Humphrey Bogart

by Darwin Porter

  After a rather inauspicious introduction, Bogie sat in the same far corner of the room where he’d previously played seductive games with Dvorak. Across from him sat Hawks, who would play such an enormous role in both his professional and personal life in the years to come.

  “Keep your mangy hands off Ann,” Hawks was telling him. “She’s already got Howard Hughes and Howard Hawks. She doesn’t need another ‘H’ in her life.”

  “We were just getting acquainted on the dance floor, pal,” Bogie said. “Nothing more.”

  “Don’t come within ten feet of her,” Hawks said threateningly.

  “I’ll stay at least twelve feet away,” Bogie said jokingly, not taking Hawks’ anger too seriously.

  I’m balling her,” Hawks said. “I find that teenage girls are the only thing that holds my interest. Don’t think I’m a pedophile. I only go out with girls in their late teens. No fourteen-year-olds.” He paused. “Maybe once or twice, but it’s definitely not a pattern with me.”

  “Glad to hear that,” Bogie said. “If I ever have any daughters, I’ll keep them far away from Mr. Howard Hawks.”

  “Listen, I’m not mad at you for trying to move in on Ann,” Hawks said. “You’re still green in Hollywood. You don’t know the ropes yet. I’ve issued my warning. If after you’ve been duly warned, you still cross Hughes and me, then I’ll cut off your nuts, assuming a little lisper like you has a pair.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got a pair,” Bogie said. “They’re big enough, too. My problem is that I haven’t learned how to clank them like you’re doing. Or like Hughes is doing. And don’t let my lisp fool you.”

  “Just wanted to be sure,” Hawks said. “I can’t even go take a piss out here in Hollywood without some queen falling on his knees.”

  “You should be flattered by such attention,” he said. “That means you’re a real man. Queens go just for the big studs.”

  “That’s one way to look at it,” Hawks said. “Nearly everyone I meet in Hollywood is a dirty little homosexual. There are a few bonafide heterosexuals out here, but not many.”

  “Name three,” Bogie said, challenging him.

  “I’ll name three guys who’ve never had their dick sucked by a man,” Hawks said. “In order of importance. Howard Hawks, Howard Hughes, Spencer Tracy. The rest I’m not so sure about.”

  “No contest there,” Bogie said. “You’re far more of a Hollywood insider than I am.”

  Hawks surveyed the party of gangsters. “I accepted George’s invitation because I knew a lot of New York gangsters would be here since Owney Madden and his boys are in town. I’m soaking up atmosphere for my picture, Scarface, that Hughes is producing. I think the film is& going to be a big success. At least three of my actors are gong to be billed above the title.”

  “Call me Louella,” he said. “I’d really like to know who they are. It’s interesting to hear that somebody’s making it out here on The Coast.”

  “Paul Muni, George Raft, and Boris Karloff,” Hawks said.

  “The fourth?” Bogie asked.

  “Ann Dvorak herself,” Hawks said. “I’ve got this incredible instinct for casting. I have a feeling that a lot of movie plots in these Depression days will be about life’s losers, and she’s perfect for roles like that. After Scarface, I think she’ll have cornered the market on the portrayal of doomed gangster molls with prolonged death scenes.”

  “Sounds like a great career,” he said. “Since I’m about to be dropped by Fox, what role have you got coming up for me? I’m gonna be in need of a job pretty soon.”

  “ Scarface is already cast,” Hawks said. “I think my next movie is going to be The Crowd Roars. I’m thinking of casting Ann in that movie, too, although I rarely work with the same pussy twice. She might play the second female lead. I want Joan Blondell to play the lead. The second male lead will be played by this faggot kid, Eric Linden.”

  “I’ve heard of him,” Bogie said. “You said nothing about the male lead. I haven’t read the script, and don’t even know what the picture is about, but I think I’d be ideal.”

  “It’s not set yet,” Hawks said, “but I’m thinking of casting James Cagney.”

  “I knew Cagney back in my New York days,” Bogie said. “He got his start appearing in drag.”

  “Bullshit!” Hawks said. “You’re making that up. If I had to name three men in Hollywood who will never appear in drag, I’d cite Howard Hawks first, Howard Hughes second, and James Cagney third.”

