Bogart (5 page)

So Swifty came by, and movie stars and singers, and stu
dio heads, all of them smiling at the rare sight of Bogie with
a child. They paid their dues to me: “How are you, Stephen?”
and “My, don’t you look grown-up!” But then into shop talk
they would go…Stanley Kramer had just bought rights to
such and such a book, Gary Cooper was filming this, Harry
Cohn was pissed off about that, and so on. A lot of celebrities, a lot of fascinating talk.

Fascinating, that is, to grown-ups, but not to a person
whose idea of fun was sliding down banisters and climbing
trees with Diane Linkletter. I was not impressed. I was the son
of two movie stars, and, more to the point, I was only seven
years old. So I was, in a word, bored.

By the time Bogie was into the brandy, my boredom had
begun to take physical form. I was rapping my water glass with a fork.

“Don’t do that, kid,” my father said.

I was banging my feet under the table.

“Cut it out, kid,” my father said.

And, no doubt, I was making faces, tapping my fingers,
fidgeting, and glancing around. Acting like a kid. But the be
havior of children was a complete mystery to Humphrey
Bogart and, though he was almost continually amused by life,
he was now getting less and less amused.

By the time we left the restaurant that day, we were not
speaking to each other. My father’s knuckles were white on
the wheel of his Jaguar as he drove, perhaps a little too fast,
through the streets of Beverly Hills, anxious to deliver the de
mon son back to the arms of Bacall.

I guess my father sometimes thought I was a handful.
Once, discussing me with a friend, he said, “One word from
me and he does as he pleases.” And my mother’s friend, Carolyn Morris, remembers, “You were challenging. Like
your father. You did things your way and if anybody told you
how to do them, you would do them more your way. Your dad was like that, very much.”

When we got home that day my mother was out by the
pool reading. Dad led me directly to her, as if I might try to
make a run for it.

“Baby,” he said. “Never again.”

My mother said nothing. She put her book down and
looked at me, as if to ask,
What is your side of the story?

“Never again,” I said, mimicking my father, and off I
went to read my comic book.

In fact, Bogie did take me to Romanoff’s again, a few times. I don’t remember any conflict connected with those visits, so things must have gone better.

I only have one other memory of causing trouble for my
father, and that is mostly because I was told the story years
later by David Niven, one of my father’s closest Hollywood
friends. He told me about a time when I almost knocked
out one of the world’s most famous playwrights in our liv
ing room.

The playwright was Noel Coward. It seems that one night
in 1955, Niven and Coward were sitting with Bogie. Noel
Coward was visiting on his way to Las Vegas, where he was to
make his first Vegas appearance, at the Sands Hotel. Coward
wanted to discuss his material with Bogie and Niven. He was
very worried about it. Would the Vegas nightclub crowd even understand the sophisticated humor of a British playwright?
Bogie and Niven were in the two easy chairs, facing Coward,
who sat on the sofa. I was behind the sofa. I don’t know
whether I was being ignored or just in a pissy mood, or had
something against British comedy or what, but Niven says I
began moving ominously behind Coward, eyeing his head as
if it were some sort of animal to be stalked. And I was armed with a large brass serving tray. When I got close behind Noel
Coward, I lifted the tray and smashed it down on top of his
head. It must have stung something awful, even if it was being
wielded by a six-year-old. But the famous playwright never
turned to look at me. He just looked at my father and, in that clipped British accent, said, “Bogart dear, do you know what
I am going to give darling little Stephen for Christmas? A
chocolate-covered hand grenade.”

It was unusual for us to use the living room. It was not
fully furnished, but it did contain a few expensive antiques
and paintings. When my mother and father brought guests
into the house, which was often, my mother was inclined to
steer them toward the wood-paneled study, the butternut
room, where the furniture was less pricey and more comfort
able. And where there was a bar. The butternut room was a
cozy room with full bookcases, comfortable chairs, folding ta
bles, and a pull-down screen for film viewing. These guests
were famous people: Sinatra, Tracy, Garland, Benchley,
Niven, Huston, on and on, and many were very wealthy. But
most of them were drinkers. My father was not comfortable
with people who didn’t drink. “I don’t trust anyone who
doesn’t drink,” he once said. So my parents’ friends could be rowdy at times and I don’t think Mother wanted them bump
ing into her paintings and shattering vases.

Bacall certainly had good reason to worry. My father and
his friends were capable of mischief. Once, after John
Huston and his father, Walter, got Academy Awards for their
work on
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,
Dad, who also got an
Oscar nomination for the movie, went back to John Huston’s place where Bogie and the director, still wearing tuxedoes, played football in the mud against a movie executive and a
screenwriter. They either didn’t have a football or were too
drunk to look for one, so, instead, they ran pass patterns with
a grapefruit.

* * *

There are many reasons why I did not see a lot of my fa
ther when I was a kid. One reason was his work. Another was
his boat, the
Santana.

While most people know that Bogie and Bacall had a
great love affair, probably fewer know about my father’s
other great love affair. It was with sailing. Specifically, it was
with the
Santana,
a fifty-five-foot sailing yacht, which he had
bought from Dick Powell and June Allyson. The sea was my
father’s sanctuary.

