By Myself and Then Some (36 page)

Bogie had a son – after forty-nine years of living, there was another Bogart on earth. And I was a mother. Every dream I had had for my life with Bogie had come true.

He went to Chasen’s to pass out cigars. No cliché was overlooked. Early the next morning he came to the hospital before work and we called Mother and Lee. I was ready to have another baby immediately, I felt so good. Dr Spivek, our pediatrician, was at the hospital at 7:00 a.m. and came in to see me with his report on the perfection of Steve. He told me what formula Steve was on – I’d be able to feed him myself. He warned me not to be afraid of handling the baby – he wouldn’t break. ‘Enjoy him.’

Telegrams, flowers, phone calls started pouring in. Mother was coming out immediately to see her daughter and her first grandchild. My girlfriends visited me afternoons, Bogie and others at night. Dick Brooks brought his camera to the hospital and photographed Bogie looking through the glass at this first child. It was a happening to all our friends as well as to us, no doubt about that. Steve’s arrival was well recorded.

And the exhilaration – I could have climbed Mount Everest. No postpartum depression for me! Never, never have I felt as I did then. The first time I held that baby was overwhelming. This entire complex being, twenty inches long – I examined every fingernail, tried to count his eyelashes – the smell of him – the feel. I was twenty-four and an only child, but I took to feeding and handling Steve as though I’d spent my life doing it. Whoever first said it was right – clichés are clichés because they are true. It was instinct. I was a natural-born mother (with my own child).

Two days before I was to bring my baby home, Los Angeles had its first snowfall in fifty years. I remember sitting in my hospital bed and looking out the window – I thought I was imagining things. What a great dividend – only right for the child of Eastern-born parents! I
couldn’t wait to get home. I could have a baby every nine months if it was this easy! I hoped Bogie was as happy as I was. As for me, I knew that I had it all – and Bogie had given it to me.

On January 11 the ambulance took Steve and me home. As we were carried to the front door, there on the lawn was an enormous snowman which Bogie had spent half the night building. It was odd to see snow covering camellia bushes. I was taken to our bedroom, Steve to his at the other end of the house. We had an intercom rigged so that I could hear every sound in the nursery – could talk to the nurse if I wished. It was kept on at all times. Harvey was crazy with joy at my homecoming. Dr Spivek said to let him in the bedroom when Steve was with me – not to shut him out, make him jealous. Even Dr Spivek treated Harvey as human.

I kept going in and out of the nursery every five minutes. Steve’s nurse was not crazy about that, but she had to learn right from the start that I intended to do most things for my baby – that I had no intention of turning him over to anyone.

My first morning home I was having breakfast in bed when Bogie went off to work. Before he left, he stopped in to see his son – I had the intercom on and suddenly heard in a soft, new voice, ‘Hello, son. You’re a little fella, aren’t you? I’m Father. Welcome home.’ It was so unexpected – so moving. He’d never been faced with a tiny creature of his own before. He wasn’t sure what to say to him or how to say it. He was just letting him know that he was there – that he’d do his best and was glad to have him. Lucky Steve. Lucky me.

Friends came to view the son and heir. Gifts arrived. Someone sent us a Maud Humphrey baby book, bound in pale pink silk, with lovely Maud Humphrey children on every other page. And Stephen was a replica of his father, the
original
Maud Humphrey Baby. We had asked Louis Bromfield and Ginny and Quent Reynolds to be Steve’s godparents. With Bogie being a non-practicing Episcopalian and me a non-practicing Jew, we had no plan to do anything about formalizing Steve’s religion at that point.

A week after Stephen’s birth Bogie sent a twenty-dollar check to President Truman, accompanied by a letter asking him to please endorse the check and return it as a keepsake for Steve. A couple of months later the check arrived with the following:

The beginning of the Truman story was the fall of ’48 when Truman, campaigning for the Presidency, came to California for a rally. At the dinner preceding it, where I sat next to him, he and Bogie made a bet on the baby’s sex – Truman said a boy, Bogie said a girl. Bogie lost.

The receipt of the Truman letter caused much excitement. What a nice man he was! The letter and the check immediately went into a frame, where they rest to this day, property of their rightful owner, Steve.

