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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.
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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?!"
“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.
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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."
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.
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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
