Humphrey Bogart

by Darwin Porter

  “If Bogie were in love with any woman in the 1930s, it was Mary Philips,” Leslie Howard once said. “But they spent much of their time on separate coasts sleeping in the beds of other people.”

  No one could accuse Mayo Methot of being anybody’s mother. Bogie once admitted to Ann Sheridan, “I don’t love Mayo. But I’m fascinated by her, and I love to beat her up, especially when she beats me back.”

  On August 12, 1938, the Associated Press carried a notice that “Mary Phillips Bogart, known professionally as “Mary Philips,” whose divorce from screen actor Humphrey Bogart became final two days ago, and Leo Meilzinger, former husband to Kay Francis, also a film prominent, were married today at the office of the Justice of the Peace J. Fred Collins.”

  The article noted that Meilzinger was known in the theatrical world as Kenneth MacKenna, a film editor for MGM in New York City. Kenneth was 38, Mary 37.

  In some long-forgotten fan magazine of the 30s, Bogie gave a surprisingly candid interview on the dawn of his marriage to Methot.

  “I love a good fight,” he claimed. “So does Mayo. We have some first-rate battles. Both of us are actors, so fights are easy to start. Actors always see the dramatic quality of a situation more easily than other people and can’t resist dramatizing it further. For instance, I come home from a game of golf. Maybe I’ve been off my drive. I slump into my chair. ‘Gosh, I feel low today.’ I start. She nods meaningfully. ‘Low, hmm, I see. You feel low. You come to see me and it makes you feel low. All the thrill has gone and . . . you feel low.’ And we go right on from there. We both understand that one of the important things to master in marriage is the technique of the quarrel.”

  As an ominous sign, there were threatening storm clouds across Los Angeles on the morning of August 20, 1939. But by eleven the highly unpredictable skies cleared in time for the wedding of Humphrey Bogart, age 38, to Mayo Methot, age 35.

  Bogie and Mary Philips had long been a friend of Mary and Mel Baker, who had agreed to host the wedding of Bogie to his third wife, Mayo. Mel was a comedy writer and Mary Baker a theatrical agent to both Mary Philips and Bogie. He had long forgiven her for testifying against him in Mary’s divorce case against him. Judge Ben Lindsay had agreed to perform the ceremony marrying Bogie to Mayo.

  Methot arrived at her wedding to Bogie in a housedress that looked as if she’d slept in it. Her hair was ratty, needing to be washed and set.

  “I’ve got nothing to wear,” she told actress Gloria Stuart. “I spent all my money on liquor, and that tightwad Bogart, the fucker, wouldn’t give me money to buy a new dress.”

  “What a great way to start a marriage,” Stuart said. She went to see Mary Baker, the hostess, who claimed she had something appropriate. She emerged with a beaded dress and a matching hair band that Joan Crawford might have worn in Our Dancing Daughters. Right before her, Methot pulled off her dress, revealing that she wore no underwear.

  Appraising herself in the mirror, Methot turned to Baker, “Aren’t you supposed to wear something borrowed at a wedding? Well, look at me now.”

  “What about some panties, darling?” Mary asked.

  “Who needs them?” she asked. “If a man wants to fuck you, you should make it easy for him and not make him have to take off a lot of garments. Just pull up your dress and tempt him with your cooze.”

  Marietta Bitter and her harp provided the event’s high point in culture, but another performer, Mischa Auer, stole the show. He attracted the most attention by crawling naked under the tables, putting an experienced hand up several of the women’s dresses.

  During the actual marriage ceremony, Bogie cried through the entire service. “If I were marrying Mayo Methot, I would cry too,” said Spencer Tracy.

  Long before the sun set that day, “The Battling Bogarts” were at it. After downing nearly half a bottle of Scotch, Methot in front of the guests, filled her hands with great globs of creamy wedding cake, walked up to her new husband, and crushed the gooey mess into his face, rubbing it in. Some gossip at the party had told her that her new spouse was having a torrid affair with Claire Trevor.

  Bogie punched her back, knocking her down. She fell backward, crashing into a table of four enjoying the wedding buffet.

  Bogie ran back into the house, and within an hour he and Mel Baker were driving down the coastal road toward the Mexican border. Methot spent her wedding night sobbing in the bed of Mary Baker, who tried to offer the new bride whatever comfort she could on her “honeymoon.”

