Tough Without a Gun

by Stefan Kanfer

  When they were not performing, Mayo and Humphrey visited hospitals, attempting to buck up the severely wounded. Perhaps the most difficult moment came when Humphrey stopped by the bed of a triple amputee. As a nurse took down his words, the young soldier dictated a letter to his fiancée. He wondered aloud whether he should tell her he had lost both legs and an arm. Humphrey broke in: “It’s not going to make any difference to her,” he said with the assurance of an actor playing a key scene. “She loves you, and the only thing that matters is that you come home.” He moved on before the kid could see the tears brimming in his eyes.

  The Battling Bogarts behaved themselves until they arrived in Naples. After one performance, some enlisted men in the audience presented the entertainers with souvenir guns. Humphrey and Mayo thanked them, hoisted a few glasses, and went to their suite on the top floor of a building reserved for high-ranking officers. Both the weapons and the Bogarts were loaded, and as soon as they entered, Humphrey and Mayo began to shoot bullets into the ceiling. The crashes of plaster were almost as loud as the shots. Alarmed, a group of senior officers rushed to the room and confiscated the weapons then and there.

  “Name, rank, and serial number,” demanded a red-faced colonel.

  “Got no name, rank, and serial number,” Humphrey snarled. “And go to hell!”

  Hauled before a group of senior officials the next day, Humphrey was compelled to apologize for his behavior and remarks.

  “I didn’t mean to insult the uniform,” he told the offended colonel. “I just meant to insult you.”

  It was definitely time to return to the business of making movies.

  The Bogarts landed in New York, where they intended to hang out for a couple of weeks. Humphrey wanted to revisit scenes of his boyhood, catch a few shows, maybe party with a few old friends. Jack Warner was having none of it. He wanted his star back out west, and he wanted him now. Once again, Humphrey capitulated. He and Mayo caught the 20th Century Limited, switched to the Santa Fe Chief in Chicago, and showed up in Los Angeles two days later. Reporters awaited. Mayo spoke in glowing terms about the GIs, and Humphrey said there were no heroes out there, just good men doing dirty jobs under harsh conditions. Then he went off to face Jack Warner.

  It could have been worse. The boss was full of equanimity now that his champion was back in the stable. For the first time, Humphrey had been nominated for an Academy Award, cited as Best Actor for his work in Casablanca. Moreover, a poll of theater owners had just placed him among the top box office stars. His new picture would be To Have and Have Not, based on Ernest Hemingway’s novel and with a script by the novelist William Faulkner, then drinking hard and down on his luck, and Jules Furthman, who had received an Academy Award nomination for his adaptation of Mutiny on the Bounty. Howard Hawks would direct. A veteran of World War I, former tennis champion and racing car driver, Hawks was another “man’s man.” Humphrey had an idea they would get along. He also liked the roster of character actors who would join him, including Walter Brennan, Hoagy Carmichael, and Marcel Dalio and Dan Seymour, who had been with him in Casablanca. But when he was told about the female lead he expressed discomfort. Her name was Lauren Bacall and she was nineteen years old. Humphrey was forty-four. What was Hawks thinking of? How would a cradle robber look on the big screen?

  iv

  She was a Brooklynite, born Betty Joan Ann Perske, the only daughter of William and Natalie Perske. The marriage was troubled, and by Betty’s sixth birthday her parents had separated. William’s visits were intermittent, and finally ceased altogether. After the divorce Natalie took the surname Bacal, a shortened version of her maiden name, Weinstein-Bacal—“wineglass” in German. The child also assumed the name. With no money coming in from William, Natalie went back to work as a secretary. But this presented a new problem. Betty was a bright, spunky girl, and needed someone to look after her until her mother came home. No one Natalie interviewed seemed dependable enough. With financial aid from two brothers, both attorneys, the divorcée sent Betty to Highland Manor, a private grade school in Tarrytown, New York, about an hour from the city.

