Humphrey Bogart

by Darwin Porter

  “Not interested.” Lynn said.

  “You a homo or something?”

  “I like the gals. But . . .” he hesitated. “If you must know, I’ll let you in on a secret. I’m having this thing with Paulette Goddard, but I don’t want Charlie Chaplin to find out. I met her when we tested together for Gone With the Wind. It’s almost definite that Paulette is going to play Scarlett, and I’m going to appear as Ashley Wilkes, Scarlett’s true love. In fact, every time Selznick wants to test a new actress for the role of Scarlett, he calls me in to make a screen test with the hopeful. These gals don’t have a chance. Paulette’s got it sewed up.”

  In a touch of irony, the role of Ashley Wilkes, of course, would ultimately go to one of Bogie’s best friends, Leslie Howard.

  Like many male stars of the late 1930s, who entered World War II, Lynn never recouped his former stardom when he returned from the battlefields. His career stalled and went into such a decline he took a job selling homes to baby boomers.

  At the world premiere of The Roaring Twenties, Bogie escorted a drunken Methot to the gala affair, which brought out even Louis B. Mayer and Darryl F. Zanuck to the glittering event.

  As the curtain was about to go up in the theater showing The Roaring Twenties, Bogie noticed that Hellinger was missing from his seat. He asked Gladys Glad where her husband had gone.

  “He’s a nervous wreck,” said Glad, “Mark is sitting it out at the Cafe La Maze next door.”

  Leaving the theater as the picture began, Bogie went next door to find Hellinger deep into his second glass of brandy.

  “All those fucking guys in their penguin tuxedos and their whores in their glittering gowns—all of them judging me,” Hellinger said.

  “They’re loving it,” Bogie assured him, getting him to agree to walk back to the theater next door.

  Later he wished that he hadn’t. “We’d gone no more than ten steps before Hellinger threw up all over& my shiny new tux,” he told Methot.

  At the end of the screening, Bogie accepted congratulations, but Cagney got most of the attention that evening. Bogie was eager to retire to La Maze for drinks with Methot. She’d washed most of Hellinger’s puke off him.

  At La Maze, Bogie seated Methot in a chair just warmed by the brandy-drinking Hellinger. Bogie had dim hopes for The Roaring Twenties they’d just seen in its final cut.

  Bogie reflected on the movie’s plot. “You know, it’s all long-gone crap— bootlegging, beer drop-offs, the Stock Market crash, Wall Street ticker tapes going beserk, burly men in tuxedos pushing around big tit blondes in Art Deco speakeasies. It’s all so pointless now. Much of the world is at war, and we Yanks will be in it soon. Instead of gangster pictures, like the one Cagney and I just did, I think Confessions of a Nazi Spy will be more what the public wants to see.”

  In spite of Bogie’s dire assessment for the success of The Roaring Twenties, it was a big hit and drew rave reviews. The Hollywood Citizen-News joined the chorus, claiming “this is not just another Warner Brothers gang war drama.”

  The strangest review appeared in a small Long Beach newspaper. The “critic” wrote: “It’s worth the price of admission just to see Joan Blondell’s new, laughable haircut.” The problem with that review involved the fact that Blondell was not in the movie.

  Although Bogie didn’t see any future for The Roaring Twenties, the film in 2009 would be cited in Empire Magazine as number one in a poll of the “Twenty Greatest Gangster Movies You’ve Never Seen.”

  The Roaring Twenties would be the last film Bogie ever made with Cagney, and would be Cagney’s last gangster film for a decade.

  ***

  Over breakfast the next morning, Bogie choked on his coffee when he read that Cagney had become the second biggest wage earner in Hollywood, topped only by Gary Cooper. Cagney had taken home $368,333 the previous year, which made him one of the highest wage earners in an America drifting down the long road into World War II.

  ***

  His agent, Mary Baker, known as Bogie’s “eternal fairy godmother,” hooked him up with a super-agent, Sam Jaffe, a tiny man with a gift for securing first-class roles for his clients. What Bogie couldn’t do on his own in the& 30s, Jaffe did for him in the 40s when he shot up to become the highest paid actor in Hollywood.

