By Myself and Then Some (18 page)

I kept Mother up to date on developments, sending lists of people to call with the news – Diana Vreeland, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Nicky de Gunzburg, Tim Brooke – with instructions to keep it to themselves. I couldn’t write to anyone – only Mother!

The picture didn’t begin until the following Tuesday. I had tested the wardrobe – hair – make-up. Sid Hickox had photographed them with Howard present, experimenting as he went, as Howard wanted me to look in the movie.

Walter Brennan had been cast in a large part, Marcel Dalio, Walter Surovy (Risë Stevens’ husband), Sheldon Leonard, Dan Seymour – of course Hoagy. I went into the set the first day of shooting to see Howard and Bogart – I would not be working until the second day. Bogart’s wife, Mayo Methot, was there – he introduced us. I talked to Howard, watched for a while, and went home to prepare for my own first day.

It came and I was ready for a straitjacket. Howard had planned to do a single scene that day – my first in the picture. I walked to the door of Bogart’s room, said, ‘Anybody got a match?,’ leaned against the door, and Bogart threw me a small box of matches. I lit my cigarette, looking at him, said ‘Thanks,’ threw the matches back to him, and left. Well – we rehearsed it. My hand was shaking – my head was shaking – the cigarette was shaking. I was mortified. The harder I tried to stop, the more I shook. What must Howard be thinking? What must Bogart be thinking? What must the crew be thinking? Oh God, make it stop! I was in such pain.

Bogart tried to joke me out of it – he was quite aware that I was a new young thing who knew from nothing and was scared to death. Finally Howard thought we could try a take. Silence on the set. The bell rang. ‘Quiet – we’re rolling,’ said the sound man. ‘Action,’ said Howard. This was for posterity, I thought – for real theatres, for real people to see. I came around the corner, said my first line, and Howard said, ‘Cut.’ He had broken the scene up – the first shot ended after the first line. The second set-up was the rest of it – then he’d move in for
close-ups. By the end of the third or fourth take, I realized that one way to hold my trembling head still was to keep it down, chin low, almost to my chest, and eyes up at Bogart. It worked, and turned out to be the beginning of ‘The Look.’

I found out very quickly that day what a terrific man Bogart was. He did everything possible to put me at ease. He was on my side. I felt safe – I still shook, but I shook less. He was not even remotely a flirt. I was, but I didn’t flirt with him. There was much kidding around – our senses of humor went well together. Bogie’s idea, of course, was that to make me laugh would relax me. He was right to a point, but nothing on earth would have relaxed me completely!

The crew were wonderful – fun and easy. It was a very happy atmosphere. I would often go to lunch with Howard. One day he told me he was very happy with the way I was working, but that I must remain somewhat aloof from the crew. Barbara Stanwyck, whom he thought very highly of – he’d made
Ball of Fire
with her, a terrific movie – was always fooling around with the crew, and he thought it a bad idea. ‘They don’t like you any better for it. When you finish a scene, go back to your dressing room. Don’t hang around the set – don’t give it all away – save it for the scenes.’ He wanted me in a cocoon, only to emerge for work. Bogart could fool around to his heart’s content – he was a star and a man – ‘though you notice he doesn’t do too much of it.’

One day at lunch when Howard was mesmerizing me with himself and his plans for me, he said, ‘Do you notice how noisy it is in here suddenly? That’s because Leo Forbstein just walked in – Jews always make more noise.’ I felt that I was turning white, but I said nothing. I was afraid to – a side of myself I have never liked or been proud of – a side that was always there. Howard didn’t dwell on it ever, but clearly he had very definite ideas about Jews – none too favorable, though he did business with them. They paid him – they were good for that. I would have to tell him about myself eventually or he’d find out through someone else. When the time came, what would happen would happen, but I had no intention of pushing it.

Howard started to line up special interviews for me. Nothing big would be released until just before the picture, and everything would be chosen with the greatest care.
Life, Look
, Kyle Crichton for
Collier’s, Pic, Saturday Evening Post
. Only very special fan magazines. Newspapers.
I probably had more concentrated coverage than any beginning young actress had ever had – due to Hawks, not me.

