By Myself and Then Some (61 page)

I adored him. He read poetry I’d never heard before – we drove to a nearby beach with the children on a Sunday – I went to Stratford, Ontario, with him for a weekend, where he’d played Hotspur, to see his pal Chris Plummer and others in the company. Our time together was exciting, romantic – I felt adventurous, light of heart. Everything was new. It was the beginning of my second life – the New York theater chapter. Goodbye Hollywood, hello Broadway. And I had a new man to focus on entirely – I would savor every minute of it. And to make it all perfect, one of ‘our’ songs was All My Tomorrows’ sung by – can you believe it? – Frank Sinatra.

I suppose I convinced Jason I would make everything fall into place, that I was the true haven for him and for his children. Once I found him and made up my mind that this was what I had to have, I would not give up. Utter tenacity – no way I would let go. At times when he was drinking heavily he would fight me, saying he wanted no part of me or my life; take off into the night. If he didn’t call in a day or two, I’d get to him.

One night Ginny Reynolds gave a party, and after his show Jason and I went to her apartment. At one point he decided to leave. Ginny tried to make him stay, but he had other ideas. Her concern was me – she was wise to the ways of all kinds of men, and much more realistic than I. She told me Jason said to her, ‘I don’t feel it for her – not enough – it’s not there.’ Now, there’s nothing anyone can do about that. But I wouldn’t accept it – he was loaded, he didn’t mean it, and he didn’t say it to me. I wasn’t about to let him off the hook. Later on he said he hadn’t meant it.

When Jason drank he was somebody else. Not a fighter, but a singer of songs, a reciter of poetry. He didn’t care where he was, though on instinct he would wind up in Greenwich Village bars – a holdover from
The Iceman Cometh
and his Village life with his first wife and three children. Or the Palace Bar, or any of a number of other theatre hangouts. In our wooing days it became something of a game to me – the places were new, the people were new. Though I drank enough to get me through an evening and into the wee small hours, I never fell into a drink problem myself. Never had the stomach for it – and never wanted to cut out from the world anyway.

As much as I loathed drunkenness, I found myself able to get through those times because of what Jason was when sober. He had an ingenuousness about him – charm – shyness. He was tremendously warm and appealing. He was a man who could love. He’d felt such guilt about the end of his first marriage that he gave away almost every cent he had ever made or ever would make. And often he would end up in his old apartment sleeping it off or having breakfast with his children. It wasn’t any romantic feeling for his ex-wife, but the children that brought him back. She and I liked each other, and I know she was happy and relieved when the children were with me.

Decision had always been so clear to me before: if you loved someone, you went where that person went. Simple. And when a marriage was over, you left – clean and clear. Jason didn’t think like that, it was never simple for him. Actually he began my awareness of the grays in life, the maybes. I was sure he loved me, I was sure we’d be married – the only question was when. The poor guy didn’t stand a chance. And I could imagine a new life – a new baby. I wanted his child. I wanted one because of love and because I felt it would make all the difference to our life together – his, mine, ours.

And I became more theatre-oriented than I had ever been – exposed to the biggest talents our theatre has. Maureen Stapleton, Irene Worth, Jose Quintero, Chris Plummer, Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach, Thornton Wilder. I was so proud to be connected with Jason, with his talent; to be befriended by the finest of our actors, directors, playwrights.

There was an actors’ strike in June, the first time in memory. Actors never struck – real actors couldn’t bear the idea of theatres closing. Some plays wouldn’t reopen. But it had to be done. There is a
camaraderie among actors – special love and respect the good ones have for each other. They all take the same risks, have the same vulnerabilities. They protect one another, and in a crisis stand strongly together. I was allowed to enter that group, despite my Hollywood past. I wasn’t truly one of them, but they let me in nonetheless, and I was deeply grateful.