  “Maybe I was mistaken about Cagney,” Bogie said. “Too much rotgut whiskey out here in Hollywood pickles the brain.”

  “I don’t know about you, Bogart,” Hawks said. “When I was in New York, I saw you on Broadway in Cradle Snatchers. I wasn’t impressed. I guess you noticed that when I made Cradle Snatchers for Fox, I didn’t cast you in your stage part as Jose Vallejo. I cast Joe Striker in the part and changed his character’s name to Joe Valley.”

  “I couldn’t help but notice,” Bogie said. “Don’t judge me by those Broadway days. I’ve grown a lot as an actor since then. I need one big role and I’ll hit it big. A part like Scarface, which could make a big name for Paul Muni, as you said. He’s playing Al Capone, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not the official word,” Hawks said. “I was visited recently by a couple of Capone goons who insisted on knowing who Scarface was based on. They’d heard that it was based on their boss.”

  “How in hell do you get out of that one?” Bogie asked. “I mean Capone has a scarface. I heard someone tried to slit his throat.”

  “That’s right, and the film is based on him,” Hawks said. “But I convinced them that Scarface has nothing to do with Capone. I told them we’re just calling it that to fool the public into thinking it might be about Capone. I said that’s known as showmanship. The Chicago boys left me alone with my body intact and went away feeling like Hollywood insiders. Hughes was afraid the boys would go after him, but I assured him that I’d taken care of that too. I told the Capone goons that Hughes was ‘just the sucker with the money.’”

  Dvorak approached them and reminded Hawks that they had another rendezvous that evening. She smiled at Bogie. “Maybe you’ll be my leading man one day in a picture.”

  Hawks looked back at Bogie. “I don’t see that ever happening.” A frown crossed his brow. “On another point, I can assure you I’ll never cast you in a film I’m directing.”

  “Sorry to hear that, pal,” Bogie said. “Now you two love birds have a good night.”

  ***

  Bogie floored the accelerator of his car, heading for the Malibu retreat of Spencer Tracy and his newly acquired friend, the matinee idol, Johnny Mack Brown.

  It had been a night he didn’t want to remember. Smoking incessantly and badly hung over, he found himself shaking uncontrollably. He felt that he was coming apart. He rarely thought about his wives (former and current), as he was caught up in a whirlpool with an eccentric cast of characters, most of whom he was meeting for the first time.

  At Tracy’s cottage, he pulled into the driveway. Emerging from the beach in a skimpy, form-fitting bathing suit was one of the handsomest men he’d ever encountered. He figured it could only be Johnny Mack Brown.

  After Johnny had shown Bogie to his bedroom overlooking the ocean, and after he’d showered, Bogie joined the actor for a walk on the beach. Tracy was in the bedroom across the hallway recovering from a massive drunk.

  Plopping down right on the sands, Bogie accepted a drink from the flask Johnny carried in his beach bag. “Spence told me that you and he have become asshole buddies and that I could tell you anything,” he said in a slow Southern drawl.

  “I love the man,” Bogie said, “but asshole buddies is a bit much. We’re more into the handshaking stage.”

  “Asshole buddies is just a Southern expression,” Johnny said. “Let’s drop that subject and talk of loftier matters. Like what ol’ Spence did yesterday.”

  “If this is gonna be about what
you guys do in bed, pal, I think I’ll skip it,” Bogie said.

  “Nothing like that,” Johnny said. “It was at the studio. As you know, Spence is battling Fox about the roles he’s been assigned. I mean, a dreadful piece of shit like Six Cylinder Love, co-starring that queen, Edward Everett Horton. What a turkey! Yesterday, on the set, Spence had had his fill of the studio and probably the entire film industry as well.”

  “I don’t think I want to hear the rest of this story,” Bogie said. He closed his eyes and lay back to get sun. To his surprise, Johnny lit a cigarette for him and placed it in his mouth. “Thanks,” Bogie said. “I don’t usually let men light my cigarettes, though.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Johnny said enigmatically. “Anyway, Spence showed up on the set of She Wanted a Millionaire in evening clothes. He’d been out drinking all night. He was taking out his frustrations with Fox by acting like a rebellious child. He didn’t know his lines and he’d have been too drunk to say them even if he had. He went around making lascivious remarks to all the gals on the set, pretty or otherwise. He even went up to the fluttery Una Merkel and asked her if he could play with her pussy. Later he came up to the star of the picture, Joan Bennett, and bluntly asked her, ‘Do you want to fuck?’”

