Webb marked the beginning of a series of friendships—not love relationships—that Bogie would have with homosexuals, including the closeted Spencer Tracy and the not-so-closeted Noël Coward and Truman Capote.
Meet the Wife opened at New York’s Klaw Theater and would run for 232 performances, with Hump drawing a weekly paycheck of $150, which he spent immediately. A critic for Theêw York World gave Hump the first good notice of his career, referring to the role he played as that of “a handsome and nicely mannered reporter, which is refreshing.”
Two nights before the play closed, Hump had been up all night partying in the hot spots of Harlem. When he showed up the next day to perform in Meet the Wife, he was hung over and had had no sleep.
On stage during a pivotal scene, he forgot his lines and stood looking glazed against the scenery. Boland was forced to frantically ad lib and even had to feed him some of his lines, hoping he would pick up the rhythm of the play. When the curtain was pulled, she walked backstage and slapped his face real hard. “I’ll see to it that you never work again on Broadway.”
The next night, at the closing performance, he knew all his lines. However, after Act Two, as if determined to& sabotage his career, he disappeared into a dive& across the street, claiming he was starved and wanted a plate of ham and eggs. Somehow he completely forgot that he had to stick around to deliver four lines in Act Three.
When he did remember, he raced toward the theater door, just in time to hear the applause as the curtain went down. The stage manager, Bert French, who was also producing the play with Rosalie Stewart, slugged Hump, who struck back, hitting French in the nose just as Boland and Webb were taking their final bows.
Chiming in with Boland, French also threatened to end Hump’s Broadway days. But Hump was heartened that Maud, without Belmont, showed up that night and praised his acting skill. Being Maud, she had to add a warning. “An actor will spend most of his life starving between parts, and you could have done so much more with your life.”
His spirits were lifted when an out-of-town reviewer, Peggy Hill, of Atlanta, saw the play and informed her readers that “Humphrey Bogart is more manly and a lot handsomer than Rudolph Valentino. If I had to be carried away to a Sheik’s tent in the desert, I’d much rather be in Bogart’s arms than prissy Valentino’s.”
***
Hump couldn’t take Boland’s threat to destroy his stage career too seriously. Bill Brady was producing a Broadway play with a part in it just right for Hump. Once again, when all else failed, he could count on the dependable, reliable, and steadfast Brady family.
Less than one month after Meet the Wife closed, Hump was offered his biggest role to date, the meaty part of an aviator in a play, Nerves, which was being both directed and produced by Bill Brady Jr. The play had been written by Stephen Vincent Benét and John Farrar, and contained only two acts, unusually short for that day. The first act takes place at a Yale house party where several couples, all on the same night, commit themselves to be engaged. The second act occurs in the officers’ mess of a squadron of American aviators based in France during World War I. The wartime experience shatters the nerves of one of the aviators—hence, the title of the play.
The star of the show was the now largely forgotten Marie Curtis, who had just completed a run on Broadway in the play, Time. Earlier, her attempts at a career in silent films had bombed after she’d appeared as “Lady Dolly” in Her Greatest Love.
She played opposite Paul Kelly, only years before his international notoriety and jail term as a convicted man slaughterer.
Bill angered Hump by casting their longtime friend, Kenneth MacKenna, in the third lead over Hump’s own fourth billing. Although they would eventually become bitter rivals over the affections of Mary Philips, Kenneth at the time was still a close friend of Hump’s, and a faithful member of the coterie that still referred to itself as “the pussy posse,” a group that included John Cromwell and Bill Brady, Jr.
Although not officially a member of the posse, Kenneth’s brother, Jo Mielziner, signed on as stage designer. It was during rehearsals for Nerves that Hump realized for the first time what an immense talent Jo was. Born in Paris two years after Hump, Jo, like Kenneth, was the son of a Jewish and Irish marriage.
The same year Jo designed the sets for Nerves, he also created sets for The Guardsman. Written by Ferenc Molnar, it was an early Theatre Guild production that brought Jo to the attentions of the moguls of Broadway.