  Two days later Bogie sent Methot a rubber plant, and “The Battling Bogarts” made up, at least for a few hours.

  Methot told Mary Baker, “We managed to screw for a few hours before we started in again. It was over the Tijuana whores I suspected he’d sampled during our honeymoon.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Back from a real honeymoon in Oregon, where Bogie met his in-laws, he arrived in Hollywood with a steely resolve.

  Over breakfast with his new bride, his face tightened into knots of determination. “God damn it, I’m gonna be a big-time movie star in spite of Jack Warner. It’s now or never. I’m seeing Barbara Stanwyck today.”

  “I don’t have to be jealous of that bitch,” Methot said. “Bette Davis told me she’s lez. Her romance with Robert Taylor is just for show.”

  “I want to star with her in Golden Boy,” Bogie responded. “Babs and I can heat up the screen with that film. If she doesn’t think I can quite handle the part, I’ll throw you in as the party favor for Stanwyck.”

  Bogie ducked just in time to miss a flying plate that crashed into the wall behind him.

  If Bogie had known how many young actors wanted to play the role of the boxer, Joe Bonaparte, in the screen adaptation of Clifford Odets’ Broadway play, Golden Boy, he might never have gone out for the role. Everyone from matinee idol Tyrone Power to newcomer Alan Ladd was competing.

  Director Rouben Mamoulian estimated that some 5,000 actors, including a 17-year-old Dale Robertson, wanted the part. “My God,” Mamoulian said, “more guys wanted to play Joe Bonaparte than gals wanted to be Scarlett O’Hara.” [In all, 1,400 candidates for the role of Scarlett were interviewed. Of these, ninety were given screen tests.]

  Methot reminded Bogie that he was nearly forty years old and didn’t have the figure for an appearance in boxing trunks. She accurately predicted that some twenty-year-old brat would get the part—“and it’ll probably make him a star.”

  As payment for her forecast, she got a plate of unfinished ham and eggs thrown in her face. The last thing Bogie wanted was to be reminded of how old he was.

  He was convinced that if Stanwyck would just return his calls, he could use his former connection to her to get the director to cast him. In preparation, he took boxing lessons every day and also violin lessons. In the play,& Bonaparte wanted to be a violinist before he was lured into the ring.

  Unknown to Bogie at the time, a future co-star of his, William Holden, was also taking boxing and violin lessons.

  Finally, the call came in from Stanwyck, whose star was rising rapidly in Hollywood. It was not the kind of call he expected. At first she didn’t even mention Golden Boy.

  “Bogie, how’s it hanging?”

  “It’s grown three inches longer since the last time,” he said. “Wanna swing on it again?”

  “No, I’m perfectly satisfied with Robert Taylor’s four inches,” she said. “Let cut the crap, Bogie. You know why I’m calling.”

  “I hear Samuel Goldwyn has signed you for Golden Boy,” he said.

  “That’s the least of my concerns right now,” she said. “The publicity people are pushing me for the role of Scarlett O’Hara. Can you believe such nonsense?”

  “A gal from Brooklyn. I’m surprised. If you get it, you’ve got to sound like you have magnolia juice dripping down your chin.”

  “That’s not all,” she said. “I hear David Selznick wants us to do a screen test together. You, of all the actors in Hollywood, for the role of Rhett Butle
r.”

  “As dumb as it sounds, let’s go for it,” he said. “If we could pull this one off, we might become the biggest stars in Hollywood since Rin Tin Tin.”

  “They’re going to get in touch with you,” she said. “Now, more business. What’s all this talk I hear that you want to play Joe Bonaparte. Are you out of your mind?”

  “It’s a great role, and I could do it.”

  “But you’re forty years old,” she said. “Almost. The kid in the movie should be in his early twenties.”

  Before she hung up, he convinced her to come to his gym the following day and watch him work out in the ring with Slapsie Maxie.

  “I don’t want that retard,” she said. “I want to see you in the ring with a real man. I’ll bring along someone to get into the ring with you and duke it out.”

  “You’ve got yourself a deal, Babe, or is it Babs?” he said.