  When Betty graduated, she moved in with her maternal grandmother and entered Julia Richman, a high school on the East Side of Manhattan. She was restive and unhappy there—but she was a good test taker, and highly motivated. The sixteen-year-old had also developed into something of a beauty; after graduation she decided to seek a career on the stage. Her uncles paid for a year’s tuition at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where Betty impressed the faculty and her fellow students, among them another Jewish actor who would soon change his name from Issur Danielovich to Kirk Douglas. Betty was invited back for a second year, but by then the money had run out, and in 1941 no scholarships were provided for women. Disappointed but unbowed, she tried her hand at modeling. After hearing “Bacal” repeatedly pronounced as if it rhymed with “cackle,” she added another “l” and became Bacall. The new spelling seemed to bring her luck and a lot of new assignments. But wearing designer clothes did not accord with Betty’s ambitious career plans. She abandoned the runway and took a salary cut to become a Broadway theater usher. It only paid eight dollars a week, but allowed her to see shows and performers for free, and pick up some new acting techniques along the way.

  George Jean Nathan, a drama reviewer with a sharp eye for feminine pulchritude, mentioned her in his Esquire column as “the prettiest usher” in town. The praise was welcome, but Nathan never mentioned Betty’s name because he never bothered to speak to her. Critics would not see the Bacall name in print until her walk-on in Johnny 2 × 4, a Broadway play that closed after sixty-five performances. She went to a lot of open calls over the next two months, received no offers, and went back to modeling. Diana Vreeland, the fashion editor for Harper’s Bazaar, liked Betty Bacall’s affect, used her to showcase new dresses and suits, and put her on the magazine’s cover in January 1943. The model was posed before a Red Cross office wearing a blue suit and knitted cap, her eyes defiantly staring at the camera. The photo caught the attention of Nancy “Slim” Hawks, the wife of Howard Hawks. In her autobiography, Slim records her first impressions of the Harper’s photo: Bacall “was certainly my taste in beauty—scrubbed clean, healthy, shining and golden and there was definitely a bit of the panther about her.”

  Other studios made inquiries, as they often did when a model struck their fancy, but the only serious offer came from Howard Hawks. He paid for Betty’s fare west and covered her hotel bills while she prepared for her screen test. Hawks liked what he saw; he was less pleased with what he heard. Betty’s voice tended to go up in pitch when she was excited, and Hawks wanted an actress with a strong, unshakeable tone. To achieve the desired effect, Betty recited page after page of Lloyd C. Douglas’s biblical epic, The Robe, reading it aloud in a low-pitched voice. At about the same time a young actress with more experience was attempting to correct her own tendency to speak in a high register. Riding along with her boyfriend, Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball suddenly began to scream. Alarmed, he asked what was wrong. Nothing, she assured him. She had been instructed to lower her voice an octave or two, and Katharine Hepburn said that screaming was the best way. “Okay,” responded Desi. “You scream and I’ll drive.” Contraltos were all the rage that season.

  While Betty was acquiring a sultry voice, Slim Hawks advised her on clothing and shoes and general demeanor. Howard also changed her first name—there were enough Bettys in movies: Betty Grable, Betty Hutton, Bette Davis. Lauren had something intriguing to it, something sexy. Lauren tripped off the tongue; Lauren Bacall would stand out on marquees. When both the Hawkses were satisfied with their new protégée, Howard took Lauren to the set of Passage to Marseilles and introduced her to Humphrey. The meeting was pleasant but perfunctory. Contrary to legend, no steamy looks were exchanged, no suggestive remarks made. Nor did anything occur when the two ran into each other outside Howard Hawks’s office. Humphrey smiled, mentioned To Have and Have Not, and predicted reassuringly, “We�
�re going to have a lot of fun together.” And they went their separate ways.

