By Myself and Then Some (35 page)

During that year Richard Brooks entered our life. He’d written a terrific book,
The Brick Foxhole
, come out to Hollywood, and ended up at Universal writing screenplays. A fantastic fellow, full of extreme opinions – he would never own a foreign car, have a swimming pool, wear a tie – no bigger house, no falling into the Hollywood trap. Bogie named him the Angry Writer. We became close friends, went to each other’s homes regularly, Bogie and Dick were on the phone often. Bogie loved Dick’s anger, said it would be great if he could keep it, but sooner or later he’d succumb, wait and see – first the swimming pool, and the foreign car would not be far behind. Dick vehemently denied such a possibility.

Mark left Warners and moved to Universal to produce pictures, the first being
Brute Force
, which Dick scripted. Bogie loved other people’s
first reactions to Dick. Never had they seen such anger – that kind of anger and palm trees did not go hand in hand. Bogie just sat back and let Dick sound off – and laughed. Those days were fun. Until December 21, 1947, when Mark Hellinger died. He was only forty-four years old. A terrible shock. I remember driving to his funeral – Bogie, John Huston, and I. I couldn’t stop talking – nerves – until John finally said, ‘Will you please shut up!’ When he said it, you had no choice. The funeral had nothing to do with Mark. It was my first funeral and it was religious, which Mark wasn’t. The only good thing about it was the eulogy delivered by Quent Reynolds – what he said and the way he said it. There was an open coffin, and I, like a fool, looked. It was awful – the man in that box had a face like Mark’s, though colorless and drawn, but it wasn’t the Mark I knew and cared about. Bogie said, ‘Don’t do it again – better to remember him as he was. Once you’re gone, you’re gone. I hate funerals – they aren’t for the one who’s dead, but for the ones who are left and enjoy mourning. When I die, I want no funeral. Cremation, which is clean and final – my ashes strewn over the Pacific. My friends can raise a glass and exchange stories about me if they like. No mourning – don’t believe in it. The Irish have the right idea – a wake.’

By this time our Christmas Eve party had come to be expected by our friends, and I had planned it before Mark’s death. I had our brick patio cellophaned in to accommodate the guests – seventy people or more. We all drank to Mark – our first Christmas without him.

Early in 1948 we started
Key Largo
. Dick Brooks collaborated with Huston on the script. He watched every move John made in work – John was his model. Only, what John had was hard to learn – he was born with it. It was a good collaboration, and the cast was fabulous – Eddie Robinson, Lione! Barrymore, Claire Trevor. I had met Ethel Barrymore and was in total awe of her. She was an extraordinary woman – a great star, a great actress, beautiful, part of a unique acting family. Happily, she took to me, allowed me to be her friend until the end of her days, and we invited her to dinner several times. A friend had sent us four records of John Barrymore delivering Shakespeare soliloquies. One night Ethel was coming to dinner and Bogie thought she’d love to hear them. I wasn’t so sure, but he said, ‘John was always her pet, let’s surprise her.’ As she entered the house, Bogie put on one of the soliloquies. At the first sound of her brother’s voice she said, ‘No,
turn that off.’ It was an awkward moment – one of the very few times Bogie’s instinct did not serve him well.

Bogie and I had the straight parts in
Key Largo
, but with John at the helm there was no question of not doing it. I was longing to work with John – my career had not been booming. And I’d just been taken off the suspension I’d earned by turning down
Romance on the High Seas
, which ended up giving Doris Day her first break. And
Stallion Road
, another winner that Alexis Smith finally made. It was uphill at Warners for most of us.

We rehearsed
Key Largo
for three weeks. Karl Freund was the cameraman – one of the best. Lionel Barrymore played my father and was in a wheelchair at all times, which I had to manipulate. Lionel pretended to be a grouch who needed no one. He had been confined to a wheelchair for some years and his legs pained him almost unceasingly. More than once I frantically looked at John when I’d hear Lionel moaning, but Lionel never said anything – wasn’t even aware he was making a noise. Eddie Robinson was a marvelous actor and a lovely, funny man, Claire Trevor a wonderful actress and woman. I used to pour tea in my dressing room every afternoon and serve cookies. Lionel looked forward to it and worried if it was late – that there might not be any. We’d all gather round as he regaled us with theatrical stories. Eddie did ‘Molly Malone’ with a Yiddish accent which was wildly funny. I listened raptly to all. In the film, Lionel had a scene in which he was to draw himself out of his chair defending Franklin Roosevelt. As it happened, in real life he hated Roosevelt. John told us to watch how he gritted his teeth when he had to praise him – John loved stuff like that. Yet Lionel was marvelous in that scene – he was an actor first and foremost.
Key Largo
was one of my happiest movie experiences. I thought how marvelous a medium the movies were, to enable one to meet, befriend, and work with such people. What a good time of life that was – the best people at their best. With all those supposed actors’ egos, there was not a moment of discomfort or vying for position. That’s because they were all actors, not just ‘stars’.