Before his death in 1976, Jo would go on to design the sets for at least 270 stage and film productions. His most memorable stage work included such classics as Strange Interlude; Death of a Salesman; Carousel; The King and I; South Pacific; Look Homeward, Angel; Tea and Sympathy, Picnic, and The Emperor Jones.
The young actress Mary Philips was cast as one of the supporting players in Nerves. Three years younger than Hump, Mary was born in New London and educated in a convent in New Haven. “In those days,” as Bogie later recalled, describing his stage career, “I was always deflowering maidens fresh from some God damn convent.” Mary characterized herself as a “staunch New Englander but with Irish wit and temperament.” When she first met Hump, she later declared, she detected a strong Puritan streak in him.
She’d made her debut as a chorus girl showing off her bosom and her legs in the Follies Revue of 1919. It was what playwright James Kirkwood Jr. decades later in A Chorus Line would call a “tits and ass” part.
Mary would go on to appear in such productions as Two Girls Wanted and The Old Soak, which did good business but would hardly merit a footnote in theatrical histories of the 20s.
She had a pretty face with penetrating gray-blue eyes. She would often be compared, to her detriment, to the more successful actress, Ina Claire.
By today’s standards of beauty, Mary had a long nose. Hump kidded her, calling it “the beak.” “Where do you put that nose when you go to kiss a man?” he asked her during rehearsals. “That’s for me to know and for you to find out,” Mary told him.
Except for that nose, she had the most perfectly formed lips of all of Bogie’s future wives. Her hands were her most attractive feature, and critics often wrote that they were “porcelain like and delicate.”
Mary was short and rather small. “Just my type,” Hump told Kenneth. She was understanding, sympathetic, and attractive but not flashy, as opposed to the more self-centered and narcissistic Helen. And in definite contrast to Hump’s mother, Maud, she was supportive of, rather than critical of, men.
Mary’s appearance as a fragile doll was deceiving. She was actually a sports-loving outdoor girl who excelled in tennis and golf. Her Irish temper matched that of Helen’s.
During rehearsals, Mary infuriated Hump. In his big scene, when he was to be left alone on the stage, Mary walked toward the wings. “That was what she was supposed to do,” Bogie later recalled. “But it was the damn way she walked off. I would have to wait until I saw Marilyn Monroe in the 1951 movie, Niagara, before I’d see a walk like that again. I confronted her back stage and accused her of upstaging me. That seemed to piss her off. She slapped my face and told me that she’d walk any way she damn well pleased, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I wanted to punch her out. I’d hit ladies before and would again. But somehow that slap turned me on. I felt I could really fall for this gal.”
The more he worked with Mary, the more intrigued Hump became. Mary told him that she could hold her liquor better than he did. Back then, Hump always said, “I don’t trust women who don’t drink. They’ll betray you every time.”
Kenneth was also growing increasingly intrigued by Mary. He even warned Hump to “lay off Mary. She’s gonna become my gal, and besides you’re engaged to Helen.”
“Helen knows I see women on the side,” Hump said. “Fuck you, asshole. Helen herself sees women on the side. Maybe I’ll take Mary back to Helen’s apartment. We could share her.”
Kenneth punched him in the mouth. Before a major fight could break out
, Bill Brady, Jr. separated the two actors. “You’re like two fucking roosters fighting over the prize hen in the barnyard. Don’t you guys know there are more than enough women on Broadway to go around? There are at least three showgals for every single male since at least half the men in the theater are fairies. Enjoy! Enjoy! As for Mary, I’ve taken director’s privilege. She got hired on the casting couch. For the duration of the play, she’s my private piece and don’t tell Katharine.”
Both Kenneth and Hump were shocked to learn that Mary was having an affair with Bill. At the Hotsy Totsy that night, Kenneth and Hump repaired their friendship over several tall gin fizzes. “Let’s don’t let a woman come between us,” Kenneth said. “If Bill is fucking Mary, that makes her a slut. We can pick up any slut we want in this club in five minutes. Wanta bet?”