  v

  The screenplay of To Have and Have Not emerged from a dare. Hawks knew Ernest Hemingway well enough to go fishing with him in 1939. The author grumbled about film adaptations of his work, and his guest responded by calling him “a damn fool.” Hawks reminded Hemingway that Hollywood movie money was just as green as New York publisher royalties. “If I make three dollars in a picture, you get one of them. I can make a picture out of your worst story.” Hemingway was curious: “What’s my worst story?” “That God-damned piece of junk called To Have and Have Not.” In a way, Hawks was right. Published in 1936, Hemingway’s first novel since A Farewell to Arms was actually two short stories and a novella with the same characters. It featured some classic passages, but was dragged down by a self-conscious tone of social significance. For the first and last time, a Hemingway work reflected a literary fashion. In the view of those on the left, writers like Thornton Wilder were useless to the cause. In Clifford Odets’s opinion, Wilder wrote “chambermaid literature.” Odets amplified his position in the leftist New Masses: “Send us a giant who can shame our writers to their task of civilizing America. Send a soldier who has studied history. Send a strong poet who loves the masses and their future.… Send a Man.” Hemingway attempted to be that Man in To Have and Have Not, and learned from the hostile criticism and slumping sales that he had failed.

  “You can’t make anything out of that,” he told Hawks. “Yes, I can,” the director insisted. “You’ve got the character of Harry Morgan; I think I can give you the wife. All you have to do is make a story about how they met.”

  Four years later it was Hawks, along with Furthman and Faulkner, who made the story, reworking plot and locale until the original was virtually unrecognizable. The central character remained Harry Morgan, skipper of a boat running between Key West and Cuba during the Great Depression. In the book, Morgan tries to make an honest living, supporting his wife and three daughters by taking sportsmen out for deep-sea fishing. But when one of them cheats him out of a large fee, he turns to the dangerous work of shipping contraband. First he runs illegal rum between Cuba and the States, and loses an arm during a shoot-out with U.S. government agents. Then he runs Cuban revolutionaries, and dies in the process.

  It would not do for a film star to lose either a limb or his life, and besides, Cuba was deemed irrelevant during World War II. The mise-en-scène was relocated to French Martinique, and the time changed from the mid-1930s to the beginning of the war. Morgan is single, and his alcoholic pal Eddie (Walter Brennan)—a serious character in the book—is played for laughs (“Ever been stung by a dead bee?”).

  Filming began on February 29, 1944. Mayo stopped by to check out her husband’s new co-star. If she saw something special, she didn’t say anything audible. After all, Lauren Bacall was only nineteen years old. Mayo was amused to see the kid’s self-assurance vanish when the cameras rolled. Lauren held a cigarette in her right hand and said her first line, “Anybody got a match?” On the first two takes her hand shook so discernibly the film was useless. Encouraged by the director, she took a couple of deep breaths, said the line in a husky, commanding tone, kept her head low, and peered up at Humphrey with a heated come-hither look. Hawks thought the stare wasn’t much in person, but it seemed to work on camera. Whether it would hold up throughout the movie was another matter entirely. He hoped for the best.

  Two nights later, Humphrey and Mayo attended the Academy Awards ceremonies at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. For the price of ten dollars, anyone could buy a ticket at the box office. Formerly, the Oscars had been given out at a special dinner closed to the public. In 1944 Hollywood, however, democracy reigned supreme.

  For Casablanca fans, and of course for Warner Bros., the evening had its disappointments. In the category of Best Actor, Humphrey lost to Paul Lukas, the lead in Watch on the Rhine. Ingrid Bergman had been nominated not as Ilsa but as Maria, the Spanish partisan in For Whom the Bell Tolls, and she lost to Jennifer Jones, centerpiece of the pious Song of Bernadette. Ingrid appeared in the nominated documentary Swedes in America. That didn’t win either; the U.S. Navy film December 7th took first place. In the category of Supporting Actor, Claude Rains lost to Charles Coburn, featured in the comedy The More the Merrier. Arthur Miller’s black-and-white cinematography for Song of Bernadette was judged superior to Arthur Edelson’s for Casablanca, and Max Steiner’s score for the same film gave way to Alfred Newman’s for Bernadette.

  Yet all was not lost. When the Academy got around to recognizing scenarios, Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch received a statuette for Best Screenplay. The Epsteins were in New York working on a stage play; Koch accepted the award, graciously thanking all concerned. Better still, Michael Curtiz took Best Director. According to Koch, the Hungarian arrived onstage breathless and unprepared. Throughout the years, Curtiz told the audience, he was “always a bridesmaid, never a mother.” At last he had his reward. And best of all, in the Best Picture category Casablanca beat out some formidable competition: the adaptation of For Whom the Bell Tolls; a fantasy-comedy, Heaven Can Wait; a biography, Madame Curie; a Western, The Ox-Bow Incident; a religious allegory, The Song of Bernadette; and three World War II—themed films, In Which We Serve, The Human Comedy, and The More the Merrier.