Before I had convinced anyone I was seriously intending to become a permanent fixture on the Broadway stage I was exposed to the best – through Jason. I’d never known an actor more giving to others in his work – less judging, more loving. To him acting was based on that. He was a pro, he knew what he was doing, it all seemed to fall into place for him onstage. Of course, in O’Neill plays he became the character he was playing – O’Neill had that effect on him; his understanding of the writing was so total he might have invented Hickey, Hughie, James Tyrone. He has greater perception of O’Neill than any other actor anywhere has ever had – he might almost (if you can bear the melodrama of it, and I can) have been born to act his plays. Just by listening and watching Jason, by knowing how strongly he felt about interpreting each play, I learned.

And for all the black days I had with him, there were so many good days. We laughed a lot together – he believed in laughter. And he tried as hard as he could.

One day May was not feeling well. She wouldn’t give in, wouldn’t complain. I could see something was very wrong. I made her lie down. My doctor came and said she’d have to go to the hospital. It was her heart – she would have to have special care, tests. It was serious. She didn’t want to go, she wanted to stay home, but she accepted the verdict bravely as she’d accepted everything in her life. She was a big woman, but she didn’t look it sitting there in a wheelchair waiting for the elevator. I hugged her and kissed her. When the doctor called later, the prognosis was not good. May’s heart was failing – she’d had another heart attack.

Around seven the next morning the call came. May had died. Her heart had been too far gone – her great heart. Oh, I didn’t want to lose May – the last witness of Bogie’s and my life together, the last thread. I dreaded telling the children. When they came home in the afternoon and headed for the kitchen, I stopped them, pulled both close to me and told them. Steve burst into tears, sobbed relentlessly. The dam had
burst. It was the first time he had cried over loss – he’d held himself in for his father, that had come in other ways, but for May tears. When Leslie saw Steve cry, she cried – she’d lost as much as he. We spent that evening close together, talking about May. She would leave a hole that could never be filled. I would always think about her – always miss her. There’s no replacement for anyone in this world.

A
s I’d only sublet my
apartment for a year, I’d have to find another, unfurnished, and send for my stuff from California. I fell into one by accident. Someone told me about an apartment at the Dakota, the great old building on Central Park West with its high ceilings and enormous rooms. I took the apartment on sight. Jason came with me and loved it, though he was unused to anything that size. I had the furniture to fill it – he wasn’t mad about that idea, but I convinced him. Chairs and tables are just chairs and tables, it’s the people who use them who make the difference. And there was a room for each child – large enough to house Jady, Sarah, and David when they came. We were so much in love, there seemed no doubt we would live in that apartment forever. Together. Another forever.

There was still Jason’s divorce, which took a long time. He was covered with guilt – the alimony demands were extravagant – his wife was bitter. I couldn’t blame her for that. He was having trouble making the final move, packing his belongings. His wife had filed suit for divorce in October. For adultery, citing me. I had to think for both of us. I turned down work – nothing marvelous, but work. My mother told me I was a fool to turn down jobs – if I did it too often, they’d stop asking – but I couldn’t leave Jason. Wouldn’t. I was in love, I wanted to be with him, and I was terrified something would go wrong if I was away. My self-confidence had not gotten much stronger with the passage of time. And my children needed him – his needed me – we all needed each other in a home together. Blinded by emotion, over-concentrated, over-focused, I did everything to diminish the shadow of Bogie. Jason was not consciously upset by the legend, but when he’d had a few drinks something might come out. He was not a competitive man, he had his own secure place in his work – that’s the only thing he felt sure of, the one place he had a total sense of responsibility – but with his past personal life such a mess, he needed my constant
reassurance that it would be all right, that I loved him, that I didn’t need my old life and the luxuries that went with it.

I joined him in California, where he was making a movie. He’d rented a small house so we’d have privacy. He’d told a reporter that he loved me and we would get married as soon as he got his divorce, and that was picked up by others of the press – a mistake. It only angered his ex-wife-to-be. But Jason had no idea of the ways of the press – he said what he thought – he’d not been in the news except as an actor. But it was different with me. In every item I was referred to as ‘Lauren Bacall – widow of Humphrey Bogart.’ And always some comment like ‘A father for her children, or will he be able to fill Bogie’s shoes?’