I fear my life began to revolve around my son. I wanted to do everything for him. When the nurse took a day off after the first three weeks, I slept in the nursery (Bogie didn’t care much for that) and just kept looking at that beautiful child.

There was no question of my going to the boat in the winter, weather being what it was, but finally Bogie prevailed upon me to go for a weekend. I hated to leave Stephen – was afraid I’d miss a new sound or look, sitting, standing, something. But I went and enjoyed it – we were lucky with the weather and it was lovely to be with Bogie alone. I remember making a remark Bogie found unforgettable. As I looked around me at the beautiful sea, the white landing with its small beach, the clear water, the sunshine, I sighed contentedly: ‘Who needs money when you can live like this?’ Bogie howled.

He knew I hated to leave Steve, but I reassured him about our boat life – I’d happily go with him, but please not every weekend. The problem of owning a boat is that it’s there and so expensive to keep up, you have to use it. That left us no alternatives. I would have liked going to the desert occasionally, but you couldn’t leave that glorious, expensive craft sitting alone and unused! I always loved the ocean, but would have preferred a beach house to a boat. That idea was never entertained. The
Santana
was beautiful, the life healthy and good, but I was always torn. It seems from the beginning I was torn – I wanted a
career and I wanted Bogie, then I wanted both and a child. When I worked, I wanted to be home and vice versa. The truth is that I wanted it all – all the time. And God knows I tried to have it. And God knows I almost did.

I
was going to work
again, so we had to find a permanent nurse. We were lucky, lucky, lucky. A great woman named Alice Hartley, Canadian, turned up. She was stocky, regular, easy. What convinced Bogie was the way she dealt with Harvey and Baby – the mate we’d bought for Harvey – when they jumped on her as she tried to get into the house. No nambypamby flower she – no babying of Stephen – she was full of love and good humor and the loneliness all such ladies had, with the difference being that she’d been married, had a daughter and a beau. The beau traveled – the daughter lived in Canada – she liked and wanted to work. She and May got along well – May was welcomed into the nursery, so there was not a moment’s strain in the house. It was a family, as it should have been.

My movie was
Young Man with a Horn
, directed by Mike Curtiz (who called actors ‘actor-bums’ – he was quite a character), and co-starring Kirk Douglas and Doris Day. I hadn’t seen Kirk in years. In 1946 Bogie and I met Hal Wallis on the train heading East. I told Hal about this fantastic actor who was in a play in New York – Hal had to see him, he was so talented. To Hal’s credit, he did see him and signed him. From then on Kirk had been in California with Diana and their two boys. We worked well together, liked each other, talked over old and new times, and flirted – harmlessly. Unhappily, the movie was nowhere near as good as it should have been. Strange – there was I being directed by the man who had directed
Casablanca
. He wore riding boots often, lost his temper occasionally – but only at those who were vulnerable. He was just a tiny bit weak and he was brilliant with the camera. He would tell me how much he loved Bogie – ‘How is dahling Bogie? Such a wonderful actor.’ Bogie and Peter Lorre had actually almost convinced Mike that there were weekend actors, but that did not include them –
they
worked Monday to Thursday, then the weekend actors took over. A funny idea and Mike almost fell for it.

Bogie was making another Santana film at Columbia, so we compared notes at night, but not too much. Unless there was particular
trouble or a fascinating anecdote, Bogie believed in leaving his work behind at the studio. That was fine with me. Even during filming we’d have a couple of pals in for dinner. One night I’d planned a terrific menu for a group of eight friends, one being John Huston. Came 7:30, the invited hour, and they started to arrive – always time for a couple of drinks before sitting down at table. Eight o’clock, all there but John. At 8:15 I said we had to sit down or the squab would be ruined. John never showed. I was livid and told Bogie, ‘Friend of yours or not, I’m never asking him again.’ Bogie said, ‘Look – you’ve got to learn to take people as they are. John is fun – better company than most – but not too reliable at times. Social events aren’t that important to him. Enjoy him for what he is. He’s not going to change.’ About a week after that we went to some gathering at the Beverly Hills Hotel and John was there. Bogie went over to him and said, ‘My wife won’t speak to you, she’s really sore – you’d better fix it.’ John came over to me, put his arms around my rigid self – ‘Hello, honey’ – then wheedled, cajoled, charmed, laid it on till I was limp. I looked up at him and thought, ‘Bogie’s right – what the hell, he’s an original – there’ll be no one like him again – he’s crazy and funny and brilliant, and better a life with him in it than not.’ So I laughed with John – Bogie joined in – John had accomplished his mission. If he thought you weren’t with him, be you friend’s wife or bartender, he’d turn on that charm and work like hell till he’d won you over. That accomplished, he’d leave – it was just to prove to himself that he could do it. He proved his point, but still no sitdown dinners in my house.

