Humphrey Bogart

by Darwin Porter

  She found that the press was sympathetic to her fantasies. If anybody valued her stage career more than her home life, it was Helen M herself. She officially charged Hump with “desertion, cruelty, and abuse.”

  His upcoming divorce was splashed all over the New York newspapers because the names of Helen Menken and, to a lesser extent, Humphrey Bogart, were well known on Broadway. In Chicago neither actor was known.

  Fearing that Helen had permanently damaged his professional reputation, Hump wrote Bill Brady Jr. “All this crap that Helen has been tossing at me in the press is going to smell up my career on Broadway. I fear there will be no roles waiting for me when I come back. I’ll be blacklisted.”

  Bill wrote back that Hump need not worry. “What are friends for?” he asked in a letter. “Between Dad, Alice, or me, a job will be waiting for you on Broadway. We’ll see to that.”

  To forget Helen and the divorce mess swirling around him, Hump drank even more heavily than before—and that was a lot. After the curtain went down every night, he headed for the speakeasies of Chicago. He’d never realized it before, but Chicago seemed to have as many good-looking and available chorus girls as New York.

  After the first week of making the rounds, he wrote Bill of his conquests. “So far, I’ve been having auditions nightly. On some occasions, two or three auditions a night. Want to know what I’ve concluded? There is not one single virgin in Chicago. If I find one, I’ll take care of that problem.”

  ***

  When Hump returned from Chicago, he continued to make the rounds of the speakeasies with Bill Brady and Kenneth MacKenna. MacKenna wasn’t playing around very much, as he was steadily dating that cute little blonde, Mary Philips, who had appeared with Hump and him in Nerves.

  Married or not, Bill seemed to be free every night after the show to join Hump in a tour of the speakeasies, hitting clubs like Hotsy-Totsy, Chez Flo, the Bandbox, and the Clamhouse.

  Hump was staring thirty in the face, and in between booze and chorus girls, he expressed fears about his future to Bill. “How long can I go on playing juveniles? Already I’m getting a little long in the tooth for the roles I’m cast into, some of which would be more suited to a nineteen-year old.”

  “You need a real meaty part,” Bill said, “and I’m sorry I haven’t been able to offer you one.”

  “I’m grateful for the work you’ve given me,” Hump said. “Don’t get me wrong. But I need something juicier.”

  “Have you considered films?” Bill asked.

  “What could I play?” Hump asked. “Scarface? This fucking lip of mine would look great blown up on the silver screen.”

  “Get it operated on,” Bill advised. “You’ll never remove the scar but you could get rid of that scallop.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “I’ll talk to my dad about it. After all, he was the one who gave it to me.”

  When Hump visited his parents the following day, he found them separated. He hadn’t seen either Maud or Belmont for several months, nor had he called them. Belmont had become increasingly addicted to morphine, and had lost their elegant town house because of bad investments. He was forced to move into a small apartment in the East 40s.

  Facing failing health and a declining medical practice, Belmont still went out on call as a ship’s doctor. When not at sea, he spent most of his time in bed. Maud lived in an apartment next door, and money from her art work supported not only her but took care of most of Belmont’s ever-growing number of bills.

  Hump was saddened to see both parents in severe decline after having known such prestige and prosperity when they were listed in Dau’s New York Blue Book.

  Hump called on Maud first. Her face was drawn into bitter lines, and she looked dissipated and filled with despair. “I go next door and cook his breakfast every morning. I also go over and see that he has a decent dinner—that is, when I can get him to eat anything. He has these attacks at times, and I have to hire nurses for him, paying out money I can ill afford.”

  “What kind of attacks?” Hump asked.

  “Attacks,” she said, dismissing the question. “You always want to know everything.”

  “Are you guys going to get a divorce?” he asked.

  “I have no intention of doing that,” she said. “But your father’s getting too weak to travel on ships any more. I fear he’s going to be bedridden for the few years that remain to him.”

  “Are you still taking morphine too?” he asked.

  “Why don’t you go see your father and let me alone this morning?” she said. “I have a job. Not a well-paying assignment but a job, and I need to devote all my time to it—not to your questions.”

