By Myself and Then Some (27 page)

Cole Porter’s song ‘Don’t Fence Me In’ was on the
Hit Parade
and Bogie’s first wire to me said, ‘Please fence me in Baby – the world’s too big out here and I don’t like it without you.’ No one has ever written a romance better than we lived it.

I counted the seconds we were apart. Palm Springs was two weeks further away. I must have driven Mother crazy – I could not think or talk of anything but Bogie. When I appeared on the cover of
Life
, I was excited – and by all the other covers – but at the center and all around me was Bogie, and everything else disappeared far into the background. My breath depended on his. I could not have believed such completion. Nor could he – if he’d been in love before, he was obsessed now. He even forgot the twenty-five years between us and I never remembered them. When he’d been so concerned about the age disparity, he’d said to Peter Lorre, ‘It can’t last – she’s much too young.’ Peter said, ‘You’ll have maybe five years. Isn’t five years better than none?’ Bogie agreed that it was, and that helped him to decide. God, how lucky I was – Bogie might have been toying with me, just out for a love affair, or I might have been with someone who wanted to use me. But here I was, twenty years old, and I really had it all. And it was more or less handed to me. I hadn’t had years of struggle and deprivation – my struggle seemed a lot to me at the time, but it was nothing, if not overdramatized. I hadn’t starved, I hadn’t really supported myself before California. I’d had to be careful with money – I knew about work – there were no luxuries – but I’d never really suffered for my art. I was to learn something about that much later.

O
n February 2, 1945, Mother
, Droopy, and I boarded the
Chief
to Chicago. I was wearing Bogie’s ring, which John Gershgorn had
delivered the day before I left. When we arrived in New York, all hell had broken loose. Bogie, drunk the night before, had told Earl Wilson about his Baby – ‘I love my Baby – I miss my Baby.’ Baby (‘The Look’) Bacall was splashed prominently in the New York newspapers and all around the country. It must have made a big hit with Mayo. As I disembarked from the train in Grand Central Station, I was surrounded by about twenty reporters and photographers and police. ‘Give us the “Down Under Look,” Baby.’ ‘What have you got to say about marrying Bogart?’ ‘Are you going to see Bogart?’ ‘How does it feel to be back in New York?’ Me: ‘I just got here – I don’t know anything about Mr Bogart – I haven’t seen him for three weeks – I’m not planning to marry anybody.’ I didn’t know what the hell I was saying. They sat me on suitcases – had my head on a swivel going from photographer to photographer – the rat-a-tat barrage of questions. And we were supposed to be subtle, keep a low profile. Fat chance!

I couldn’t believe the mob. All of Grand Central was people – on every stairway, all screaming and pushing. I had a cordon of police around me – there was someone to take Mother and Droopy to a waiting limousine. It was mayhem – it was Einfeld.

I had to see Bogie right away. The Warners man told me he was waiting for me in his suite, but I’d have to see the press first. Oh God – Bogie would be in a rage. I was taken to my suite – my first suite – in a New York hotel. The Gotham – Bette Davis’ hotel! There were flowers everywhere – I’d never seen anything like it. And the press – questions and more questions, and me trying to field them. I absolutely denied a forthcoming marriage – Bogie and I had agreed to that. He always said if they asked personal questions, don’t answer – ‘Fuck ’em if they don’t like it.’ All well and good in theory, but impossible in practice. And the women of the press: ‘What a lovely ring – is it on your engagement finger?’ It’s on my Finger finger! ‘Have you spoken to Bogie? When will you see him? How does it feel to be a star overnight?’ And on and on. Bogie was calling. I’d gone into the bedroom, saying I was going to the ladies’ room. He wanted me up there right now – I couldn’t, room full of press, please be patient. ‘Fucking Warner Brothers are running your life!’ It was the worst Marx Brothers comedy imaginable – press agents dashing in and out of the bedroom. I couldn’t remember anyone’s name, I didn’t know what questions I was answering half the time, I wanted to go upstairs – and, as usual, I was
shaking with nerves. I hadn’t expected anything like this – I’d thought it would be neat and tidy, one reporter at a time. I didn’t know then how Charlie Einfeld planned things. There was a reason he was considered the best.