C
arolyn and Buddy Morris had
their first child and we’d still had none. I went to see Red Krohn, Carolyn’s doctor, to make certain I had no problems. Even Bogie went to see him – I was determined he was
to be a father. And once I made up my mind – !! Finally both Red and Bogie agreed I must take it easy – relax – it would happen. Meantime think of the fun we’d have. Bogie’s great observation was that making love is the most fun you can have without laughing. Although I calmed down, I went on watching the calendar for pregnancy signs. I finally caught on to saying nothing to Bogie, as he made it clear that sex was fun and at no time should anything clinical enter the picture.

We’d taken our usual trip to New York and celebrated our third anniversary. I remember saying we’d never had a honeymoon, to which Bogie rightly retorted, ‘You’ve been on a three-year honeymoon – ever since we’ve been married.’ Then I missed a period. I rushed to the calendar, marked it, and prayed. I counted every day until I missed the second. I’d had a false alarm once before.

I called Red Krohn and went in for my rabbit test. He called me: ‘Yes, ma’am, you are pregnant.’ I rushed to see him, he examined me and said absolutely – it would be around the end of December. The joy – the joy! I’d have to set the stage for Bogie’s homecoming that evening – he’d faint when he heard. He didn’t faint. I don’t know what happened, but after I told him, we had the biggest fight we’d ever had. I was in tears – this moment I’d been hoping for, waiting for, was a disaster. I should have learned right then never to act out a scene before it’s played. Bogie was full of sound and fury signifying that he hadn’t married me to lose me to a child – no child was going to come between us. The next morning he wrote me a long letter apologizing for his behavior, saying he didn’t know what had gotten into him except his fear of losing me – a child was an unknown quantity to him. He didn’t know what kind of a father he’d make. He was so afraid our closeness and incredible happiness together would be cut into by a child – but of course he wanted us to have a baby more than anything in the world, he just would have to get used to the idea. He’d spent forty-eight years childless, and had never really considered that being a father would ever become a reality at this point in his life.

Jack Warner had been trying to get me into a picture called
Storm Warning
. I didn’t feel it was right for me, but I wanted to work. I thought if I talked to him, perhaps some changes could be made that would enable me to be in it, so I didn’t intend to tell him about the coming baby.

Hedda Hopper had been told by one of her spies that I’d been to see
Dr Krohn. She called to ask if I was going to have a baby. I denied it – it was none of her business, I thought. She said, ‘You’re not lying to me, are you, Betty?’ Those ladies were drunk with power during those years. I said, ‘No, I’m not,’ and hung up. I was always uneasy talking to those ladies – they had been allowed their power by the studios and they wielded it unmercifully. I told Bogie of the call and he said, ‘Forget it – the hell with her.’ The picture was never fixed – I was put on suspension – the story of the coming of the first Bogart heir was released, and I was denounced by Hedda in her column as caring more about money than I did about being a mother. We didn’t speak for a year after that – oh, she could be a bitch.

Mother had been working in England for a year, but now she was back in California. She never discussed her private life with me, so I only knew she’d enjoyed England but was glad to be home. In the summer of 1948 she took a trip to New York and returned in August. For some reason she wanted me to find her a room in a small hotel nearby. I did and went to help her unpack. While she was unpacking, I noticed a small diamond ring on her finger. I said, ‘What’s that?’

She never stopped taking the clothes out of the suitcase while she said, ‘Oh, that’s an engagement ring.’

‘What?’ I screamed. ‘Who?’

She laughed that shy laugh of hers. ‘Lee.’

‘When did he come back into your life?’ I knew she’d been in love with him and that they’d split up. But now he was back and she’d loved him all those years and never said a word. What a woman. So Lee Goldberg, Marshall of the city of New York, attractive, good man whom I hadn’t seen in years, was going to be my stepfather. That’s why she wanted the room. Sneaky. He was coming out in September. Bogie and I decided to give them the wedding at our house.

There was so much going on in 1948. Bogie went on a boat race one weekend and I shall never forget how much I missed him. I was so much in love with that man that when he left I felt a pain in my heart. I actually did. He was so much my life that I literally couldn’t think of anything else – had to catch my breath when he went away. Whenever I hear the word
happy
now, I think of then. Then I lived the full meaning of the word every day. Since then it has been elusive.