  “That’s understandable,” Bogie said. “I’d like a piece of Miss Joan myself. She’s even younger and prettier than her older sister, Constance.”

  “It’s more complicated than that,” Mack Brown said. “The plot thickens. First, Spence was already furious that Joan got all the best lines in the flick. He told the press he’s Bennett’s prop, with dialogue best reserved for a wooden Indian. To make matters worse, the director, John Blystone, is in love with Bennett himself.”

  “God damn it,” Bogie said, sitting up and inhaling deeply on his cigarette. “This sounds like a more interesting plot than any of his movies.”

  “That’s not all. Bennett slapped his face. When Blystone rushed over, Spence said to him, ‘The script is dishonest.’ Then he passed out.”

  “No wonder our boy is part of The Irishmen’s Club in Hollywood,” Bogie said. “Those boys sure know how to drink. I drink all the time but I moderate it. Spence, I’ve noticed, either drinks or doesn’t touch the stuff. But when he drinks, he empties the equivalent of Lake Michigan. My father’s a doctor. He calls men like Spence a spasmodic alcoholic.”

  “Well, he’s in one of those spasms this weekend,” Johnny said, “so be duly warned. I don’t know what Fox is going to do with him. When the crew revived Spence about an hour later, he immediately barged onto the set again, took out his dick, and pissed on an expensive sofa they were using in a scene. The same sofa where Bennett was supposed to sit.” He leaned back and eyed Bogie carefully. “There’s more. Then he went on a rampage. He turned over lamps, sending them crashing to the floor. There was this bookcase with glass doors. He picked up an ashtray and broke its windows. Finally he stood on an armchair and lunged for the crystal chandelier. He was swinging on the chandelier when he fell off, hitting his head against something. That caused him to bleed profusely. The big man himself, Winfield Sheehan, Fox’s director of production, had been called to the set. He saw it all.”

  “Sheehan’s gonna can Spence,” Bogie predicted. “I just know it. Spence is gonna be on that train back to New York with me. We’ll start a club. Two former Fox stars pounding the pavements of Broadway looking for work.”

  “I agree with you,” Johnny said. “Spence is a great actor, probably the greatest in Hollywood. But he’s been assigned a series of stupid potboilers, each with really bad scripts. And his pictures are bombing at the box office. Let’s face it? His behavior is outrageous. He’ll come right up to a woman and fondle her breast. Or he’ll reach up her dress. I mean, Spence is not a thigh man, he goes right for the honeypot at the end of the rainbow.”

  “Maybe Sheehan will tolerate that kind of behavior in a big star cleaning up at the box office,” Bogie said. “Someone up there in the Garbo league. But you can’t make potboilers that lose money and pull such crap.”

  “I don’t know why Fox hasn’t kicked him out on his ass by now. If I acted like Spence, I would have been canned long ago. To make matters worse, Spence will disappear for weeks at a time. He’ll lock himself up in a hotel suite and stage a big drunk.”

  “I hate to see the guy suffer,” Bogie said. “He’s a real pal of mine, but he seems possessed by some hidden devil that’s got his soul.”

  For the rest of the afternoon, Bogie was content to lie on the beach, drink, smoke, and listen to the sound of Johnny’s Southern drawl, which he’d come to find rather soothing. He needed this rest.

  Hours later, Johnny said that Tracy had awakened and wanted to see him.

  He found Tracy sitting on a narrow balcony overlooking the ocean. He looked sad and depressed.

  “Good to see you again, pal,” Bogie said, giving him a warm handshake. “I hear you pulled a big one last night.”

  “I’m glad you could come out,” Tracy said. “With all the assholes out here in Hollywood I’ve been dealing with, you’re the only pal that seems real.”

  “I’m real all right, and fucked up too, but not quite as fucked up as you are,” Bogie said, sitting down beside the actor and lighting up another of his cigarettes.

  “You’ll get no argument with me about that,” Tracy said. He looked at the evening waves washing up on the beach. “I don’t think I’ll ever be at peace with myself until I go to my grave.”

