Golden Couples: Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall are one of the most iconic couples of Hollywood's Golden Age. Despite their 25-year age gap, their chemistry was undeniable both on and off screen. They starred in four films together, had two children, hosted legendary parties, sailed on their yacht, and formed part of Hollywood's elite «Rat Pack.» Beginning in 1943, their devoted relationship lasted until Bogart's death from cancer in 1957, cementing their status as one of the most enduring and celebrated Hollywood romances. This is their story.

 

LEFT: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall photographed at their home for Warner Bros. in 1945. MIDDLE: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall aboard his sailing yacht, «Santana,» in a photoshoot for Warner Bros. in 1946. RIGHT: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall on break from rehearsal for their appearance on the adaptation of To Have and Have Not on the CBS radio programme Lux Radio Theatre, on October 14, 1946.

Born Betty Joan Perske in the Bronx, New York City, on September 16, 1924, Lauren Bacall studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, before making her acting debut on Broadway in 1942 as part of the ensemble in Rowland Brown's melodrama Johnny 2 X 4. At the same time, she found employment as a usher at the St. James Theatre and as a fashion model in department stores. In 1943, she was spotted at a club by Harper's Bazaar editor Nicolas de Gunzburg, who then introduced her to the magazine's fashion columnist, Diana Vreeland. Undoubtedly impressed by Bacall's style and good looks, Vreeland arranged for Louise Dahl-Wolfe to photograph her in Kodachrome, a colour reversal film, for the March 1943 cover of Harper's Bazaar.

 

LEFT: Lauren Bacall on the cover of the March 1943 issue of Harper's Bazaar. MIDDLE and RIGHT: Lauren Bacall photographed by Louise Dahl-Wolfe in 1943. 

Meanwhile, socialite and fashion icon Nancy «Slim» Hawks, then the wife of producer and director Howard Hawks, saw Bacall's Harper's Bazaar cover and was fascinated by the 19-year-old's «scrubbed clean, healthy, shinning and golden» appearance. She then urged her husband to invite Bacall to take a screen test for his upcoming film, To Have and Have Not (1944), made at Warner Bros. After meeting Bacall in Hollywood, Hawks signed her to seven-year contract with a weekly salary of $100, and personally began to manage her career. He changed her first name to «Lauren» and she chose «Bacall,» a variant of her mother's maiden name, as her screen surname. He also asked his wife to advise Bacall on clothing, shoes and general demeanour, and had her train with a voice coach to lower her naturally high-pitched, nasal voice to a deeper, sultrier tone. 

 

When both Hawkses were satisfied with their new protégée, the director took Bacall to the set of To Have and Have Not and introduced her to the star of the picture, Humphrey Bogart. Born on Christmas Day 1899 in New York City, Bogart made his acting debut in the 1922 Broadway play Drifting, which starred Alice Brady. Believing that the future of his profession was ultimately in the burgeoning film industry, Bogart headed to Hollywood and was soon cast in the silent short The Dancing Town (1928), starring Helen Hayes. He then signed a contract with the Fox Film Corporation for $750 a week, but continued to appear on Broadway, achieving great success in Robert E. Sherwood melodrama The Petrified Forest in 1935. Making a permanent move to Hollywood, he found himself typecast as a gangster in a series of crime dramas, until he finally catapulted to stardom with acclaimed performances in The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Casablanca (1942), the latter earning him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

 

LEFT: Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon. RIGHT: Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine in a publicity still for Casablanca.

 

The first meeting between Bogart and Bacall was pleasant enough, but — contrary to popular belief — no sparks flew. «The first three, four weeks that we were working on the film, were were just working on the film, just having a good time,» she later recalled. «But certainly there was no romance of any kind. That just accidentally just kind of happened, much to my amazement and, I suppose, his as well.» Bacall's role in the original script of To Have and Have Not was much smaller, but the part was revised and extended several times during production, after her chemistry with Bogart became apparent.

Loosely based on the 1937 novel of the same name by Ernest Hemingway, To Have and Have Not tells the story of Harry «Steve» Morgan, played by Bogart, a fisherman and American expatriate living in the French colony of Martinique, in the Caribbean Sea, during the summer of 1940. One night at his hotel bar, he meet an attractive young American wanderer named Marie «Slim» Browning, Bacall's role, largely inspired by Hawks's wife, and they are instantly smitten with each other. They begin a whirlwind courtship, but their romance is complicated when Steven gets deeply involved with the French Resistance operating on the pro-Nazi Vichy France-controlled island. Despite the mixed and often unflattering critical reviews, To Have and Have Not was a box-office success, becoming one of the top 10 highest-grossing films on that year.

 

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall as Harry «Steve» Morgan and Marie «Slim» Browning in To Have and Have Not.

As Bacall remembered, her affair with Bogart began before anyone noticed, including the two of them. She would often write to her mother about him — how he would tell jokes to put her at ease during filming, and how «very fond» he was of her. At the end of shooting one day about three weeks into production on To Have and Have Not, Bogart went into Bacall's dressing room, leaned over, put his hand under her chin, and kissed her. Then, he took a book of matches out of his pocket and asked to write her phone number on the back, which she did. After that interaction, they began to see each other and grew closer every day. They to be discreet about their romance, but their electrifying body language soon gave them away. Despite their 25-year age gap, Bacall was a «safe haven» for Bogart, who was stuck in an unhappy marriage to the actress Mayo Methot, whose unbalanced and violent nature would often put him in difficult situations. In contrast, Bacall, whom he affectionately called «Baby,» was loving, caring, and always ready to go to him whenever he called. «I wanted to give Bogie so much that he hadn't had, all the love that had been stored inside of me, all my life for an invisible father, for a man,» Bacall said. «I could finally think of allowing it to pour over this man and fill his life with laughter, warmth, joy — all the things he hadn't have for such a long time, if ever.»