My father was not simply some movie star throwing
money into a hole in the water. He was very serious about the
boat and he was an excellent helmsman who earned the re
spect of the sailing fraternity, despite some well-entrenched
prejudices they had about actors with boats.

My father once answered a question about his devotion
to sailing this way: “An actor needs something to stabilize his
personality, something to nail down what he really is, not
what he is currently pretending to be.”

Phil Gersh says that at one point my father used to go
out on the boat thirty-five weekends a year. I’d like to say that
my father took me most of the time, but that’s not true.
There was a long time when I wanted to go, but Dad would
not let me on the boat until I could swim. Most of my life I’ve
thought that was just his way of not having the kids on the boat, but Carolyn Morris, one of my mother’s best friends, says, “No, I think he was genuinely concerned about your
safety. He had respect for the sea.”

Later, when I could swim, Dad took me on the boat now
and then. Carolyn says, “I remember him taking just you on
the boat, you and Pete. He didn’t like to show his emotions,
but his eyes would give him away. He was really excited about
having a boy. He loved you an awful lot and it was important
to him that you love the sea.”

I do remember a trip with my father and Joe Hyams, and
Joe’s son, who was about my age. And I remember Pete, the
skipper, who was known as “Pete BS” when there were ladies
aboard, or “Bullshit Pete” when there were only males. The
name Bullshit Pete always made me giggle.

My mother was prone to seasickness, and by the time I was born her trips on the
Santana
were rare. That was okay
with Dad. He liked his boating weekends to be all male anyhow. “The trouble with having dames on board,” he said, “is
you can’t pee over the side.”

The
Santana
could sleep two in the master cabin. Four
more could sleep in the main cabin. And there was sleeping
space for two more ahead of the galley. On the boat my fa
ther was a regular Miss Manners. If you made a mess, you
cleaned it up.

I can remember driving down to the harbor in Newport
with him. There was a big iron shed there near the water,
though I’m not sure what was in it. Pete would be waiting on
the dock by the boat. His real name was Carl Petersen, but Dad always called him “Square Head.”

There would usually be a couple of young actors on the
boat, who worked as crew. Dad would start the engine, and
the crew would pull in the lines, and off to Catalina we would
go. The trip took about four hours, depending on the wind.
Catalina itself was no big deal. It was a fairly barren island
with hills, and a lot of goats. The only town was Avalon. The
thing about Catalina was getting there. From southern Cali
fornia it was the only place to go farther west. Once there,
Bogie would anchor in White’s Landing, north of Avalon.
The water was clear there, and there was a beach where I
could play. This was a kind of gathering place for other sail
ing folk. My dad and his friends would set lobster traps,
which was illegal. Instead of buoys they would tie liquor bottles to the lines. Sometimes they would get a few lobsters and
Bogie and his pals would cook them on the boat.

On one trip when I was six or seven, I went along and
brought an empty cricket cage, in which I usually kept a toy
skunk. I’m not sure of just who else was on the trip, but I
know that Nathaniel Benchley was, because he also remem
bered the incident. On this trip I was determined to catch a
fish, which I can see now was silly, because a fish could swim
through the spaces in the cage. So I propped open the cage
with a stick, and for bait I put in some crabs I had found on
shore. I hung the cage by a string over the stern of the boat,
and every ten minutes I pulled it up to see if I had caught a
fish. Even after dark I checked my cage with a flashlight until
finally my flashlight fell into the water, and I went to bed,
while the adults drank and played dominoes. I figured when I woke up there would be a fish in my cage. So the next
morning I woke up early. I have a vivid memory of pulling up
that cage, being so excited and filled with anticipation be
cause it was very heavy. I finally yanked it aboard and I
couldn’t believe what I saw. I had caught a lobster. Or more accurately, I had caught a lobster with no tail. I was overjoyed. I went crazy with excitement.

“I caught a lobster, I caught a lobster,” I shouted, waking everybody up. Soon all the guys were smiling and congratulating me on my big catch. It was one of the most exciting
moments of my life. I was so proud of myself.

It wasn’t until I was twenty and had become a father my
self that somebody told me that my father had placed the
lobster in the cage for me to catch. Bogie, it seemed, was be
ing my daddy even when I didn’t know it.

I’m sure that the way my father treated me, and the loss of
my father at an early age, have influenced me in ways that I
cannot totally understand. But the most lasting effect of be
ing Bogie’s son is obvious to me; it is the way in which I raise
my children.

Even though I was barely an adult myself when my first
wife Dale and I had our son, Jamie, I was determined to put
him first in my life. Nothing would be more important. I would be for Jamie the kind of father I wished Bogie had been for me. And I think I was. I hugged my son. I kissed
him. I read to him. I played ball with him. I coached his base
ball teams all the way through high school. In many ways, I
guess, I was being a father to myself, and I’m sure I was a bet
ter father to my son because my own father died when I was
eight. Jamie is an adult now, but I still have Richard and
Brooke at home, and nothing has changed my mind about
the importance of putting the kids first. When my kids are
my age they will have many memories of times spent with their father.