Hump didn’t take him up on the bet, knowing that what Kenneth said was true. Midnight found the two men, along with “two sluts,” checking into the Hotel Baltimore. They seduced the women on the same double bed, switching partners around two o’clock.
Years later, Mary would rank the sexual performances of the three leading members of the pussy posse in this order: Number one, Bill Brady Jr. “because of his incredible technique”; number two, Kenneth McKenna because “of the sincerity in his eyes when he got on top of you,” and, number three, Humphrey Bogart “because he always had a far and distant look in his eyes when he was making love to you, enough so that you always suspected that his mind was somewhere else.”
Both Hump and Kenneth feared that Bill was jeopardizing his marriage to Katharine by going out to the speakeasies every night with Mary. “Never fear,” Bill assured them. “Katherine specializes in wronged wife parts. I’m just giving her first-hand experience so she’ll be a better actress.”
One night Bill called Hump to tell him that he’d just bailed Mary out of jail. They had been caught staggering drunk from the speakeasy, Hotsy Totsy. When a cop tried to arrest Mary, she bit his finger down to the bone. She was hauled off to the pokey. Bill had had far more to drink than Mary, but he was not arrested. Brady Sr. posted a five-hundred dollar bail, securing her release.
Nerves opened at the Comedy Theater on September 1, 1924, a date that roughly coincided with the opening of What Price Glory?. Glory became the biggest hit of any play addressing the issues of World War I, and audiences and critics alike flocked to it instead of Nerves. Nerves would run for only sixteen performances, as critics ridiculed it and audiences stayed away in droves. Brady, Sr. denounced his son for producing such a flop.
Ironically, Hump received respectable reviews for his role in the play, enough—in Mary’s opinion—to give him a “swelled head.” Even Hump’s nemesis, the critic, Alexander Woollcott, who’d denounced him as the “inadequate sprig” wrote, “Those words are hereby eaten.”
Another prominent critic of the day was Heywood Broun, a well-known sports writer and columnist for New York newspapers, and also a leading member of the Socialist Party until he was expelled in 1933. Broun found Hump’s performance “most effective.” Hump couldn’t help but be delighted when Broun faulted co-actor Kenneth’s performance, claiming that the actor “suffers from trying too hard to make a feeble play take on the breath of life.”
At the play’s closing, Helen was preparing to take her own Broadway success, Seventh Heaven, to Los Angeles, leaving Hump at her apartment. Before departing, she told Hump that she would marry him but was too busy to fit a wedding into her busy schedule. “I’m at the height of my stardom,” she told him, “and I can’t let a little thing like marriage stand in my way. Some stars like Bernhardt will last forever. In my case, I fear I will burn terribly bright, then flicker out.” Unlike Hump, she spoke in highly dramatic terms, unusual for a person with so little formal education.
As Helen boarded the train to Los Angeles, going via Chicago, she told Hump that he didn’t necessarily have to be lonely when she was away in spite of their engagement. She gave him the telephone number of “a young and very beautiful actress that I’ve been dating. Call her. She’s very amusing. She and I are going nowhere fast in our relationship. Women, I fear, are mere playthings for her. She really prefers men. Besides no one can replace Tallulah— that whore—in my life.”
Bidding Helen good-bye, Hump returned to the empty apartment. After three hours and drunk on gin, he dialed the number of Helen’s actress friend. He was determined to find out the degree to which this mystery woman liked men.
On the other end of the line, a haunting, dramatic voice picked up the receiver. “Hello, this is Louise Brooks. Who’s this?”
***
After one night with her, Hump was so mesmerized by Louise Brooks that he told Bill Brady that he wanted to break off his engagement with Helen and propose to “Brooksie” instead. He claimed that she was the best sex he’d ever had with any woman. “She’s one earthy broad,” Hump said. “We did things I’ve never even heard of before.”
Bill was disdainful of Louise. “She’s nothing but a teenage prostitute. She’s shacked up with that high roller, A.C. Blumenthal, who’s taking over for Ziegfeld. Brooks is a real casting-couch climber. I also hear she’s a lesbian.”
