Synopses & Reviews
Chapter OneBogie and the Original Rat PackIt was called the Holmby Hills Rat Pack, and Frank Sinatra was one of its leading members. But it was not his Rat Pack; it was Bogie's. Humphrey Bogart. His friend and idol -- and rival in love. Bogart was already sixteen years old when Sinatra was born. He'd made his first film over a decade before Sinatra made his. But he made quite an impression on the singer. Sinatra liked Bogie's style; he liked his attitude; he liked, in particular, Bogart's wife.When pretty nineteen-year-old Lauren Bacall found out that her mentor Howard Hawks was thinking of putting her in a picture with either Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart, she said to herself, "Cary Grant -- terrific! Humphrey Bogart -- yucch! "Humphrey DeForest Bogart had been born in New York city in 1899. He came from a good family: his mother was an illustrator for top magazines and his father a prominent surgeon. They had big plans for their boy -- precollege studies at the exclusive Phillips Academy in Massachusetts, then on to a medical degree at Yale -- which were stymied by Humphrey's expulsion from Phillips for bad behavior and the encroachment of World War I. Legend has it his trademark lisp resulted from a facial injury he endured in the Navy when his ship was torpedoed. While this injury may have affected certain nerves around the mouth -- giving him that tight, clipped way of speaking -- he may well have lisped since birth.When Bogie was twenty-one and had spent some time doing assorted tasks for a Broadway producer who was friends with his parents, he decided that what he really wanted to do was act. He went back and forth from Broadway to Hollywood in a succession of supporting rolesthat did little to further his career. It was his role in the play "The Petrified Forest by Robert E. Sherwood in 1935 that got him his first big break. Warner Bros. wanted somebody else to play Duke Mantee in the film version of the hit play, but star Leslie Howard -- who was set to repeat his stage role in the film adaptation -- insisted Bogart be cast instead of Edward G. Robinson.Still, Bogart was not an overnight success. There followed many more gangster roles in "B" movies, nothing that would put him over the top. However, roles in such films as "High Sierra (1941), "The Maltese Falcon (1941), and, of course, "Casablanca (1942), finally made him a household name and a major Hollywood presence. Arguably Bogart made his strongest impression in "Falcon, at his best when he's being all angry and moral with his murderous client Mary Astor.Bogie was always an odd choice to become a movie star. His homeliness and rough manner (at least on-screen) belied his uppercrust background, and the lisp hardly added to his appeal. He could be extremely effective in certain pictures that were within his range or employed his peculiar abilities, such as "The Maltese Falcon or "The Caine Mutiny, but no one could seriously claim that he was ever a truly great actor. He was an anomaly in Hollywood: he had the looks of a character actor but the talent of a star. (The reverse is equally infrequent.)Bogart had been married three times before he met Lauren "Betty" Bacall and was still married to wife number three, Mayo Methot. His first wife was a Broadway actress named Helen Menken, but they ran into difficulties when she spent -- as far as he was concerned -- too much attention on her career. A similarsituation occurred with wife number two, Mary Philips. Third wife Mayo Methot was another actress. He had had a quickie affair with Mayo during a prolonged separation from Mary, but his guilt only lasted until he discovered Mary was having an affair with her co-star in Chicago, Roland Young. After his and Mary's divorce, Bogart felt marrying Mayo would be the right thing to do. It wasn't.Bogart had had difficulty with his early wives' successes when he was still a struggling actor, but now the situation was reversed. Bogie became a star while Mayo's career limped along. Before long she was a hopeless alcoholic and a hellcat par excellence. She would accuse Bogie of having affairs with each and every one of his leading ladies, get into drunken arguments -- and physical brawls -- with him, and even tried to literally stab him in the back with a kitchen knife on one occasion. Mayo could also be counted on to start humiliating public scenes whenever they went out. All of Hollywood knew them as "The Battling Bogarts."This situation wasn't helped at all by Bogart's being cast in "To Have and Have Not (1944). His co-star was a pretty teenager who was the proté gé of producer/director Howard Hawks: Lauren Bacall. Hawks at this time was a bespectacled, white-haired, middle-aged-going-on-elderly man who pretended, at first, that his interest in Lauren was strictly professional. Bogart first met Lauren when Hawks brought her to the set of "Passage to Marseille, which Bogart was doing for director Michael Curtiz. "There was no clap of thunder, no lightning bolt, just a simple how-do-you-do," Bacall remembered. Bacall thought that Bogart was friendly enough, but other than that he madelittle impression on her.That all changed once the two of them began working together. Bogart saw two screen tests that Lauren did and approved her for his leading lady, although she would have had to have been pretty bad for him to turn her down considering how high Hawks was on using her -- not to mention how high he was on Lauren period. Later on this would cause major problems for Bogie and Bacall.During the days of rehearsal in Hawks's office for the second screen test -- another actor sat in for Bogart as Hawks worked...
Synopsis
The Rat Pack -- Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop -- had talent, money, and power to burn. They also had something else even more important.They had fun. About the Author
Lawrence J. Quirk is a long-time Rat Pack fan who knew the fabulous five in their hey-day in Las Vegas. One of the country's foremost film historians, he has written numerous books and has been a film critic, writer, and editor for many publications. He lives in New York City.
William Schoell has written several entertainment-related works of fiction and nonfiction. He lives in New York City.