I met Jason’s father, whom I liked enormously, and his stepmother, an ordinary woman with the usual ordinary prejudices. Jews for one. Jason, Sr, called Dad by all, was an attractive, witty man, rightly proud of his theatre work in the Twenties. He knew that his son’s talent was extraordinary, as he knew his own was not. He and Jason sang together, drank together, adored each other – though I finally felt Dad used Jason. Dad and I got along immediately. He and Agnes, his wife, lived in a tiny cottage in the Valley. He didn’t like to ask Jason for help, but he did. He was a disappointed actor – he’d known success once, decades before. It was an old actor’s story – always sad, always a little unreal. When Jason was around, Dad would talk about the theatre again, feel a part of something he was no longer a part of. He had a new audience in me for his stories, his songs. The four of us went out to dinner one night. The Robards boys drank too much, became rowdy – general coarseness. I hated to see Jason like that, it had nothing to do with the Jason I loved, and if it did, I didn’t want to know about it. Agnes and I finally got them home, where the drinking continued. Dad wasn’t supposed to drink anymore – he had a bad stomach – but that night was horrendous. The only comedy relief was everyone on their knees searching for Dad’s lost contact lenses. Under the influence of booze, they brought out the worst in each other. Jason was becoming unmanageable – he started to insult me, and when we got back to our house we had a knock-down, drag-out fight. I was frightened – this Jason was completely foreign to me – I only knew I had to get away. I managed to escape while he was making one of his long-distance calls – when drunk he called ex-wives, theatre friends, anyone. I got into the car and drove to the beach, as I used to do. It was the first time I
seriously wondered about the kind of life I might have with Jason. If there were to be many nights like this one, it would be hopeless. When he wasn’t drinking he was everything I wanted. When he’d had a few drinks he was still okay. But there came that unforeseeable moment when he became someone else. I still held to the thought that he was in a transition period – once our lives were permanently settled together, all else would fall into place. It was my first return to California since Bogie and the split with Frank – I wanted to see my friends, wanted them to meet Jason, they wanted to meet him. But I wanted them to meet him sober, at his best, the way I loved him, so that they would too. I wanted so much. In my mind I could take a man for what he was, but emotionally no. It was pure make-believe, wishful thinking, the fulfillment of my particular dream – impossible to isolate or analyze at the time. I remember Adlai saying to me, ‘Are you sure? Remember, Bogie was a mature man. It’s not going to get better after you’re married, it’s going to get worse.’ All went ignored. I knew better than anyone.

I talked to myself a lot on that drive to the beach. Got out and walked. I felt very much alone. I couldn’t bear the thought that this might not work out – I was in far too deep. I would wait before going back to town, give Jason time to sleep it off, do a little thinking himself. We had so much going for us, it couldn’t all go down the drain. I called Dad – went over there for breakfast. Jason called to see if I was there. I told Dad to say no, which he didn’t like doing. Finally, Jason, having called again, came around in the afternoon. He was tentative – sweet and so appealing – we talked it all out. He wasn’t a man who wanted to discuss his drinking or bad behavior, but he acknowledged it, felt it was all wrapped up in his past. We did have our strong bond, and we were crazy about each other, so we went on, never really facing that problem that was to be the core of every trouble we ever had.

Back in New York Jason went into rehearsal for
Big Fish, Little Fish, a
play by Hugh Wheeler, John Gielgud directing and Hume Cronyn and Marty Gabel among those in the first-rate cast. It was a happy company, and they all loved John. I remember sitting in the audience during a run-through, watching the outline of that great Gielgud profile watching the actors. It was a funny, lovely play, unappreciated in New York. The run was short.

The next few months were taken up with plans for our future. Jason
signed to make
Tender Is the Night
with Jennifer Jones, so it would be Europe for May and June, California after that. Steve and Leslie would go to summer camp and I would accompany Jason. The divorce settlement was made – Jason gave up everything, the second time he’d done that. He’d worked hard all his life and every cent he earned went to an ex-wife. He never begrudged what he paid for the children or to their mother, Eleanor, for that matter, but there was a limit. When you want freedom, you have to pay. But not that much – it just wasn’t fair to him.