  “I had a real challenge when I took on Bogie,” Jaffe recalled in an interview in London where he had gone into “exile” after his career in Hollywood faded. “Bogie was balding; he didn’t have a great physique; he was aging prematurely. His boozing and wild living with Methot was beginning to show on his face. Middle age was not only advancing on Bogie, it was overtaking him.”

  The agent, Sam Jaffe (1901-2000), is not to be confused with the famous character actor with the same name.

  Beginning as an office boy at Paramount, the agent had worked his way up through the ranks to become that studio’s executive in charge of production. Then, after a brief stint at Columbia in the early 1930s, he broke away to launch his own talent agency.

  In time, he would represent some of the biggest names in the business, not only Bogie and Lauren Bacall, but Peter Lorre, Fredric March, David Niven, Zero Mostel, Richard Burton, and Stanley Kubrick. Jaffe’s career declined when he came under suspicion by the Red-hunting demons of Joseph McCarthy during his search for suspected Communists in the film industry.

  “At one time I was the only man in Hollywood who believed that Bogie had a future in the movies,” Jaffe said. “Most people thought he was just an aging drunk who beat up his wife in bars. But there was great intelligence and ambition there. I sought the help of Leland Hayward. What I couldn’t do for Bogie, Leland could. But it was a formidable challenge. Of course, it didn’t come easy. Before High Sierra, there were still some turkeys Bogie had to make for Warner Brothers.”

  When Jaffe confronted Jack Warner about his client’s stalled career, the studio honcho said: “Here’s how I see Bogie. Give him the lead but only in B minus films, sorta Barton MacLane roles. Make him the third or fourth lead in A-list films. Maybe a great film every now and then like Dark Victory. Bette Davis is A list, Bogie is B list. But in that big film, keep him in a minor role like the stable hand he played. Of course, if any film calls for a gun-toting killer who dies in the last reel, then that script has Humphrey Bogart written all over it.”

  “Throughout the entire 1930s, Warner never realized the potential of Bogie,” Jaffe claimed. “But other producers and directors were taking notice, especially after seeing Bogie’s performance with Bette Davis in Dark Victory. We got several offers for star parts for Bogie in A-list pictures. But Warner always said no, preferring to keep his low-paid contract player churning out those B-list potboilers.”

  Jaffe recalled some tantalizing offers that came in, including Of Mice and& Men (1939), based on the novella by John Steinbeck. The star role went to Burgess Meredith. Directed by Lewis Milestone, the film was nominated for four Oscars.

  Bogie was also offered the star role in a remake of The Valiant, the 1929 film that had starred Paul Muni, a role that garnered that actor an Academy Award in the Best Actor category.

  The American film producer, Walter Wanger, wanted Bogie to co-star with Joan Bennett, his newly married wife, in The House Across the Bay, a 1940 film directed by Archie Mayo, who had worked with Bogie before. He was to appear in the role of Steve Larwitt, an imprisoned gangster set to be released from Alcatraz. The part seemed perfect for Bogie. Ironically, George Raft was given the role. Usually it was the other way around, with Bogie taking parts that Raft turned down.

  In time Bogie and Joan Bennett would become friends and make a picture together for Michael Curtiz. Paramount didn’t want to cast Bennett as the female lead in We’re No Angels (1955), but Bogie, who still had star power, interceded on her behalf. She was retained in her role of Amelie Ducotel. There were very few film offers for her after that.

  “Even John Garfield, a newcomer to the Warners lot, was taking home a bigger weekly paycheck than Bogie,”
Jaffe said. “Garfield got $1,500 a week, Bogie $1,250. That contrasted with James Cagney taking in $12,500 a week; Edward G. Robinson pulling in $8,500, and George Raft $5,500.”

  “It was no, no, no from Jack Warner,” Jaffe said. “Many of these roles could have sparked Bogie’s diminishing career years before Casablanca. He had to stand in the shadows while others took the spotlight. Mistreated and mishandled by Warner Brothers, Bogie had a contract that seemed more like a jail sentence than anything else. We referred to Warner Brothers as ‘the prison,’ with Jack Warner as the warden.”

  Bogie’s future director, Vincent Sherman, summed up Bogie’s position at Warners as 1939 came to an end. “If it’s a louse-heel you’re looking for,’ Jack Warner shouted, ‘Get Bogart!’”