  “Miss Stanwyck will do,” she said after jotting down the time and place.

  Stanwyck showed up with a stunningly handsome actor whom she introduced as& William Holden.

  While Holden was in the changing room getting into his trunks, Bogie said, “I’ve never seen a boxer that good looking before. Where did you find him?”

  “He’s not a boxer,” Stanwyck said. “He’s an actor. He’s also up for the role.”

  At this point Holden returned, looking even younger and more gorgeous without his clothes. Like some boxing manager, Stanwyck ushered Bogie and Holden into the ring together. “May the best man win.”

  The bout was short, not sweet. After only four minutes of sparing, Holden threw Bogie a punch that knocked him out.

  When he came to, he was sitting on the sidelines, with a gym attendant and Stanwyck hovering over him. Holden had disappeared.

  Bogie had a splitting headache, and Stanwyck appeared rather blurred before his eyes. “I didn’t quite come clean with you,” she said. “Holden was assigned the part yesterday. Better go back to those gangster roles, sweet cheeks.”

  “You are an incredible bitch,” he said.

  “There are side benefits from casting Holden,” she said. “In case you haven’t noticed, twenty-year-old cock tastes better than forty-year-old cock.”

  ***

  Two days prior to the screen test with Stanwyck and Bogie for the Rhett and Scarlett& roles, Selznick’s office sent Bogie a message, notifying him that the screen test had been cancelled.

  Not only was Bogie’s screen test cancelled, but the following week he received a memo from Selznick.

  “Mr. Bogart, although I admire your talent in gangster roles, you are not a serious candidate for the role of Rhett Butler. Although some polls list you as a candidate, you are not. As you should know, the role is completely unsuitable for you. You’d be laughed off the screen. In case you and Barbara Stanwyck haven’t read the novel, it’s set in Georgia—not Brooklyn. I have not determined who will play Scarlett, but I am more or less set on Gary Cooper for Rhett Butler. Kindest personal regards, David O. Selznick.”

  With a certain bitterness, Bogie watched newcomer William Holden and Barbara Stanwyck appear in one of the greatest films of 1939, perhaps the single greatest year in the history of motion pictures.

  He vowed never to speak to Stanwyck again. Methot warned that if she encountered her at a party or in a public place, “I’ll pull out every hair in her head.”

  Bogie watched in amazement as Stanwyck became the highest paid female star during World War II. At the end of the war, and after Casablanca, his own star had risen so high that he was offered star billing over her in The Two Mrs. Carrolls, slated for a 1947 release. For the opportunity to co-star with her, with his name above hers, he decided to forgive her and go ahead with the picture.

  He told its English director, Peter Godfrey, that he could definitely honor his marriage vows while making this movie. “You’ve cast me opposite two lezzies-Stanwyck and Alexis Smith. Maybe the gals will connect—not me.”

  Bogie had already co-starred with Alexis& Smith in the 1945 Conflict, which included backup support from Sydney Greenstreet.

  During the filming of The Two Mrs. Carrolls, Bogie and Stanwyck each realized they were miscast in this adaptation of Martin Vale’s play that had brought such success on Broadway to the great Elisabeth Bergner and Victor Jory.

  During the shoot, reporters provocatively asked Bogie how she could hook up with him on the screen when she had “pretty boy” Robert Taylor waiting back home at the ranch.

  “I’m not good looking, and I admit that,” Bogie responded. “I used to be quite pretty, but not in the league of Robert Taylor. But I’ve got character on my face. It takes an awful lot of late-night drinking to put it there.”

  Godfrey allowed Bogie to mug shamelessly as the psychopathic artist who paints wives as “Angels of Death,” then kills them with poisoned milk.

  Warners held up the release of the film for two years. When it finally hit screens across the country, critics ridiculed and mocked it. The public cast its vote by staying away. The film would find new life in the 1960s when it was rediscovered by the French New Wave.

  Stanwyck and Bogie made a valiant attempt to appear together one final time on the screen in The Fountainhead based on Ayn Rand’s best-selling 754-page novel. This Russian-born philosopher novelist stood for “muscular capitalism and a disdain for the common herd.” Stanwyck wanted to play the lead role of Dominique Francon who marries the book’s villain but loves the hero, architect Howard Roark of unbounded ego. Bogie saw himself in that part of a rugged individual.