Hoagy Carmichael had written a song called ‘Baltimore Oriole.’ Howard was going to use it as my theme music in the movie – every time I appeared on screen there were to be strains of that song. He thought it would be marvelous if I could be always identified with it – appear on Bing Crosby’s or Bob Hope’s radio show, have the melody played, have me sing it, finally have me known as the ‘Baltimore Oriole.’ What a fantastic fantasy life Howard must have had! His was a glamorous, mysterious, tantalizing vision – but it wasn’t me.

On days I didn’t have lunch with Howard, I would eat with another actor or the publicity man or have a sandwich in my room or in the music department during a voice lesson. I could not sit at a table alone. Bogie used to lunch at the Lakeside Golf Club, which was directly across the road from the studio.

One afternoon I walked into Howard’s bungalow and found a small, gray-haired, mustached, and attractive man stretched out on the couch with a book in his hand and a pipe in his mouth. That man was William Faulkner. He was contributing to the screenplay. Howard loved Faulkner – they had known each other a long time, had hunted together. Faulkner never had much money and Howard would always hire him for a movie when he could. He seldom came to the set – he was very shy – he liked it better in Howard’s office.

Howard had a brilliantly creative work method. Each morning when we got to the set, he, Bogie, and I and whoever else might be in the scene, and the script girl would sit in a circle in canvas chairs with our names on them and read the scene. Almost unfailingly Howard would bring in additional dialogue for the scenes of sex and innuendo between Bogie and me. After we’d gone over the words several times and changed whatever Bogie or Howard thought should be changed, Howard would ask an electrician for a work light – one light on the set – and we’d go through the scene on the set to see how it felt. Howard said, ‘Move around – see where it feels most comfortable.’ Only after all that had been worked out did he call Sid Hickox and talk about camera set-ups. It is the perfect way for movie actors to work, but of course it takes time.

After about two weeks of shooting I wrote to my mother – she’d read
one or two things in newspapers about my not having the first lead opposite Bogart –

Please, darling, don’t worry about what is written in the newspapers concerning first and second leads. You make me so goddamn mad – what the hell difference does it make? As long as when the public sees the picture they know that I’m the one who is playing opposite Bogart. Everything is working out beautifully for me. Howard told Charlie the rushes were sensational. He’s really very thrilled with them. I’m still not used to my face, however. Bogie has been a dream man. We have the most wonderful times together. I’m insane about him. We kid around – he’s always gagging – trying to break me up and is very, very fond of me. So if I were you, I’d thank my lucky stars, as I am doing and not worry about those unimportant things. The only thing that’s important is that I am good in the picture and the public likes me
.

I
don’t know how it
happened – it was almost imperceptible. It was about three weeks into the picture – the end of the day – I had one more shot, was sitting at the dressing table in the portable dressing room combing my hair. Bogie came in to bid me good night. He was standing behind me – we were joking as usual – when suddenly he leaned over, put his hand under my chin, and kissed me. It was impulsive – he was a bit shy – no lunging wolf tactics. He took a worn package of matches out of his pocket and asked me to put my phone number on the back. I did. I don’t know why I did, except it was kind of part of our game. Bogie was meticulous about not being too personal, was known for never fooling around with women at work or anywhere else. He was not that kind of man, and also he was married to a woman who was a notorious drinker and fighter. A tough lady who would hit you with an ashtray, lamp, anything, as soon as not.

I analyzed nothing then – I was much too happy – I was having the time of my life. All that mattered to me was getting to the studio and working – my hours of sleep just got in the way! From the start of the movie, as Bogie and I got to know each other better – as the joking got more so – as we had more fun together – so the scenes changed little by little, our relationship strengthened on screen and involved us without our even knowing it.
I
certainly didn’t know it. Gradually my focus began to shift away from Howard, more toward Bogie. Oh, I still
paid full attention to Howard, but I think I depended more on Bogie. The construction of the scenes made that easy. I’m sure Howard became aware fairly early on that there was something between us and used it in the film.

At the end of the day of the phone number, I went home as usual to my routine: after eating something, I looked at my lines for the next day and got into bed. Around eleven o’clock the phone rang. It was Bogie. He’d had a few drinks, was away from his house, just wanted to see how I was. He called me Slim – I called him Steve, as in the movie. We joked back and forth – he finally said good night, he’d see me on the set. That was all, but from that moment on our relationship changed. He invited me to lunch at Lakeside a few times – or we’d sit in my dressing room or his with the door open, finding out more about one another. If he had a chess game going on the set – he was a first-rate chess player – I’d stand and watch, stand close to him. Physical proximity became more and more important. But still we joked.