  “I love you,” he protested. “I want to know.”

  “Do I interfere in your life?” she asked, her fury reflected in her stern face. “Did I ask you why you married a lesbian? Why you lay out drunk every night in speakeasies, picking up floozies like your father used to bring home sailor riffraff from the wharves? Do I interrogate you about why you continue in an illicit friendship with that Jew, Bill Brady? The stories spread about him.”

  “Bill is my friend, and he’s going to stay my friend.”

  “Please leave,” she said. “Just leave. My nerves are shattered.”

  Next door, Hump found Belmont in unusually good spirits, or else he was putting on a brave show for his son. The doctor carefully avoided talk of his failed marriage, his declining career, and his reduced circumstances in life. Unlike Maud, Belmont seemed eager to hear about his son’s many “triumphs” in the theater, and Hump exaggerated his achievements and praise.

  “The one thing I can’t understand,” Belmont said, “is why you’re always compared to Valentino when there’s a write-up about you in the press. I just don’t see the resemblance. Besides, he’s long dead.”

  “I don’t get it either,” Hump said. “There are worse comparisons, though. At least they don’t think I look like that rapist, Fatty Arbuckle.”

  Hump told him that Bill Brady Jr. had suggested a possible career for him in films. He was hesitant to bring up his lip disfigurement since Belmont was to blame for that.

  Without ever excusing what he’d done to his son, Belmont said, “I can’t remove the scar, but I can do minor surgery and get rid of that scallop. After all, when you become a big-time movie star, and the camera moves in for a close-up, you don’t need all that extra skin blown up to giant size on the silver screen. I’ll operate this morning.”

  “You mean, right now?” Hump asked, wondering if Belmont was in any condition to operate on him and fearing that the surgery might lead to greater disfigurement.

  “I didn’t raise a sissy for a son,” Belmont said, rising slowly from his bed. “Go into my clinic down the hall and take off your shirt. We might as well get this over with if you’re planning to go to Hollywood one day. Since Valentino died early in life, and no other actor has replaced him, it might as well be my son, Humphrey Bogart. But you’ll have to come up with a less sissy name than Humphrey for the marquee.”

  ***

  Taking Bill’s challenge of going to Hollywood seriously, Hump went alone to see The Jazz Singer, that partially talking picture starring Al Jolson. The word reaching New York was that in a year or two recorded human voices would be heard in all future films. Since many stars in Hollywood had awful voices, there was going to be a demand for Broadway actors trained in speaking parts.

  Hump still had his slight lisp, but at least he no longer had that scallop on his lip thanks to Belmont.

  The Jazz Singer had been running for several months before Hump got around to seeing it, and he was impressed, trying to imagine his face on the silver screen. He’d also heard that the pay in Hollywood was much better than it was in the New York theater.

  After seeing the film, he went a few blocks down the street to a Manhattan theater where the actress, Mary Halliday, was appearing in a play. On October 26, 1925, Helen had taken him to the opening of Halliday’s play, Eas
y Come, Easy Go, and he’d liked the actress and wanted to call on her and wish her luck. He had learned that actresses like Grace George might occasionally recommend him for future roles in their plays, so he felt it was important to keep in touch with some of the many theatrical celebrities he’d met through Helen.

  Backstage on the way to see Halliday, he encountered another Mary. Mary Philips, the actress with whom he’d appeared with his “second best friend,” Kenneth MacKenna, in the 1924 play, Nerves. He’d all but forgotten Mary, but remembered that he’d objected to the sexy way that she’d walked offstage, upstaging his best scene in the play.

  To his surprise, Hump saw Kenneth emerging from the men’s room, walking toward them. Kenneth approached Mary and kissed her on the mouth, possessively putting his arm around her as if to signal his fellow pussy posse member to back off in case he had any designs on Mary.

  After the actors paid their respects to Halliday, Hump invited Mary and Kenneth to join him for “drinks, fun, and maybe a little dinner” at Sardi’s.

