joe. I felt sorry for him – one performance was no test, yet I suspected David was right. Joe had been miscast. It was fascinating to see a producer act so quickly – one of his values, I suppose; that’s what made him good. No indecision. His reputation with actors was negative, he didn’t like them, was impossible to get along with – yet he and I did get along. There was mutual respect. I liked knowing where I stood with someone; he liked pros. No one in the theatre could believe I liked him. ‘Just you wait,’ they said.

  A couple of nights after the opening I was leaving my hotel for the theatre, stopped in the dining room to see if Abe was there, and found him and David sitting there with Barry Nelson, a good actor, expert in comedy, who’d come down to see the show. He liked it, and said he would take over from Joe. He expected billing with me over the title and I readily agreed. I’d been solo before, but I didn’t care. Merrick would not take my photograph off the Playbill cover, though, to make it the two of us; he had definite ideas about everything.

  In the theatre when an actor is replaced, the whole company becomes paranoid. Who’s next? Everyone was on his toes – best behavior. But we were enjoying the rehearsals because Barry had a true comic sense – what he did affected what we did, and it was all for the better. But grueling. Out-of-town tryouts are designed to kill actors – rehearsal all day, play at night, not enough sleep, brain working overtime.

  One night after the show Abe took me to supper. ‘I don’t know how to say this – it’s kind of awkward – but a man called William Perske called. He said he was your father.’ I must have paled. The bad penny, and always at the wrong time – though I knew there’d never be a right time. ‘What did he want? Why did he call you?’ I couldn’t figure that one out. ‘That’s what I didn’t understand. He wanted twelve seats to the show. I’ll see that he gets them if that’s what you want, but I thought it was a strange call and I didn’t want to do anything without checking with you.’ ‘I appreciate that, Abe. I tell you, I haven’t seen him since I was eight years old! He had a hell of a nerve calling you – and twelve seats is ridiculous!’ I could just hear him laying it on Abe. How dare he! I was furious and embarrassed – bad enough he had given interviews those many years ago, but now to involve people I was working with! ‘You don’t have to do a damn thing – I don’t care if he comes or not – it’s up to him.’ And I resented the fact that, deep down, he felt he deserved something. Just because he was my father – an accident. He’d contributed nothing to my life except anxiety. Why did I feel obligated in some way?

  One night I thought I saw the outline of a man in the audience who might be him, but I never knew for sure. I’d never be ready for that meeting, never know what to say, even what to feel. You can live your life – be responsible, bring up children – and still be totally unprepared to face a stranger who happens to be your father.

  Jason had called several times to see how the play was going, how I was. He was not overjoyed with his own experience. He loved working with Annie Bancroft, but wasn’t very confident about the future of the play. He said he’d try to get to Philadelphia. But I didn’t want him in Philadelphia – I wanted to concentrate on my show.

  We opened to good notices in Philly, and went on rehearsing days and playing nights – Barry was four weeks behind us in working on his part. Jason called to say he’d have a free day while they made the move from Boston, and announced that he was coming. I told him I’d rather he didn’t, but, being contrary, he more or less told me to go to hell, that he’d come down anyway. Typical – when I wanted him, no chance; when I didn’t, I couldn’t keep him away. But still I didn’t expect him to show up, knowing he’d be unwelcome.

  On the Saturday night after the show I got back to my room and there was Jason. He’d come down on the train – was solicitous, bending over backward. I was not very responsive, maybe not very nice. I still cared about him, but I had started to care about myself again too. That made a tremendous difference.

  Opening night at the Royale Theatre, where I had once excelled at ushering. December 8, 1965. Leslie was there with Mother and Lee (Steve was at Milton, Sam was too young). Once I got going, I had a good time. I felt good about this one, and so did the audience, but there were still the reviews to come. I welcomed all my friends backstage after the show. Abe was thrilled, and Merrick said, ‘You’re a clutch player – when it counts, like tonight, you’re better than ever. The sign of a star!’ I felt terrific. Mother sat onstage, trembling. She loved the play, loved me in it, was clearly prejudiced. Merrick hosted a small table at Sardi’s, just for Abe and Carin Burrows, Barry, the French authors of the play, and me. Jason came to pick me up after the show, feeling out of place. When I entered Sardi’s, there was the traditional greeting of applause and cheers – it has no bearing on the success of the play or its worth, but it’s exciting for the actors. Sardi’s always gets the morning papers first, hot off the presses. I spent most of my evening waiting – so much depended on this. Vincent Sardi came toward us with the papers – we all rushed to open them, then the rush to look for your name, to find the adjectives. Why we have to be told what we are by someone else, I’ll never know, but we do. The show was a hit. Kerr was ecstatic: I was dazzling, I was a hit. Taubman of the Times found it hilarious – me hilarious.