On their first date together, Hump had shown up at her hotel dressed for dinner, as she’d accepted his invitation to go to a supper club. When she opened the door to her room, she wore a sheer white nightgown with nothing on underneath it. “Come on in, handsome,” she said, reaching for his hand. “We’ll have room service send us a hamburger. That way, we’ll have more time in the sack, as I have to get up early in the morning.”
Hump was immediately taken with this “Kansas sunflower,” a former Ziegfeld Follies dancer who’d also appeared in George White’s Scandals. Her raven-black hair was radiant, and she’d styled it in a way that had already led to her reputation as “the girl in the black helmet.” She wore it closely cropped in an exaggerated page-boy style.
As she invited him in and offered him some whiskey, he felt that he was encountering the Jazz Age flapper supreme, perhaps someone not real but a creation of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“Helen tells me you’re not rich but I agreed to see you anyway,” Louise said. “I have this friend, Peggy Fears, who& dances in the Follies. She has a strict rule about& dating, ‘No ice, no dice.’ She thinks I should go out only with rich stage-door Johnnies. But I& also like to get plowed, and these old guys are too worn out for my tastes. That’s why I turn to& guys like you. Trinkets are nice but getting plowed for fun is one of the joys of life, and I& want it all.”
“I hope I won’t disappoint,” Hump said.
“I’m sure you won’t,” Louise said. “Helen has already given me a critique. I asked Helen if you were a redhead. She assured me you were brunette.”
“What have you got against redheaded men?”
“I absolutely refuse to go to bed with them,” she said. “Based on my experience, I have found that their pricks are always tiny and even misshapen, usually bent to the left and most unappetizing.”
“You’ve lost me there,” he said, downing the rest of his whiskey. “I’ve never done a survey.”
“Take my word for it,” she said, going over to him and kissing him on the lips as he sat in her sole armchair. When she finally broke away, she said, “You have the most beautiful lips I’ve ever seen in any man.”
“Thanks.”
“You’ve got this little scar on your upper lip. It adds character to your face. I especially like this quilted piece that hangs down in a tiny scallop.” She ran her tongue along it. “It’s an imperfection I find terribly appealing.”
“Hell,” he said, drawing back slightly, not at all comfortable with the conversation. “I should have it surgically removed.”
“I disapprove of surgically removing skin from men,” she said. “I hope you’re not circumcised because I delight in men with foreskins.”
“I’m all there,” he said, as she reached to fondle him.
“I like the feel
of it,” she said. “You see I’m a basket-watcher. That’s why I spend a lot of time at the ballet watching men in form-fitting leotards. I hate most men’s trousers. Except for a few sailors who wear tight pants, they’re usually far too baggy.”
“You’re some gal,” he said, “I never heard a woman talk like you.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Louise said. “An average size prick can offer some satisfaction to a woman but they always leave one unfulfilled. There are three things I like done to me, and only a big prick can do the job.”
“Just three?” he said.
“That’s right. Unless you can conjure up something new.” She rose from his lap, removing her nightgown to stand nude in front of him. “Audition time.” With her head she motioned to her empty double bed.
As Hump would later relate to Bill, “It was the wildest ride I’ve ever had in my life. If Brooksie had a hole somewhere, she wanted it plugged.”
After their time together in bed, both Bogie and Louise cleaned themselves up. While he put back on his trousers, she slipped into a red dress. “I’ve got this fabulous idea,” she said. “Get dressed. I want you to walk along Broadway with me. We’ll look at all the names up in lights and imagine that one day the names of Louise Brooks and Humphrey Bogart will be up there for all the world to see.”
As he was reaching for his trousers, she challenged him. “Edmund Goulding told me that all actresses should be compared to a flower. I can’t decide what flower to be? You decide for me.”
He looked her over carefully from her tiny feet to her helmet hairdo. “An exotic black orchid.”
***
Like many actors of the 20s, including Gary Cooper, Hump went through a period where he tried to model himself after America’s reigning heartthrob of the screen, Rudolph Valentino, who had electrified audiences, especially women, with his performances in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and The Sheik.
Humphrey Bogart Page 11