Hedda Hopper came on the set one day and said, ‘Better be careful. You might have a lamp dropped on you one day.’ There was a column squib in the
Hollywood Reporter
: ‘You can have your B&B at lunch any day at Lakeside.’

Bogie took to calling me more often. He had two friends named Pat and Zelma O’Moore. She had sung ‘Button Up Your Overcoat’ in a Broadway show, but had since retired. Pat O’Moore was an Irish actor whom Bogie had befriended – he worked in Bogie’s films and others when there was a part. They had a small boat which they kept in Newport in the slip next to Bogie’s. They lived in a small trailer camp in town. Bogie took me there one night and we all had dinner together, but he couldn’t do that often. Other nights he’d call very late – sometimes one or two in the morning – and come over to my apartment. It was an unusual role for Bogie. He was not by instinct or practice a cheat or a liar. He told me about his marriage – how he had more or less fallen into it. He’d been married twice before. When he was in his twenties, he’d been married to a famous Broadway actress, Helen Menken. Always his wives had been actresses – always wanting to continue their careers, always putting that first.

After Helen, he married an actress called Mary Philips. When they’d been married for seven or eight years he accepted an offer to come to California, and he wanted her to come with him. He didn’t believe in
separations and he also didn’t believe in following women around. But she insisted on following her career on the stage and he said, ‘Okay, but don’t stay away too long.’ She did. He met Mayo – fell into something with her (drink and bed, I should think), warned Mary to come out, then went to Chicago, where she was in a play with Roland Young. He got there, found that they were having an affair, and that was the end of that marriage. He felt he had to marry Mayo – he was a marrying man, she expected it, it was the gentlemanly thing to do, so he did it. And it got worse and worse. They were known as the Battling Bogarts – almost every evening wound up with her throwing something at Bogie, trying to hit him and succeeding most of the time. She’d stabbed him in the back with a knife on one occasion and he had the scar to prove it. He said he had to drink – it was the only way he could live with her. She was jealous – always accused him of having affairs with his leading ladies – always knocked him as an actor, making sarcastic references about the ‘big star.’ She’d sung ‘More Than You Know’ in a Vincent Youmans musical, had been successful and was a good actress – but drink took over and the minute there was a third person present, she’d start on Bogie. He wasn’t crying the blues to me – he accepted it. He didn’t like it, but that’s the way it was and he couldn’t do anything about it.

I said nothing to anyone about seeing Bogie outside the studio. But anyone with half an eye could see that there was more between us than the scenes we played. I’d listen for his arrival in make-up in the morning. He’d get there about 8:30 – he wore no make-up, just had his hair blacked in a bit in front where it was getting thin, but he’d come to see me having my hair combed out. Sometimes we’d go to the set together. I’d always leave my dressing-room door open so as not to miss him if he passed by. There was never enough time for me to be with him. In the picture I wore a black satin dress with a bare midriff that was held together with a black plastic ring. One day I cut out a picture of Bogie and fitted it into the ring – walked over to him casually on the set until he noticed it and laughed. Our jokes were total corn: ‘What did the ceiling say to the wall?’ ‘Hold me up, I’m plastered.’ … ‘Do your eyes bother you?’ ‘No.’ ‘They bother me.’ … And I’d make my gorilla face, which consisted of putting my tongue under my upper lip and dropping my jaw. All silly but marvelous. And he taught me constantly in scenes. We had one scene in which I had been teasing him
– he was to take me out the door because he wanted to have a bath – stop and kiss me before being interrupted. He told Howard he’d seen the Lunts do something in a play once which he felt would work for us. After the kiss I was to run the back of my hand up the side of his face, which needed a shave, then give him a short, quick slap. It was a most suggestive and intimate bit of business. Much more so than writhing around on the floor would have been. And in rehearsals of other scenes he’d sometimes add something – a word or a bit of business – that would throw me. He’d say, ‘Just to make sure you’re listening.’ He taught me to stay on my toes at all times.