Bogart (and Baby) in Love: The Sequel

Bogart and Bacall, together again for the first time

On October 10,1944, shooting had started on a new Humphrey Bogart film, again co-starring Lauren Bacall and with director Howard Hawks at the helm. The movie was a detective story, The Big Sleep, based on the book by Raymond Chandler, a pulp fiction writer whose Farewell, My Lovely was adapted by RKO Studios as Murder, My Sweet, starring Dick Powell.

Bogart and Bacall had cooled the affair they’d begun on the set of To Have and Have Not and not seen each other since late summer while Bogie moved back in with Mayo to give his marriage one last chance. Though miserable, Bogie felt he owed it to Mayo and confided as much to Bacall, who didn't like the decision one bit. The effort was short-lived; a week later, Bogart had left Mayo again, thus continuing a cycle of makeups and breakups between the Bogarts for the rest of their marriage. When filming started on The Big Sleep, they were back together.

"He said that, that's what the man said, he said that." Marlowe, up against it, in The Big Sleep

Mayo, alone all day with alcohol as her only friend and fighting her anxieties, lost the battle. Bogie would get home from the studio and find her drunk, in a nasty mood, and spoiling for a fight. Sometimes he would join in, drinking and fighting. Other times he would leave, hightailing out into the night. On October 19th, Warners made the announcement that the Bogarts were separating. Bogart sequestered himself at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Bacall would stop by from time to time but always with a companion, which would make Bogart morose. He wanted Bacall alone. Then there was Mayo, who was not about to go down without a fight. She would call him at the Beverly Hills Hotel and call friends to intervene, leaving Bogart with little peace. It worked. In early November, Bogie moved back in with Mayo. Bogart broke the news to a heartbroken Bacall on set in late October. For Bogart, a gallant man, the situation seemed hopeless. 

Early in the shooting, Bogart stepped easily in the role of world weary, cynical private eye, Philip Marlowe. Always on time, hitting his marks, knowing his lines, he was the ultimate professional, no matter what he faced in his personal life or how much he may have had to drink the night before. Hawks was tremendously impressed with such discipline, and impressing Hawks wasn't an easy accomplishment.

The bookshop scene (above) in which Marlowe is on the trail of a pornography ring (camouflaged due to censors) and assumes a bogus identity as a gay customer (“Do you happen to have a Ben-Hur 1860?") is funny, though somewhat stereotypical of what gay looked like in 1940s America. Bogie improvised the scene on set, which Hawks loved. One of the most fascinating things about the film is how all sorts of women throw themselves at Marlowe throughout the movie, and how Bogart as Marlowe is supremely confident and assured. In fact, these were the exact qualities Bogart lacked due to his domestic situation.

While Bogie-as-Marlowe seems to have the time of his life trading double entendre with the older, wiser, and just as slinky sister (played by Lauren Bacall) of his client, Carmen Sternwood (played by Martha Vickers), Bogart was having a truly miserable time off screen. Drinking more than usual (impressive, considering that Bogie always drank a lot), out of love with his wife, and on pretty thin ice with Bacall, the soon-to-be 45-year-old Bogart was probably also experiencing a mid-life crisis. In her book, Bacall tells of one night when Bogart, having drunk too much, telephoned her.

“Hello, Baby."
"Where are you where are you calling from?"
"I'm home. I miss you."

Just then "Sluggy," as Bogart called Mayo, earned her nickname and snatched the phone from him. "Listen, you Jewish bitch, who's gonna wash his socks? Are you?!"

Bacall hung up, shaken. On set the next morning, there was no sign of Bogie. Bacall went to Hawks and asked what was going on "Bogie called,” he replied.  “He's going to be late."

Hawks shot around Bogart as much as he could, but Bogie didn't show up that day. For an actor who prided himself on his professionalism, missing a day was anathema. When Bogart reported for work, he told Bacall what had happened. He had walked out after his phone call to her and proceeded to drink further. At about 7AM, having not slept, looking like hell, and having walked the streets for hours, he stopped, looked through a window, and saw a woman fixing breakfast for her family (imagine Humphrey Bogart looking through your window). The husband opened the door and invited him in. Bogie sat with this happy family, sipping coffee as they ate their breakfast.

Bogart would have more physically arduous shoots - Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The African Queen, both John Huston films, come to mind – but filming The Big Sleep, while vacillating between Mayo and his Baby, was the most personally difficult time he faced during his professional acting career. 

Lobby Card

By December 4, nearly a month into his reconciliation with Mayo, Bogart announced their   separation. For good this time, he said. "It's hard to break up a marriage of six years.... She can anything she wants if she will let me go" was the quote from Bogie in newspapers around country.  Supposedly, it wasn't that easy (although what divorce is?). Mayo didn't want a settlement; she wanted her man. All through this ordeal, Mayo actually appeared to be the stronger of the two. Clifton Webb, Bogie's good friend from their days in the New York theatre, claimed that Bogie was "a softie," and that "any woman could walk all over him." This time, however, Bogart held firm – he  wasn't going back. Mayo, at the end of a very thin rope, turned all her anger inward. Going on crying jags, she seemed to lose any fight that was left in her. Bogie, despite all his talk of not moving back   with Mayo, of wanting "a new life," was scared. Alone in his hotel room, he finally had the time to    look back on his past and contemplate his future. But an excess of time exacerbated his doubts and    fears. While it's true that he wanted to start fresh and have a new beginning, Bogart felt responsible for Mayo. She had threatened suicide in the past, and he worried about her emotional state.       