Harry Kurnitz gave Bogie a baby shower. If you can imagine Mike Romanoff, Paul Douglas, Dick Brooks, Jean Negulesco, Collier Young,
Nunnally Johnson, Irving Lazar choosing baby presents for Bogie. It was funny – Dusty Negulesco, Ida Lupino, and I got dressed in our husbands’ clothes and crashed the party late in the evening. It was a little drunk and very sentimental. My own baby shower was smaller, more sedate, more traditional.

On September 14, 1948, Judge Edward Brand stood in our living room, with Bogie best man, me, matron of honor, and married Mother to Lee. As I stood there with the unborn Bogart putting a foot out here, an arm there, I thought of all the years my mother had waited for her shining knight to appear, never once making me aware of her yearning, only making me feel that what happened to me was what mattered. Had she ever given up as Bogie had, or had she always hoped? Never mind – her dream had come true, and when the Judge said, ‘I now pronounce you man and wife,’ she put her hand to her chest and let her breath out with an exclaimed ‘Oh.’ I knew that she couldn’t believe it had happened at last – that the tension of no compromise was over, that she would have a man to focus her love on, the love she had so much of. We had champagne and caviar, drank many toasts, and sent the bride and groom on their way – a slow honeymoon by car back to New York. At last it seemed that everyone in this impossible world had what they wanted.

B
ogie formed his independent company
called Santana Productions and started his first film,
Knock on Any Door
, with Nick Ray directing. He’d been working hard and was enjoying being his own boss. And I was reveling in my pregnancy. When a child starts to move inside you, it is the most fantastic feeling. God, I felt smug. I gloried in it – in every stage of it. And, of course, I was convinced that all these emotions and happenings were peculiar to me – had never been felt before. I was active all through the nine months – had almost no discomfort – loved watching my stomach move around. I couldn’t get over the miracle that one person can live inside another person. I still think it’s a miracle. Nothing original there.

On the morning of January 6, 1949, I awakened early. I felt strange, but wasn’t sure if I should start timing the pains or not. They weren’t the kind of pains I expected. I casually looked at the clock and sensed a beginning regularity to them. I said nothing to Bogie, who kissed me
and happily went off to work. As soon as he’d gone I sat up and started to watch the clock. When the pains seemed fairly regular I called Red Krohn, who said to wait awhile – ‘When they’re coming every five minutes call me. I’ll be here.’ He was the only man who mattered to me on that day. I moved to the living room with my Baby Ben clock and at last the pains started to come at five-minute intervals. The phone rang – May told me that Sheilah Graham wanted to speak to me. I said ‘Hello,’ and while my eyes never left that clock I heard her voice say, ‘Tell me, is it true Bogie had a child by another woman?’ ‘No,’ I answered and hung up. I called Red again, who told me to come to the office. I remember dressing and feeling very vague as I walked down the path, waving goodbye to May, saying I’d be back later. I drove to Red’s office, still vague, and on examining me, the pains now coming at three-minute intervals, he said, ‘We’d better call Bogie – you’re going into the hospital.’ I was still sitting on the examining table when the door opened suddenly and a panicked, green-tinged Bogart face appeared. I don’t know what he expected – to find me hanging upside down by my heels? This was new territory for him. Red gave Bogie instructions, about hospital signing in, entrances, etc., and said we should get right down there, he’d meet us. Poor Bogie. He was so worried, he was afraid to touch me for fear something would go wrong. I wasn’t a bit worried. As he drove me to the hospital, I told him about Sheilah Graham’s phone call. I thought he’d go mad – he called her every name in the book. ‘Wait till I get hold of her, I’ll fix that insensitive bitch.’ It obviously wasn’t true, but suppose it had been and she’d made that call? ‘Why the hell didn’t she call
me?’
He was nervous enough driving – terrified something would happen in the car. He kept saying, ‘Are you all right, Baby? We’re almost there, Baby.’ His face was ashen. It was much easier to be me than him that day. I was signed in, and while I was being prepared, he paced. Red brought him to the labor room to sit with me. He wore a green gown to match his face. He took my hand in his, oh, so gently – he was so helpless, so sweet, so scared. As I took my hand away to hold on to the bars of the bed above my head as instructed, he turned even greener. He didn’t know what to do – after a few minutes he asked if I minded if he waited outside, he couldn’t bear to see anyone he loved in pain. Things happened very quickly after that – two hours later, at 11:22 p.m., Stephen (after Steve in
To Have and Have Not)
Humphrey Bogart was born. Red showed him
to me in the delivery room. He was beautiful – all six pounds, six ounces, twenty inches of him. Bogie was waiting for me when I was wheeled from the recovery room to my own room. So relieved to see me smiling at him, talking to him. I was still gaga from the anesthesia, but I knew my man when he looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, ‘Hello, Baby.’ It was the fullest, most complete moment my life has known.