  The most bizarre offer Bogie received was to co-star with Mae West and W.C. Fields in My Little Chickadee (1940). He was tempted to accept it, if Jack Warner would go along with the deal, which he doubted. Even so, at Jaffe’s urging, Bogie decided to check it out.

  He told Methot that it would be a “hoot” to appear with West and Fields— “a total change of pace for me. Maybe it would bring out my comic side. As you of all people know, I’m a laugh riot.”

  As later revealed to columnist Jim Bacon, Bogie claimed he went to the office of the producer, Lester Cowan. “I was handed a script. I had a few lines, then the next thirty pages would be blank except for the notation—‘Material to be supplied by Miss West.’ Another few lines for me and then thirty more blank pages. ‘Material to be supplied by Mr. Fields.’ The whole damn script was like that. I left quietly through an open window.”

  West heard that Bogie had bolted. She called Jaffe, whom she knew, and asked him to invite Bogie to her all-white apartment where she would explain his role to him and her part as Flower Belle Lee.

  Bogie accepted the invitation, more to see Mae West than for any other reason. He had no plans to take the role. He told Jaffe, “Fields and West would chew me up in one bite.”

  Apparently, West did not hold a grudge against Bogie based on the long-ago catfight she’d had with his first wife, Helen Menken.

  For reasons never fully explained, both West and her writing partner, Fields, wanted Bogie to play the romantic lead in My Little Chickadee (1940). He was offered the role of the “Masked Bandit,” which eventually went to Joseph Calleia.

  As Bogie recalled, West had arranged herself regally on a sofa in her immaculate living room. She had almost nothing to say about the film but covered a wide range of other subjects.

  Obviously she had heard that he was a compulsive drinker, and she shared with him her views on liquor. “If you’ve craving a drink,” she said, “it means your nerves are screaming out for B-Complex vitamins, calcium, and other elements. It’s best to refrain. If you get offered a drink—say, at a party—just tell the hostess that you’re allergic to alcohol.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Bogie falsely claimed.

  “I’m a great believer in a star maintaining his health,” she said. “I wanted you to play my lover in the film, but we may have to do something about your hair—perhaps a hairpiece would be in order. Of course, it’s better to have natural hair,” said the woman famous for her wigs. “To save your hair, tell your wife—Mayo Methot, if I can& believe the papers—to put you on a special diet. We’ll draw up a list of what you can eat. Beef heart, beef brains, lamb kidney, plenty of oysters, turnip greens, mustard greens, cabbage, raw wheat germ—and plenty of buckwheat and cornmeal.”

  “Stop it!” she said. “You’re making me hungry.”

  When not discussing health and regeneration, West talked about her favorite subject—herself. “Let’s face it, after all these years, I’m outrageously sexy, unlike all those lez actresses you’ve appeared with. We won’t even mention that older woman you married. The less said about that number the better. I’m an immortal sex symbol. I would never play a role that harmed my image. You’ve got to build an image like mine, but of a different sort, of course.”

  “Like what kind of image?” he asked.

  “First, you’ve got it all wrong. You’ve patterned yourself after the wrong guys in films. Take George Raft for instance.” She smiled amusingly at her own wit. “I’ve already had him, and you can definitely take him. You’ve got to come up with a different role model. I know back in the 20s they were talking about you being the next Valentino. Today, it’s different. Gary Cooper is the biggest thing at the box office. Tell Warners to start billing you as the next Gary Cooper.”

  “But Coop is two years younger than me,” he said. “How can I be the next Gary Cooper?”

  She thought for a minute. “We’ve got a problem here. Give me some time to think that one through.”

  “Also, my dick isn’t as big as his—or so I hear.”

  “Well, Mother Nature wasn’t always fair when she dispensed the goodies. Take me for instance. I’d venture to say that every woman on Earth would want to look like Mae West. But not one can match me. A man can’t do a lot about the actual size of his dick, but he can do something about what he thinks is the size of his dick.”

  “I don’t understand that.”

  “The trick is, select the right kind of woman. Go to bed with her. The right kind of woman can make a man with a four-inch dick feel like he’s got ten inches.”

