Spencer Tracy

 

Lauren Bacall-Personal life

 

 

On May 21, 1945, Bacall married Humphrey Bogart. Their wedding and honeymoon took place at Malabar Farm, Lucas, Ohio. It was the country home of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louis Bromfield, who was a close friend of Bogart. The wedding was held in the Big House. Bacall was 20 and Bogart was 45. They remained married until Bogart's death from esophageal cancer in 1957. Bogart usually called Bacall "Baby," even when referring to her in conversations with other people.

 

During the filming of “The African Queen”, Bacall and Bogart became friends with Katharine Hepburn and her partner Spencer Tracy. Bacall also began to mix in non-acting circles, becoming friends with the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and the journalist Alistair Cooke.

 

In 1952, she gave campaign speeches for Democratic Presidential contender Adlai Stevenson. Along with other Hollywood figures, Bacall was a staunch opponent of McCarthyism.

 

Shortly after Bogart's death in 1957, Bacall had a relationship with singer and actor Frank Sinatra. She told Robert Osborne in an interview that she had ended the romance. However, in her autobiography, she wrote that Sinatra abruptly ended the relationship, having become angry that the story of his proposal to Bacall had reached the press. Bacall and her friend Swifty Lazar had run into the gossip columnist Louella Parsons, to whom Lazar had spilled the beans. Sinatra then cut Bacall off and went to Las Vegas.

 

Bacall was married to actor Jason Robards, Jr. from 1961 to 1969.  According to Bacall's autobiography, she divorced Robards mainly because of his alcoholism. In her autobiography Now, she recalls having a relationship with Len Cariou, her co-star in Applause.

 

Bacall had a son and daughter with Bogart and a son with Robards. Her children with Bogart are her son Stephen Humphrey Bogart and  Leslie Bogart. Sam Robards, her son with Robards, is an actor.

 

Bacall has written two autobiographies, Lauren Bacall By Myself (1978) and Now (1994). In 2005, the first volume was updated with an extra chapter: "By Myself and Then Some".

Humphrey Bogart-Death

  

Bogart's health was failing in the mid-1950s.  After signing a long-term deal with Warner Bros., Bogart predicted with glee that his teeth and hair would fall out before the contract ended. Bogart had formed a new production company.  He made plans for a new film “Melville Goodwin, U.S.A.”, in which he would play a general and Bacall a press magnate. His persistent cough and difficulty eating became too serious to ignore and he dropped the project. The film was re-named “Top Secret Affair” and made with Kirk Douglas and Susan Hayward.

 

Bogart, a heavy smoker and drinker, contracted cancer of the esophagus. He almost never spoke of his failing health and refused to see a doctor until January 1956. A diagnosis was made several weeks later and by then removal of his esophagus, two lymph nodes, and a rib on March 1, 1956 was too late to halt the disease. He underwent corrective surgery in November 1956 after the cancer had spread.

Frank Sinatra, Katharine Hepburn, and Spencer Tracy came to see him.  Bogart was too weak to walk up and down stairs. He valiantly fought the pain and tried to joke about his immobility: "Put me in the dumbwaiter and I'll ride down to the first floor in style." Which is what happened; the dumbwaiter was altered to accommodate his wheelchair. Hepburn described the last time she and Spencer Tracy saw Bogart (the night before he died):

Spence patted him on the shoulder and said, "Goodnight, Bogie." Bogie turned his eyes to Spence very quietly and with a sweet smile covered Spence's hand with his own and said, "Goodbye, Spence." Spence's heart stood still. He understood.

Bogart had just turned 57 and weighed 80 pounds when he died on January 14, 1957 after falling into a coma. He died at 2:25 am at his home at 232 S Mapleton Drive in Holmby Hills, California. His simple funeral was held at All Saints Episcopal Church with musical selections played from Bogart's favorite composers, Johann Sebastian Bach and Claude Debussy. It was attended by some of Hollywood's biggest stars, including Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, David Niven, Ronald Reagan, James Mason, Danny Kaye, Joan Fontaine, Marlene Dietrich, Errol Flynn, Gregory Peck and Gary Cooper, as well as Billy Wilder and Jack Warner. Bacall had asked Tracy to give the eulogy, but Tracy was too upset. John Huston gave the eulogy instead, and reminded the gathered mourners that while Bogart's life had ended far too soon, it had been a rich one.

Himself, he never took too seriously—his work most seriously. He regarded the somewhat gaudy figure of Bogart, the star, with an amused cynicism; Bogart, the actor, he held in deep respect...In each of the fountains at Versailles there is a pike which keeps all the carp active; otherwise they would grow over fat and die. Bogie took rare delight in performing a similar duty in the fountains of Hollywood. Yet his victims seldom bore him any malice, and when they did, not for long. His shafts were fashioned only to stick into the outer layer of complacency, and not to penetrate through to the regions of the spirit where real injuries are done...He is quite irreplaceable. There will never be another like him."