We’d become friendly with David Niven and his ravishing Swedish wife, Hjordis – began to see a lot of them, and Dorris and Nunnally Johnson, whose son Scott beat Steve into the world by a few months – Nick Ray and his wife, Gloria Grahame – Joan Bennett and Walter Wanger – Jean and Dusty Negulesco. Those plus all the old group – and visiting New York chums. Our house was a happy one and friends were always glad to be in it.

Steve was growing hair – teeth – was more adorable and lovable each day. It was very hard for me to be away from him – as with everything else in life, motherhood was no half-measure for me. There is no question that work took third place after Stephen’s birth. I fear he became number one – Bogie two.

I took it all naturally and totally. Nothing unusual about that, I
suppose. I loved walking into that nursery, breathing that rarefied baby air. I loved to feed him – to hold him. When I gave him his bottle he always grasped my little finger with his hand and held on very tight. I wondered if my mother had felt the same when she was feeding me. Being a mother is a fact – when you have a baby you become a mother. Simple. I turned to Jell-O when Stephen looked at me, smiled at me, fell asleep in my arms or with his head on my shoulder. All else was blotted out at those moments. Of course it changed Bogie’s and my life. We not only weren’t two anymore, we were four, because there had to be a nurse – more so that I could be with Bogie than for any other reason. He didn’t want our relationship changed – he became just the littlest bit jealous. He wanted my attention in the evenings, and when he talked to me he wanted my mind all there. I still hung on his every word, but I was willful, too – and if I wanted something badly enough, I usually got it.

For the first time in my life I didn’t have to worry about money. It’s amazing how quickly I put my first nineteen years of budgeting behind me. If I liked a pair of shoes, I didn’t buy one pair – I bought six. I wanted everything perfect in our new home, so I bought ashtrays, cigarette boxes, gradually began taking an interest in antiques. Every table was covered with things. Mother used to go to auctions and came up with a huge ancient Bible for me which I proudly displayed in our living room. That tickled Bogie. He said I wanted instant tradition – that the Bible and all the antiques made me feel more secure, as though I’d been collecting for years instead of months.

We were happy people of fame and fortune then. I met no one who might have threatened my marriage. If I flirted harmlessly on occasion, I was only doing what I hadn’t done when I was younger. We were becoming a more and more popular pair – the word was getting around that it was fun at the Bogarts’. Everyone looked forward to our Christmas parties, and the year Steve was born I began one more tradition – our anniversary party. That was terrific fun. The weather was always warm – women looked pretty – flowers were in bloom. There was always a mixture of East and West coasts – our New York writer friends, any pal who was in town, and some chic, some not-so-chic movie folk. We never had a member of the press present – we wanted our friends to relax, have a good time and not look over their shoulders every five minutes. I adored giving those parties – always
tried to think of something a little different for the menu. It was all part of my wife-hostess role – and, of course, people were brought into the nursery to view the perfection that resided there.

Gradually two not so normal people were beginning to live fairly normal lives. Though I must confess that, now as then, I have never known what ‘normal’ is. Perhaps it means regular – trying to make order out of chaos. Imperceptibly our lives took on a pattern. Bogie’s drinking habits improved. He moved away from mixed drinks and from mixing his drinks. Not to say he stopped drinking, but he got much less angry when he did drink. He liked life more and he was beginning to feel more secure in our marriage. But you had to stay awake married to him. Every time I thought I could relax and do
everything
I wanted, he’d buck. There was no way to predict his reactions, no matter how well I knew him. As he’d said before our wedding, he expected to be happily married and stay that way, but he never expected to settle down. He liked keeping people off balance. He was good for me – I could never be quite sure what he would do.