  I was one happy lady – walking on air. Everyone hugged everyone else – the closed corporation of a play. Jason felt left out. He was no part of our play, and The Devils hadn’t been well received and wasn’t going well. This was my night and I was enjoying it to the hilt – you might even say lapping it up. It was my first unequivocal hit. The next day there was a line at the box office, and the mail orders were heavy – people were planning months in advance. In a hit, once that curtain goes up, the waves of love that come across are loud and clear. In America, audiences are guided by the critics; if they’re told to enjoy a play, they do – if they’re told it’s funny, they have smiles on their faces when they walk into the theatre.

  In those first months every night was a party. Jason went to California to make a movie (The Devils had closed in January), and I was free to thrive on my success. I loved the play, really felt good onstage. I was fascinated by how much at home I felt. Theatre seemed a better medicine for me than films. I loved the continuity, the building of a performance from first act to last. I loved it because it was live, and because once that curtain went up, it was mine. An incredible feeling. When the audience is with you, you can feel it, you can pull it along even more. Cactus Flower was a very wearing show for me, playing it was like keeping a balloon in the air for nearly three hours. There’s nothing tougher than comedy,
and this was frothy and light, worked with an enormous amount of energy. I could never let up, not a moment to relax.

  And I had many quick changes. Eloise White, my dresser, was working really hard – the changes in Cactus Flower were more like a musical than a straight play. Part of my deal was that Merrick would pay my dresser. Standard salary. I would add a bonus. Now I’d have to ask him for a raise for her. It was David’s birthday and Abe had invited me to celebrate it with them after the show. David came into my room – a perfect opportunity, I thought, so I broached the subject. He exploded. The David Merrick I’d been warned about but had never been exposed to suddenly appeared. ‘You’re just like all the other damn actors. Never satisfied! When you make an agreement, stick to it. I thought you were different, but you’re not, you’re just like all the others.’ And he stamped out of the room. For Christ’s sake, the man is a maniac! That took care of that night’s supper. He was in such a fury that he never came backstage again. I gave Eloise the raise myself, and David and I did not speak for the remainder of the run. Everyone who knew him said, ‘He’ll always be like that – we knew it would happen – we told you. He hates actors.’ I could never understand his outburst. He was making a fortune on the play.

  As happens easily with comedies, after a while they get out of hand. An actor getting laughs is apt to string out the scene to make the laughs last longer. It never works for long, it distorts the play, louses up the timing. Brenda was starting to do it, so was Barry. Now, I am a very disciplined performer – I work my ass off, and I believe in keeping a play, particularly a comedy, moving. I pride myself that my timing is on the nose. And I was tired and overwrought, all the tensions of the last five years adding up to my fraught state. On top of the rest, John Frankenheimer started to shoot his movie without a word to me. I could have killed him. I was committed to Cactus Flower for two years thanks to his promise and my stupidity. I said nothing to John about it for years, but I was upset, and wouldn’t forget it. It wasn’t malice on his part, just carelessness. Anyone in our business should know that one doesn’t speak lightly to actors about work. Our futures are too precarious.

  My holiday week was approaching – and about time. Jason had rented a beach house, so I went to California to collapse. I slept a lot, started to relax. The week’s highlight was a big party Rock Hudson gave in his new house, which he’d bought from Sam and Mildred Jaffe, who’d moved to England. It was a house full of old memories and new people. Everyone was friendly, but I didn’t feel part of the town at all. I enjoyed California living, especially at the beach, but it was not to be permanent again – of that I was certain.

  The Bogart boom had been in full swing that year. All the books had come out, about six all told, including Joe Hyams’. I had written what I thought was a hell of an introduction to it, but I found the book disappointing. No one had done justice to the man yet. I agreed with Budd Schulberg, who thought John O’Hara should write the book. Or Nunnally. But it never happened – people were too caught up in their own lives, understandably. I’d been asked to write one myself, which I steadily refused to do, but Bogie’s presence permeated my life once more. It took me twenty years to realize that I’ll never get away from it – nor should – and don’t wish to.

  My second year of Cactus Flower was tough. I was physically tired and needed a real vacation, but I wasn’t going to get it, so press on, old girl. Besides, everyone I ever knew in the theatre and films was coming to see it, which was fun. Great to be good in a show that’s a hit. No apologies to make.

  The main lesson learned during the run was that the stage was very much home to me. I loved it. To say nothing of the fact that I was offered the best in the theatre, as opposed to the least in the flicks. I was referred to in the press as the toast of the town, but it never went to my head. I remembered too well the story Bogie had told me about Helen Menken in Seventh Heaven being that year’s toast of the town – until Jeanne Eagels came along a short while later in Rain to take the title. That’s the business. No matter how high the peaks scaled, there’s no guarantee it will last. But those two years belonged to me. No one could take away the kick I got when I happened to see the laughing face of Robert Kennedy looking up at me from the third row center, or was told by Jack Benny how perfect my timing was. Even John Huston seemed to show genuine enjoyment of my work.