His cremated remains are interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale, California. Buried with him is a small gold whistle, which he had given to Lauren Bacall, before they married. In reference to their first movie together, it was inscribed: "If you want anything, just whistle."

Humphrey Bogart-Early Career

 

 

 

 

Bogart returned home to find Belmont was suffering from poor health.  Belmont medical practice was faltering, and he lost much of the family's money on bad investments in timber. During his naval days, Bogart's character and values developed independent of family influence.  He began to rebel somewhat against their values. He came to be a liberal who hated pretensions, phonies, and snobs.  At times he defied conventional behavior and authority, traits he displayed in life and in his movies. On the other hand, he retained their traits of good manners, articulateness, punctuality, modesty, and a dislike of being touched.

 

After his naval service, Bogart worked as a shipper and then bond salesman. He joined the Naval Reserve.

 

Bogart resumed his friendship with boyhood mate Bill Brady, Jr. whose father had show business connections, and eventually Bogart got an office job working for William A. Brady Sr.'s new company World Films. Bogart got to try his hand at screenwriting, directing, and production, but excelled at none. For a while, he was stage manager for Brady's daughter's play “A Ruined Lady”. 

 

In 1921, Bogart made his stage debut in “Drifting” as a Japanese butler in another Alice Brady play. Bogart nervously spoke one line of dialog.

 

Bogart made several more appearances followed in Alice Brady’s subsequent plays. Bogart liked the late hours actors kept.  He enjoyed the attention an actor got on stage. He stated, “I was born to be indolent and this was the softest of rackets”.

 

Bogart spent a lot of his free time in speakeasies and became a heavy drinker. He was in barroom brawl during this time might have been the actual cause of Bogart's lip damage, as this coincides better with the Louise Brooks account

 

Bogart had been raised to believe acting was beneath a gentleman, but he enjoyed stage acting. He never took acting lessons. He was persistent and worked steadily at his craft.

 

Bogart appeared in at least seventeen Broadway productions between 1922 and 1935. He played juveniles or romantic second-leads in drawing room comedies. He is said to have been the first actor to ask "Tennis, anyone?" on stage. 

 

Critic Alexander Woollcott wrote of Bogart's early work that he "is what is usually and mercifully described as inadequate." Some reviews were kinder. Heywood Broun reviewed “Nerves” wrote, “Humphrey Bogart gives the most effective performance...both dry and fresh, if that be possible”. Bogart loathed the trivial, effeminate parts he had to play early in his career, calling them "White Pants Willie" roles.

 

Early in his career, while playing double roles in the play “Drifting” at the Playhouse Theatre in 1922.  Bogart met actress Helen Menken. They were married on May 20, 1926 at the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York City then divorced on November 18, 1927.  They remained friends.

 

On April 3, 1928, he married Mary Philips at her mother's apartment in Hartford, Connecticut. Mary, like Menken, had a fiery temper. She too  was an actress. He had met Mary when they appeared in the play “Nerves”, which had a very brief run at the Comedy Theatre in September 1924.

 

After the stock market crash of 1929, stage production dropped off sharply, and many of the more photogenic actors headed for Hollywood. Bogart's earliest film role is with Helen Hayes in the 1928 two-reeler “The Dancing Town”.

 

Bogart appeared with Joan Blondell and Ruth Etting in a Vitaphone short, “Broadway's Like That”.

 

Bogart then signed a contract with Fox Film Corporation for $750 a week. Spencer Tracy was a serious Broadway actor whom Bogart liked and admired. The two became good friends and drinking buddies. It was Tracy, in 1930, who first called him "Bogey". (Spelled variously in many sources, Bogart himself spelled his nickname "Bogie".) Tracy and Bogart appeared in their only film together in John Ford's early sound film “Up the River”  with both playing inmates. It was Tracy's film debut. Bogart then performed in “The Bad Sister” with Bette Davis in 1931. It was a minor part.

 

Bogart shuttled back and forth between Hollywood and the New York stage from 1930 to 1935. He suffered long periods without work. His parents had separated. In 1934, Belmont died in debt, which Bogart eventually paid off. (Bogart inherited his father's gold ring which he always wore, even in many of his films. At his father's deathbed, Bogart finally told Belmont how much he loved him.)

 

Bogart's second marriage was on the rocks, and he was less than happy with his acting career to date; he became depressed, irritable, and drank heavily.