  When Mervin LeRoy signed to direct, it was with the understanding that the stars would be Bogie and Stanwyck. Before shooting began, he was forced to leave the picture.

  Called in to direct, King Vidor wanted Gary Cooper for the part of Howard Roark. “Stanwyck’s too old to play Dominique. Not sexy enough. I want Ida Lupino.”

  In the end, Cooper retained the lead, appearing opposite the “new love of my life,” Patricia Neal.

  Bogie survived the rejection, but Stanwyck virtually “fired herself” on June 21, 1948, by sending a blistering communication to Jack Warner, expressing her wish to end their contractual obligations to each other. At the time, the studio was in financial trouble and was glad to see her go. The Fountainhead had marked her first defeat to a younger actress. “I had Gary Cooper long before this Neal bitch,” Stanwyck told Bogie.

  ***

  It was a bittersweet reunion Bogie had with Kay Francis when director Lewis Seiler cast them together in the 1939 release, King of the Underworld.

  Seiler had helmed him in Crime School, and the two men worked easily together. George Bricker, co-authored the screenplay with Vincent Sherman, who would direct some of Bogie’s future pictures.

  Sherman later admitted, “I was not proud of my work on this film.” It was a remake of Dr. Socrates, a Paul Muni film in 1935.

  Bogie hadn’t read the script until the first day of the shoot. “I’m supposed to be a dumb gang leader who fancies himself as the next Napoleon,” he protested to Sherman.

  “Don’t blame me. It wasn’t my idea. I just work here.”

  “Kay,” he said, coming up to kiss her on the first day of the shoot. “Great to see you again. It looks like we couldn’t hold on to our mates, so they ended up marrying each other.”

  He was, of course, referring to Kenneth MacKenna and Mary Philips.

  “Mary’s welcome to Kenneth,” she said. “I’ve moved on.”

  “True, true,” he said. “But at times I miss Mary, especially when Mayo is beating me over the head with a beer bottle. Mary was such a gentle person.”

  “Then she won’t make it in this town,” Francis predicted. Over lunch that day, she shared her woes.

  Francis told Bogie that her career was in serious decline, and she was hoping that their co-starring venture would pull her up again.

  “Even though my pictures end up in red ink, I still have a contract,” she said. “In 1936, I took in $2
27,500, the highest paid star on the lot.”

  “Don’t remind me,” he said.

  “But I’ve been moving from one flop to another,” she said. “Jack Warner personally told me that I’m not worth my paycheck.”

  “I fear he’s gonna tell me the same thing one day,” Bogie said. “Sooner than later.”

  “I had a lavish dressing room, but they moved me out to give it to John Garfield,” she said. “You better watch that kid. He might take your roles. Right now they’re paying me $4,000 a week to do screen tests with unknown actors. I’m the only actress doing B pictures for a six-figure income.”

  “Don’t worry, babe,” Bogie said. “I hear your latest beau is rich.” He was referring to Baron Raven Erik Barnekow, with ties to the aviation business.

  “He’s rich and handsome,” she said. “But there are problems. He’s so jealous, he’s a psycho. And, get this, he told me the other night that if I don’t stop wearing makeup he will leave me. Imagine an actress without makeup.”

  “I shudder at the prospect,” Bogie said mockingly.

  She leaned over to him to whisper something. “I know I can trust you. My husband makes secret trips to& Mexico. He refuses to discuss& where he’s been. I think he’s a& secret Nazi agent.”

  “Sounds like a good plot for your next movie,” he said. “I could play the baron.”

  The third star of the movie was James Stephenson, a British actor who was ten years older than Bogie. “Pretty late to be breaking into films, don’t you think, kid?”

  “Better late than never,” he said. “Forgive the cliché. Jack Warner has signed me to play urban villains and disgraced gents. Incidentally, you’re my favorite star.”

  “Good God, a newcomer to Warners with some taste,” Bogie said. “I’m not used to that.”

  Bogie and Stephenson never& became close friends, but Bogie was happy for him when William Wyler cast him in the sympathetic role of the family attorney in Bette Davis’ The Letter (1940). In “my role of a lifetime,” he was nominated for Best Supporting Oscar.