       

    

The Bacall situation came with an entirely different set of issues. Though in love, the age difference between them was a huge factor. It held Bogart back and kept him off kilter. While his three previous wives had all been contemporaries, Bacall was a kid; it wasn't for nothing he called her “Baby." And she'd probably want kids (Bogart was childless). To Bogart, the past with all its troubles held more solace that an unknown future with a girl a quarter century his junior.

Incredible as it may seem, Bogart gave Mayo one last chance. By mid-December, trying to stay strong yet beside himself with angst, Bogie started to come to the set late. The log book of unit manager Eric Stacey, whose job it was to keep the film on schedule, shows some significant entries:

Dec 12th: "Mr. Bogart overslept this morning."
Dec 14th: “Company waited for Bogart one and a half hours."
Dec 15th: “Bogart delayed company one full hour this morning."
Dec 20th: “30 minute delay. It was necessary for Hawks to speak to Bogart and straighten him out relative to the 'Bacall situation,' which is affecting their performances."

Off set, Bogart was working on Mayo, trying to persuade her to move to Reno for a quick divorce, but she was having none of it. With his depression deepening, Bogart had emotional breakdown over the Christmas holiday. The company had been dismissed at noon on December 23rd, a Saturday. For Christmas, he gave Bacall a gold watch, but spent the day – his birthday – alone. He was 45.

Drinking the day away, he decided to see Mayo on December 26th. Very drunk, he confronted Mayo. Fifteen minutes later, assistant director Bob Vreeland received a call from Mayo, sounding terrified. By the time Vreeland, Eric Stacey, and studio cop Blayney Matthews arrived at the Bogarts’ house, Bogart had passed out. In a report to Jack Warner, Stacey reported, "[D]o not feel Bogart's condition can be fixed overnight.... Bogart had been drinking for three weeks....mental turmoil...entering into the situation." 

Hawks shot around his star, again, as much as possible before sending the company home early. The next day, Hawks faced an empty set. No Bogart. The log sheet stated, "Company did not work today, due to Mr. Bogart's illness." The film was scheduled to wrap on November 28, but at that time Hawks had only finished about half the shooting script.  Though never one to be rushed, Hawks, already contending with script rewrites and the film’s problematic second half, tired of the delays Bogart's personal problems had cost the film. Filming had been sporadic since early December.

After Bogart’s December 28th return to set, Hawks and company could at last finish The Big Sleep, which they did on January 13, 1945. However, due to Bacall's huge impact in To Have and Have Not, Jack Warner wanted more scenes of his two stars together. Additional retakes were shot late in January, including the very racy dialogue between Marlowe and Bacall’s character, Vivian Rutledge, about horse racing and who is "in the saddle." 

With the film in the can, next up was a publicity bit in New York City as To Have and Have Not prepped for its nationwide release. Also in New York was Bogie's good friend and drinking buddy, Peter Lorre. Bogie told Lorre to meet him at the Astor Hotel, which Bogart had frequented as a young actor. Over drinks, a nostalgic Bogart reminisced about the times he would spend sitting at the bar with other actors, hoping for that big break. He was talking about the 1920s, when his Baby was just that – a baby. Hell, he said, he probably would be lucky to get five, maybe ten years out of a marriage to Bacall. Wouldn't be easy. Couldn't last. Lorre told him to shut up, that he could be happy, that everything could work out, that he liked Bacall and thought her a great dame. Bogart couldn’t help but agree.

In May Mayo, who'd at last taken up residence in Reno in March when a divorce settlement had been agreed upon, was in court for the final dissolution of her marriage to Bogart. Bogart generously gave her nearly everything a soon-to-be-ex-wife could want, including their house on North Horn, two-thirds of his cash, his life insurance, and his investments in two Safeway grocery stores. Though Bogart felt he was buying himself out of the marriage, he was, at last, a free man.

May 21, 1945, Bogie and Baby's wedding day. Don't they look happy?

On May 21, 1945, at the home of writer Louis Broomfield in Ohio, Miss Betty Joan Perske (aka, Lauren Bacall) was wed to Humphrey DeForest Bogart, Jr. They would have two children, Stephen and Leslie; always refer to each other as Slim and Steve, their characters’ names in To Have and Have Not; and live as husband and wife in apparent wedded bliss until Bogie's death from lung cancer in 1957. Mayo died on June 9, 1951, back home in Portland, Oregon (Bogie's take on her death: "Too bad. Such a waste.") As for the film, The Big Sleep would be a tremendous money-spinner for the Brothers Warner, go on to be a film noir classic (possibly the best of it's kind), and add immeasurably to the cult of Bogart that took off in the 1960s and hasn't stopped to this day.           

Sources: Bogart by A.M. Sperber & Eric Lax

                By Myself by Lauren Bacall

                Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood by Todd McCarthy

                Wikipedia page on The Big Sleep

                Turner Classic Movies broadcast of The Big Sleep