Bogie called every ten minutes. After almost an hour I was finally able to get away – I said I needed a bath. I rushed upstairs, leaving Mother to unpack and call the family, who were all coming to the hotel for a drink. I got to Bogie’s door, turned the knob – he was sitting on the sofa with tears streaming down his cheeks. We threw our arms around each other. He’d thought I might have changed my mind – that, after thinking about it, I’d decided against marrying him. Even he, who was so sure of what he was, could be insecure. I was undone by the sight of him. Suddenly I had to reassure him – suddenly I was in control – he was so moving, simple, sweet. He took the ring off my finger and put it on slowly and surely to stay. He knew he’d gone too far with Earl Wilson, but he couldn’t change that now. And Inez Robb, a top newswoman from International News Service, had interviewed him that morning. Bogie refused to lie, so, having said what he’d said to Earl, he said a bit more to Mrs Robb. He knew Warners had many interviews planned, but it had been agreed upon beforehand that I would have all my nights free. Bogie was taking me to ‘21’ for dinner – our first in New York, alone, in front of everyone. But he promised to come up and meet my family, though he was less than enthusiastic, resenting anyone that took me away from him for five minutes.

Charlie and Rosalie, Jack and Vera, Bill and Renee, even Albert and Min from Connecticut – only no Granny. I hugged them all – it was so good to see them again. Oh, I loved them. They couldn’t wait to meet Bogie, of course – they were impressed, and Rosalie had always had a crush on him.

He finally walked in – introductions all around – Bogie very much on the defensive. He was older than Charlie and Jack – he was older than all of them except Bill. My cousin Marvin was at West Point, and Albert walked up to me pointing his finger at my chest, telling me I had to go up to see Marvin. Bogie just loved that – he said, ‘She does what I do and that doesn’t include West Point. She doesn’t have to do anything.’ That was not the best of meetings. He did like Jack, who was reserved but worldly – Charlie, who was funny and whose personality connected more with Bogie’s than anyone else’s – and Bill, whose voice
he loved. Bill should have been a rabbi, Bogie always said. Rosalie and Charlie wanted us to spend one evening in their apartment, which we agreed to. It would be private, at least. Bogie said, ‘Christ, you’ve got more goddamned relatives than I’ve ever seen.’

So the New York trip was on its way. At ‘21,’ I met John O’Hara, and Quentin Reynolds and his wife, Ginny, whom I adored immediately. It was also at ‘21’ that I was introduced to Moss Hart, who said, ‘Congratulations on your success – you realize, of course, from here on you have nowhere to go but down.’ He turned out to be a prophet.

Bogie took me to Bleeck’s – the Artists’ and Writers’ Club, just under the New York
Herald Tribune
, hangout for newsmen. It was there the Saturday Club met – lunch for three hours – drinks, of course – and there I learned the match game. It was played very seriously by all, and I was only allowed to be a spectator at first. It was based on one outguessing and tricking the other. Each player had three matches in hand – would keep anywhere from none to three – and the next player had to guess the total. Wrong guessers were eliminated one by one, losers bought rounds of drinks, and it was important. I was finally allowed to play – the only woman thus honored – and, lucky for me, I played well. I loved going there – the atmosphere was a combination of bar and country cottage, everyone knew everyone else, they were very, very bright men and they allowed me in. So I was part of something new and something that was Bogie’s.

Of course, I called George Kaufman. He had written me at the end of 1944:

He finally got my first name straight – was a bit chagrined at his
faux pas
, but joked about it. After that we never came to New York without seeing George. I never stopped looking up to him.

We went to the theatre – fans outside the hotel day and night – professional autograph seekers, photographers and press dogging our moves – it was all new to me and I must admit I liked it. I couldn’t truly relate it to myself, but it was fun. Yes, I liked it. And why not? To have
left New York anonymously less than two years before and return with everyone after me all the time was quite a change. I was well aware that Bogie was responsible for most of it, but that didn’t make me enjoy it any the less.

He wanted to see every old friend he’d ever had – all the people he’d been unable to see because of Mayo.