  Jason made several trips to California for films, and tried hard when home to be ultra-loving – a real husband-father. Sam was in first grade at Collegiate school, which was close to home. Leslie was still struggling along at the Lycée, and Steve was only home for holidays. Sarah, Jady, and David made fairly regular appearances, and we’d try to do as much together as we could. When Jason was good he was very, very good. He functioned better in films or at least in California than he did in the New York theatre. He drank in California, but the routine was not the same. There was something about theatre life – let’s have a drink after the show, stop by for a drink, etc., and the endless bars and favorite hangouts. Too many established patterns. I couldn’t and wouldn’t be a policeman any longer. I did tell Jason that if he had to drink, I didn’t want him doing it at home. I had put most of our liquor out of sight – I didn’t care if I never had a drink. I was immovable about his never being drunk within our home again. I was not going to have Sam or Leslie see him like that.

  Spence and Katie had started Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. It was Spence’s first film in five years. He had not been well, he’d had ulcers, I believe – was always swallowing some terrible chalky substance. He was hospitalized in ’66. Katie used to bring him homemade soup and sit with him until he slept, slipping in and out the side door of the hospital. No one knew about it except a few intimates. She never veered off course. I think the only reason Spence agreed to be in the film was that Stanley Kramer was devoted to him and would do everything to make it less taxing. Katie never took her eye off Spence – at his elbow unobtrusively if he should need anything. No danger of his wanting for a thing with her around. He had been apprehensive – he was so professional, he couldn’t bear falling short of the mark in work. Learn the lines and hit your marks – the hell with motivation. They didn’t understand how I could stay in a play so long. ‘Like being in jail.’

  Steve was to graduate from Milton in June of ’67 on a Saturday – a matinee day. I asked my agent, Peter Witt, well in advance to broach the subject to David Merrick. Under no circumstances would I miss Steve’s graduation. Let him sue! Peter told David – David said no – I cursed, fumed, said I’d go anyway. As the time grew closer, I got tenser and tenser, telling Peter to prepare David for my not appearing Saturday. Why, oh, why did it all have to be so damned unpleasant? Why couldn’t producers be human beings? My son’s graduation, for God’s sake – once in a lifetime. I’d played Cactus Flower for a year and a half, never missing a performance – why couldn’t this be settled reasonably in an adult fashion? I couldn’t understand it then – I can’t now. Of all places, in the theatre there should be human understanding, compassion, just ordinary sanity about life. Christ, we’re not machines.

  Finally Peter told me I would have to go to David’s office to plead my case. David had to be in his God position, I in my servile one. Okay – anything for Steve. I pulled myself together and on the appointed day went to David’s office. I wasn’t going to grovel. I told him the graduation was something I could not miss and I had hoped he would be understanding and not make a Dreyfus case out of it. I felt the way I had as a kid, raising my hand in class to ask if I could leave the room. It was ridiculous. Anyway, he played innocent – ‘Why didn’t you come to me in the first place?’ He would let me know. And later that day he called to tell me he’d provide a car to take me to and from the airport to ensure my returning in time for the night show. Total grace.

  Earlier that week Spence and Katie had called to say they’d finished the film. Spence had delivered a ten-minute monologue non-stop without missing a line. He was relieved – proud of himself. S
aid Stanley had been terrific – thank God he hadn’t dropped dead before he was finished, with Stanley uninsured! We laughed.

  On the morning of June 10, Jason, Leslie, Sam, and I boarded a plane for Boston for Steve’s big day. I couldn’t believe the years had passed so quickly – that Steve had reached young manhood. He had grown up well, a good, really decent boy. He’d been affected by the burdens of his lost father and the Bogart name, but he was coming out of it all right. He’d enjoyed Milton, and there was less friction between us. My head was full of images of his birth – childhood – Bogie. So much of our lives unfulfilled. It was a hard day in that respect, yet I felt so good about him.

  We’d been airborne some twenty minutes when Jason, sitting behind me, tapped me on the shoulder. ‘A man behind me heard it on the radio – Spencer is dead.’ But I’d just talked to him – he was fine! Oh my God – how is Katie? Of all places to hear it – no telephone, no details. But details weren’t needed. The fact was enough. I was distraught. Spence so pleased he hadn’t dropped dead during the film must have known something was coming. I was so worried about Katie. How do you come to terms with the end of thirty years of your life? The biggest and best part? It was hard to think of anything else. And yet a few hours later I managed to swell with pride at the sight of Steve taking his diploma. One life begins, one ends. So much life, excitement, hope for the future at a prep-school graduation. While, three thousand miles away, my treasured Katie had lost her best friend.