 

LEFT: Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart after returning to Los Angeles from Ohio, where they were married. Bacall is wearing a bracelet given to her by Bogart with a whistle charm, a reference to an iconic line her character says in To Have and Have Not. RIGHT and MIDDLE: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall photographed at their home, in a photoshoot organized by Warner Bros. soon after their marriage.

After the financial success of To Have and Have Not, Warner Bros. quickly capitalized on Bogart and Bacall's chemistry by pairing them again in The Big Sleep (1946), also directed by Hawks. Based on the 1939 novel of the same name by Raymond Chandler, the film starred Bogart as Philip Marlowe, a Los Angeles private detective investigating the possible involvement of a society girl, Vivian Rutledge, played by Bacall, in the murder of a pornographer. Initially produced in late 1944, the picture's release was delayed by more than a year because the studio wanted to put out war films in anticipation of the end of World War II. Similarly to its predecessor, contemporary reviews for The Big Sleep were generally mixed, with most critics complaining about the confusing plot and unsatisfactory resolution to the story. Despite the lukewarm critical response, the film was another box-office success for Bogart and Bacall, solidifying the public's fascination with the couple.

 

LEFT: Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart as Vivian Rutledge and Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep, their second film together.

Shortly before The Big Sleep began filming, Bogart put an end to the affair with Bacall in hopes of salvaging his marriage, or at least to get his wife to stop drinking. However, the separation lasted only one month, as they realized that they could not stay apart. On May 21, 1945, eleven days after Bogart was granted a divorce, he and Bacall were married in the great hallway of Malabar Farm in Lucas, Ohio, the country home of author Louis Bromfield, who was one of Bogie's closest friends. After a short honeymoon period in the same location, the Bogarts returned to Los Angeles and settled in a furnished house in Beverly Hills.

 

Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart on their wedding day on May 21, 1945, at Malabar Farm in Lucas, Ohio.

As a married couple, Bogart and Bacall starred in two more pictures together. The first was Dark Passage (1947), a suspenseful film noir directed by Delmer Daves. Bogart played Vincent Parry, an innocent man framed for murdering his wife, who escapes prison to find the real killer. Along the way, he meets painter Irene Jansen, Bacall's role, who believes in his innocence and offers to help him. Despite its use of innovative cinematography and filming techniques, Dark Passage was released to disappointing critical reviews and poor box-office results.

 

The following year, they appeared in yet another film noir, Key Largo (1948), helmed by John Huston, who directed Bogart in a total of six pictures, including The African Queen (1951), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. Based on Maxwell Anderson's eponymous 1939 play, the film has Bogart play ex-Major Frank McCloud, who travels to a hotel in Key Largo, Florida, to visit the family of a friend from the Army killed during the war. There, he meets his friend's widow, Nora Temple (Bacall), who runs the hotel with her father-in-law. When a hurricane hits the island, the hotel gets taken over by a mob of gangsters led by Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson) and confrontations soon ensure. Key Largo was another financial hit for Bogart and Bacall, and went on to become one of the most iconic and celebrated gangster films of all time.

 

LEFT: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in Dark Passage. RIGHT: Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in Key Largo.

 

In between films, Bogart and Bacall savoured their marriage with extensive travels through Europe and sailing trips in their 54-foot yacht, the Santana. Bacall recalled, «He'd never had kind of a real marriage life, and the first few years we had the most wonderful time. It was a real three-year honeymoon.» On January 6, 1949, they welcomed their first child together, a son named Stephen Humphrey Bogart. His name was taken from «Steve,» the nickname of his father's character in To Have and Have Not. Three years later, on August 23, 1952, their second child and daughter, Leslie Howard Bogart, was born. Her first and middle names are a tribute to actor Leslie Howard, Bogart's friend, mentor and co-star in both the stage and screen versions of The Petrified Forest.

 

LEFT: Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart with their newborn son in January 1949. MIDDLE: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall with Stephen at their home in Beverly Hills on December 24, 1951. RIGHT: Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart with Stephen and Leslie in 1956.

 

In the mid-1950s, Bogart, a longtime heavy smoker and drinker, developed a hacking cough and began finding it painful to swallow, which led a considerable drop in weight. In January 1956, after much insistence from Bacall, he finally agreed to see a doctor, and was subsequently diagnosed with esophageal cancer. The disease worsened and several weeks later, on March 1, he had extensive surgery to remove his entire esophagus, two lymph nodes and a rib. Chemotherapy followed, but the cancer metastasized, which required additional surgery in November. Although he became too weak to even walk and up down the stairs, he joked despite the pain. «Put me in the dumbwaiter and I'll ride to the first floor in style,» he said.

 

On January 13, 1957, after a visit from his close friends Frank Sinatra, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, Bogart fell into a coma and died the following day, at the age of 57. He was cremated, and his ashes were interred in the Garden of Memory at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. He was buried with the small whistle charm from the bracelet he had given to Bacall before their wedding. She had it engraved with the phrase, «If you want anything, just whistle.» Upon Bacall's own death on August 12, 2014, her ashes were placed with Bogart's. Although she remarried in 1961 to actor Jason Robards — a union that ended in divorce — Bogart remained the love of her life. «What it felt to be so wanted, so adored!» she said. «No one had ever felt like that about me. It was all so dramatic, too. Always in the wee small hours when it seemed to Bogie and me that the world was ours — that we were the world. At those times, we were.»

 

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SOURCES:
Bogart: The Untold Story. Directed by Chris Hunt, Iambic Productions, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), 5 Jan. 1997. 

Kanfer, Stefan. Tough Guy With a Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart. Vintage Books, 2011.