  A bit of one-upmanship then occurred. Jack Warner leapt to his feet and grabbed the statuette before Hal Wallis could get to the stage. The livid producer could only return to his seat and fume while Warner traded lines with the master of ceremonies, radio comedian Jack Benny. A few minutes later Wallis received a different kind of recognition when he went onstage to accept the Irving Thalberg Award, given for a commendable body of work. But it did not assuage his wounded feelings. Their relationship had never been comfortable; Casablanca provided them with a casus belli. The two men never worked together again.

  vi

  The liaison began before anyone noticed—including the principals. Lauren had written to her mother about Humphrey; her name in the movie was Slim, and Humphrey’s was Steve. The two would “kid around—he’s always gagging—trying to break me up and is very, very fond of me.” Fond was all he was, until about three weeks into filming. As work ended, Humphrey stopped by her dressing room. He was standing behind her, Lauren recalled in her memoir, By Myself, joking as usual. Suddenly he leaned over, put his hand under her chin, and kissed her. “It was impulsive—he was a bit shy—no lunging wolf tactics.” Humphrey took a worn book of matches out of his pocket and asked her to write her phone number on the back. She did, even though she knew that her co-star was married to a notorious drinker and fighter, “a tough lady who would hit you with an ashtray, lamp, anything, as soon as not.”

  They began to see each other, tentatively getting closer. “I was an innocent sexually,” Lauren confessed, and Humphrey “began awakening feelings that were new to me.” Hollywood is a small town, and a movie set is a village where no secret can be kept for long. Even though Humphrey and Lauren tried to be discreet, their body language and the way they delivered their dialogue gave the whole show away. Hawks used it to great effect, building up Lauren’s part, and giving her the best lines in the film: “You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve. You don’t have to say anything, and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together—and blow.”

  Nevertheless, the director disapproved of the affair and let Lauren know it. When he brought Betty Bacall to Hollywood, he scolded her, “I thought, ‘This girl is really something.’ Then you started fooling around with Bogart. For one thing, it means nothing to him—this sort of thing happens all the time, he’s not serious about you.” When the picture wrapped, he warned, Humphrey would forget all about her. If she continued to see him, Hawks said he would wash his hands of Lauren and sell her contract to Monogram, then considered the cheapest B-picture studio in town. She diss
olved in tears and promised not to get involved with Bogart away from the sound stage. At the same time, and for the same reasons, Humphrey started to hit the bottle harder than usual. At a party he was introduced to a fighter for the Free French underground, in town to raise money for his cause. The visitor recognized the movie star and issued a challenge: “Do something tough.”

  “You got the wrong guy,” Humphrey informed him.

  “I can eat glass,” the Frenchman persisted. He proceeded to crunch a champagne glass with his teeth. Humphrey applauded.

  “I can also eat razor blades.” He produced some and put them in his mouth. “If you can’t do that, let’s mix some drinks.”

  That was more like it. They made a potion of brandy, crème de menthe, Scotch, gin, bourbon, vermouth, and champagne. Humphrey matched him drink for drink.

  The challenger pressed on. “I still don’t think you’re tough. You can’t eat glass.”

  “Oh, I can so,” Humphrey insisted. He took a cocktail glass and chewed the top and worked his way down to the stem. Blood gushed from his mouth.

  “I guess you are all right,” the Frenchman conceded. “We are both very tough guys. Let us go now and insult women together.”

  It was only a question of days before Humphrey cracked wide open. One afternoon unit manager Eric Stacy was compelled to file a disturbing report. The actor had failed to show up at the appointed time of 8:30 a.m. When Stacy went to the Bogart home he encountered an extremely hostile Mayo. Humphrey materialized, whereupon “the atmosphere became extremely strained. I felt that my presence there would serve no useful purpose since Bogart himself kept asking, ‘Are we holding a wake?’