  “That’s a pretty gloomy forecast,” Bogie said.

  “There’s this thing inside me that’s like a demon tearing my guts apart,” Tracy said. “I can’t get rid of it. The only way I can keep it under control is to drink so much I temporarily drown it. But it always comes back. I think this beast within me will live there until my body dies, and then the God damn thing will move into someone else’s body.”

  “If you don’t start taking better care of yourself, pal, the morticians will get you sooner than later.”

  “Sometimes I wish that was true,” Tracy said.

  ***

  The following night, after he’d driven back to his apartment and had visited with Kenneth for an hour, relating all the events of the weekend, Bogie felt tired and retreated to his apartment. He planned to cook himself some ham and eggs, but was too short on energy.

  No sooner had he stripped off his clothes and piled into bed than the telephone rang. Wearily getting up to answer it, he knew he wasn’t interested in accepting any invitations, even if Dietrich herself had called.

  It was Helen, filled with remorse about her refusal to take his calls. “I was humiliated at seeing you with the most glamorous women in Hollywood. I felt old and ugly. I felt you didn’t love me or need me any more in your life and that you could have your pick of some of the most beautiful women in the world.”

  “Your beauty is timeless,” he said. “Theirs is only of today.”

  “Thank you, dear heart,” she said. I’m sorry I didn’t call back. Please forgive me.”

  “We’ve done worse things to each other,” he said.

  “Please come right over” she said, a sudden urgency in her voice.

  “At this hour?” he asked. Even for Helen and a reconciliation, he wasn’t that interested.

  It’s only ten o’clock,” she said. “Early for Hollywood.”

  “You’re on the west coast now, not New York,” he said. “Stars have to go to bed early so that we can look gorgeous on camera.”

  “Please,” she said. “Tonight is so important.”

  ***

  After hours spent with Helen, Bogie drove back to his apartment, expecting an early morning call from Fox, announcing that he was needed that day. When no call came in, he showered and dressed, deciding to drive to her apartment since she was not answering her phone. He feared that something might be wrong.

  At the Garden of Allah, a young man at the reception desk told him that, “Miss Menken checked out this morning t
o return to New York.” Bogie asked if she’d left a message for him, but was told there was none.

  Their night had gone so successfully that Bogie was absolutely shocked at Helen’s abrupt departure. Nothing in their time spent together suggested that she was going back to New York so suddenly.

  Obviously, she’d decided that she didn’t want to wander back into their old relationship, and decided she’d cut it off before it had a chance of growing again. He could never be certain about Helen. She was a woman of impulses, and obviously had acted on her impulse.

  Nonetheless, he was angry at her. “After all that love-making,” he said in a call to Kenneth MacKenna, “not even a god damn note. Men like us should never marry actresses.”

  “Maybe she got the part of a lifetime.” MacKenna said.

  “Maybe.” Bogie put down the phone.

  Just as he was about to leave, he heard the sound of loud, raucous laughter in the foyer. He spotted those two madcap Alabamians, Tallulah Bankhead and Anderson Lawler, asking the doorman to call them a taxi. Both of them had more in common than a birth state, having just survived separate affairs with Gary Cooper.

  Tallulah seemed delighted to see him. “Hump, darling,” she called to him. “We’re going to Jimmy’s Backyard tonight. If you’ll go with us, I’ll fuck you later and let Andy suck you off.”

  “An invitation like that sounds irresistible,” he said, shaking Lawler’s hand and kissing Tallulah on the mouth, feeling the serpentine darting of her tongue.

  “Before she checked out,” Tallulah said, “I ran into your adorable wife. Helen was furious. She told me about the double-cross. The producers want Barbara Stanwyck to costar in the film version of The Captive. They should have asked me.” She laughed hilariously at something she was about to say. “Of course, I understand why they didn’t consider me. No one would believe me in the role of a lesbian.”

  “You are the true epitome of ladylike refinement,” Lawler said.

  “You bet your cocksucking lips I am,” she said. She leaned her head over to get a better view of Bogie. “We must get together soon and catch up on the latest Hollywood gossip. I’ll tell you my tales. You can tell me your tales. Later, I’ll show you my tail, and you can show me your tail. Not that I haven’t seen it before, darling.”