  Over drinks, Mary told Hump how sorry she was to learn of the breakup of his marriage to Helen. “Frankly,” Mary said, after a few drinks, “I was surprised she wanted to marry any man. The rumor along Broadway was that you and Helen kept a scoreboard every week to see how many young actresses each of you could seduce. In spite of your reputation as a ladies’ man, I was told that Helen beats your score virtually every weekend.”

  Instead of making him boil, Hump laughed and ordered another drink. What Mary had just said to him was what he might have said to someone. It seemed she liked to kid and needle people as much as he did.

  Kenneth remained aloof from their conversation. The more they drank and the more fun they seemed to be having, the more Kenneth resented it. He reminded Hump several times that he and Mary were seriously considering marriage. Although Kenneth could drink as much as Hump could, he ordered only bottled club soda. “Someone’s got to keep a clear head. Otherwise the two of you will never find your way home.”

  When Kenneth got up to go to the men’s room again, Mary slipped Hump her phone number and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Mae West is always telling stage-door johnnies to come up and see her some time. I can’t think of a better way to say it.”

  “Invitation accepted.” Then, as he was to tell Brady Jr., Mary did something that shocked him. She reached under the table and placed her delicate hand in his crotch, fondling him.

  Kenneth was so anxious to return to table that he came back into the dining room still zipping up. Mary discreetly removed her hand from Hump’s crotch. She was giving him a hard-on.

  She had come a long way since her days in that New Haven convent. Hump was determined to seduce Mary, even though he knew that his friend, Brady, and obviously Kenneth had sampled the honeypot long before he’d get a taste.

  In the weeks ahead, Hump got to know Mary very well. She visited him three or four times a week at his apartment. Since she was unofficially engaged to Kenneth, she didn’t want to be seen at any of the Broadway dives with Hump. Sometimes she would arrive a bit disheveled at Hump’s apartment, and he knew that she’d just risen from Kenneth’s bed. “It’s sloppy seconds for me again today,” he’d kid her.

  Although she didn’t have the professional stature of Helen, Mary was an established Broadway star when she met Hump. From that very first night at Sardi’s, Hump realized that, especially when a total of five fans stopped by their table to ask for her autograph. Although they were also established actors on Broadway, neither Hump nor Kenneth attracted autograph seekers.

  Hump later told Bill that he wasn’t even considering marriage, “and if I do it will to be a Roaming in the Gloaming type. And if I marry anybody, it will be Mary Philips. New England and Irish, the perfect combination for me.”

  “If you do marry Mary, I can vouch that your future wife’s not bad in the sack. That’s one hot little number.”

  That provocative remark didn’t make Hump mad because he already knew of the affair Bill had had with Mary. He sipped his drink and cast a steely glance at Bill. “Your wife’s not bad in the sack either. Dear Katherine. I did have to teach her a few tricks, though.”

  ***

  “Kenneth has officially proposed,” Mary said one morning when rising from Hump’s bed after a night of passionate lovemaking. “He’s even bought the ring.”

  “Did you accept?” Hump asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

  “I’ve asked him to give me a month to make up my mind.” Completely nude, she towered over Hump who remained in bed. “At the end of the month, if I don’t have an official proposal of marriage—engagement ring and everything—from one Humphrey Bogart, I’m marrying Kenneth.” With that remark, she turned and walked toward his bathroom to repair the damages of the night.

  The next few days were agonizing ones for Hump. At speakeasies, he had long, drunken talks with Bill about what he should do. “For God’s sake, marry her,” Bill advised.

  “What about Kenneth?” Hump asked. “He is one of my best friends. I think if I take Mary from him, it will break his heart.”

  “There are a lot of beautiful women on Broadway who will mend Kenneth’s heart,” Bill said. “He’s one handsome guy. Most women think he’s far better looking than we are. He’s wildly popular with the gals. A month after your marriage, he will have forgotten all about Mary.”

  The next night at Tony’s, it was painful for Hump to listen to Kenneth’s plans for his future life with Mary. “We’re not even married yet, and already we’re having fights.”

  “What kind of fights?” Hump asked, more than curious.