He took me to see Clifton Webb one afternoon. Beatrice Lillie was there, as well as Clifton’s mother, Maybelle. The stories about her were myriad. It was said that when Clifton was a baby she used to carry him around with a lace cover over his face so he wouldn’t be contaminated by the air. That she was tough about his contracts and stood outside the theatre when he was opening in a show to make sure the light bulbs spelling his name were screwed in above Ethel Waters’. Bogie said Clifton had been in love with Mary Hay, a dancing partner, and would have married her had it not been for Maybelle. She had a hen-cackle laugh, wore pearls, walked with a stick, and stayed up at all parties with all his friends – really must have wanted to be his wife. Clifton had undergone analysis for eight years and this day said that the doctor had told him his problem was his mother, to which Bea Lillie replied, ‘We could have told you that years ago and saved you a lot of money.’ Clifton told me that first day how happy he was to see Bogie happy at last, that he’d known Bogie since the Twenties – he, Noel Coward, Marilyn Miller, Jeanne Eagels had all been friends – and that Bogie was always a gent. He’d never believed any of the stories he’d heard about him during his last wild marriage. From that afternoon on, Clifton became a constant source of friendship, and remained a part of my life until he died.

Bogie’s first wife, Helen Menken, was having drinks and
hors d’oeuvres
for a group of Navy men who’d been wounded, and invited us both. Bogie told me not to worry, she was a nice woman, they were friends, and she was looking forward to meeting me. That’s more than I could say about meeting her. But we went, and she was attractive and friendly. I remembered spending much of my childhood listening to her on a radio soap opera. She told me it was not Bogie’s fault their marriage failed – it was hers. She’d been a fool, but now she was overjoyed he’d at last met someone who could make him happy. Years later his second wife, Mary Philips, told me the same thing. So in the eyes of all ex-wives except the third, he was a gent.

Warners had arranged for me to go to the National Press Club luncheon in Washington. Because I wanted to be with Bogie and had his backing, I refused. I took on his tone with them very early on. My refusal brought my first telegram from Jack Warner:

It was the first of many play-ball-and-cooperate wires I was to receive from Warner over the next seven years. Charles Einfeld was in New York, would go with me and would get me back by nightfall. I liked him, so did Bogie, and deep down I really felt I should go, so I did. It was fun to be in Washington again – this time a hit. I had a good time with the press. The club was jammed that day – Vice President Truman was coming over. When he was introduced – after me! – he sat down to play the piano, which had conveniently been placed onstage, Charlie, who was standing off to one side on the floor, edged toward me on the corner of the stage and said, ‘Get on the piano.’ I felt a bit silly, not being Helen Morgan or even close, but I did it. Cameras started flashing. The Vice President and I exchanged a few words, and the resulting picture hit front pages all over the world within a few days. Charlie Einfeld was worth every cent and more that Warner paid him. Truman was not wild about the picture after he became President, but I loved it.

During the wild Baby publicity initiated by Bogie, Alex Evelove of the Warners publicity department sent a wire to Bogie saying he was very upset about it all, considering that Bogie was, after all, a married man, etc., etc. To which Bogie wired back: ‘Perhaps you’d like me to return to help you with your Errol Flynn problems.’ Errol at that time was being sued for rape by two under-age girls who’d been on his boat. Unsavory publicity in those days. The morals clause in all actors’ contracts could give any studio an out if it so chose. As Flynn was a big star and his problem was in keeping with his glamour and reputation as a dashing lover, Warners ignored it.

It snowed one night in New York, and Bogie and I left the hotel after everyone thought we’d retired. We walked along Fifth Avenue, then did
something I’d wanted to do since I was a child. We took a hansom-cab ride through Central Park. It was the only time during those two weeks that we were not followed.

Louis Bromfield and George Hawkins had been in New York with Bogie and stayed on a few days after my arrival. They left ahead of us, as the plan was that we stop at Malabar en route to California. I couldn’t wait for that.

My return to New York had been triumphant, much more than I could have dreamed. I saw all my old friends – Fred Spooner, Betty Kalb, Joanne Tree, who had become close my last year of pavement pounding. Had a drink with Max Gordon, who was so pleased for me that he might have done it all himself. Betty K. came up to the hotel one afternoon – I could only see her and my other friends between interviews and Bogie and family. She had married an actor named Gene Barry and was madly in love with him. They had no money, so she was doing everything – cooking, laundry – but she loved him, knew he’d make it one day, and was happy.