  “You’ve got a point there,” he said. “In other words, stop going to bed with Mayo Methot, who makes me feel I’ve got only an inch with nothing to spare.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “Incidentally, Mr. Bogart, I’m just the kind of woman you need to make you feel like a big man in bed.”

  “I’m sure you are,” he said. “But I didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression. I mean, I’m not small—in fact, I’m rather large, especially for a man of my size.”

  “I’m sure that what you say is true, but Mae never accepted a man’s word for the size of his dick. I’m from Missouri by way of Brooklyn. Show me. As men from coast to coast can testify, a night in the bed of Mae West will rank as the most memorable of your life. When you die—say, around 1975,—your last memory will be of me and what we did in bed together.”

  The next day, Sam Jaffe could not pry the final details of Bogie’s night with Mae West from him. Future film historians are left with a baffling puzzle.

  Did Humphrey Bogart seduce Mae West that night—or did he not?

  When he returned home the next morning, Methot had already answered the question for her husband. As he walked inside the door, a ceramic living room lamp sailed past his head, shattering on the ceramic tiles of the hallway’s floor.

  ***

  The year 1939 is still hailed for having produced some of the greatest movies of Hollywood. That year witnessed the release of such instant classics as Gone With the Wind, Wuthering Heights, Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, and many other memorable films.

  Bogie would remember it as one of his least favorite years.

  He suffered through the release of both The Oklahoma Kid and The Return of Doctor X. Dark Victory, of course, became a classic, except nearly all reviewers drew attention to two particularly inept miscastings within that Bette Davis film—Ronald Reagan’s part as the disguised homosexual companion of Davis, and Bogie as the Irish horse trainer who longs for her love.

  In The Return of Doctor X, Bogie’s first and only horror movie, Bogie received bad reviews for a role that had originally been intended for Boris& Karloff. In the decades to come, thanks to Bogie’s chalky makeup and streaked hair, he evoked a punk rocker.

  In the film, Bogie played a criminal who died in the electric chair, and then was brought back to life by the doctor, John Litel, who revived him.

  The film’s director, Vincent Sherman, remembered Bogie’s first reaction to playing third lead in The Return of Doctor X (1939). “It’s my first horror movie, Vince baby,” he said. “I hear I play the living dead, lusting after Rosemary Lane in my ceaseless search for blood to sustain my second life beyond the grave. Wa
yne Morris as the lead! Why in hell do I have to play second fiddle to that stuck-up, no-talent, big-dick creep!”

  “On orders from Jack Warner,” Sherman said. “We are just the working stiffs on this turkey. It’s movie hokum, but I’ve got to start out as a director with the first picture Jack Warner assigns me. Stick around and watch me go. We’ll do some great pictures together in the 40s. Of course, with the way the world is, those will no doubt be war pictures.”

  Years later, in 1990, Sherman claimed that Bogie did not complain about getting trapped in Dr. X. “He was cast into one villain role after another. He came from the theater, as I did, and even if it was a cornball, crappy part, you tried to do the best you could with it. I was the one who suggested the white streak in his hair because he had been electrocuted. That’s& right, he was electrocuted and not hanged. And I got the idea of him walking around with a rabbit and stroking it because that was life—that was blood. We gave him that pasty look because he had been executed and brought back to life.”

  “When I was assigned Bogie as one of the leads in Dr. X, I was told by the honchos at Warners ‘to get him to play something besides Duke Mantee,’” Sherman said. “That was a reference, of course, to his role in The Petrified Forest. The thinking was that Bogie should always be cast as a heavy, not as a romantic leading man. I bought into that. It was inconceivable to me that he’d ever be cast as a romantic lover, appearing opposite Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. But he became the idol of millions, more dashing to some fans than Errol Flynn himself.”

  “When I directed Bogie, I never knew if he’d show up beaten, stabbed, or bloody,” Sherman recalled. “He was married to this vixen named Mayo Methot. She showed up on the set one day looking for her man. She rightly suspected that Bogie was having an affair with the script girl.”

  “I was ahead of her,” Sherman said. “I sent Bogie to my studio office to fuck the girl, because the first place Methot looked was in Bogie’s dressing room.”