  “Stuart thinks I’m Hollywood material, and I’m planning to go to the coast.”

  Hump’s brother-in-law, Stuart Rose, had become the East Coast story editor for the Fox Film Corporation.

  “When do you think you’ll go?” Hump asked.

  “As soon as Mary and I get married. I’m taking her to LA with me. A woman’s place is beside her husband wherever he goes. Mary believes that the theater is the only true calling for an actor. She thinks movies are for ridiculous types like the late Valentino or that daffy blonde, Mae Murray. Or larger-than-life types like Gloria Swanson or Erich von Stroheim.”

  “You’ve got a problem, guy,” Hump said. “Don’t get Mary’s Irish up. That’s one determined broad.”

  “So she thinks,” Kenneth said. “I’m more stubborn than she is. Within two years, I predict, I’m going to become the biggest male star in motion pictures. When I come home at night, Mary’s going to have a pot of Irish stew bubbling on the stove and my slippers waiting at the door.”

  “Dream on,” Hump said, realizing how little Kenneth understood Mary’s fierce determination to succeed on the stage.

  Exactly one day before Hump’s marriage proposal deadline with Mary ran out, he asked her to become his second wife. Remembering his four-year engagement to Helen, he told her he wanted to get married as soon as they could get a license and a minister.

  Mary accepted and kissed him long, hard, and passionately. Even so, he was in for a surprise. It would be the beginning of many surprises in their years together. “I want to go and sleep with Kenneth tonight,” she said. “A night of grand love-making. I feel I owe him that.”

  “Fuck that!” Hump protested. “You’ll do nothing of the sort. You’re my broad now. I’ve staked my claim.”

  “What do you think I am?” she asked. “Some Broadway cow you own in your stable? A big tit bovine you’ve branded with a hot iron? When I agreed to marry you, I didn’t say I’d swear off other men. No marriage can work unless a husband and wife are free to have sex with others.”

  Echoes of his recently failed marital arrangement with Helen resounded in his head. Did all Broadway actresses believe in an open marriage? Not wanting to repeat the mistakes he’d made with Helen, he turned on Mary. “What crap!” he yelled at her. “Many married couples are faithful to each other. Have you ever heard of the vow, forsaking
all others?”

  “I suppose the next thing you’ll throw at me is the perfect marriage of your parents. It was idyllic all right, just so long as Belmont could cruise the waterfront and bring home sailors. Or that Maud could have a discreet affair or two on the side. You told me that yourself.”

  “My own parents are hardly an example I would want to follow,” he said.

  “What about your marriage to Menken?” she demanded to know. “Everybody up and down Broadway knows that the two of you slept with everything that had two legs and could spread them.”

  “My marriage with Helen failed,” he said. “I don’t want that to happen to us!”

  “Maybe there’s going to be no God damn marriage,” she said. “What are you, some fucking Puritan? I’m not going to agree to marry you unless you let me continue to sleep with Kenneth. And maybe some other good-looking guys I meet. My only promise to you is that these guys will always be actors. That way, we’ll keep it in our Broadway family.”

  “That is the sickest talk I’ve ever heard,” he said, turning from her in disgust.

  “Yeah,” she said, confronting him. “But it sounds healthy to me. A lot healthier than those three-ways you and Helen had with Tallulah Bankhead. That cozy arrangement had all of Broadway talking. I’ve heard that you’ve even had three-ways with Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.”

  “That’s a God damn lie.”

  “You were seen kissing Fitzgerald in the elevator of the Plaza Hotel.”

  “That was just some drunken game we were playing that night,” he said.

  “When I fuck Kenneth tonight, I’ll make sure we’re drunk and that it’s all a game,” she said defiantly. “I don’t care what you say. I’m going to do what I God damn please.” She stormed out of his living room, heading for the door.

  “Forget I ever proposed to a whore like you,” he shouted to her departing back. Even when stalking out of the apartment, she still had that same sexy walk she’d used on the stage in Nerves. “I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last blonde slut on Broadway, which you aren’t. Your type is a dime a dozen.”