Bogie & Bacall

May 1, 2023
Biographer Mann (The Contender) spotlights screen legends Humphrey Bogart (1899–1957) and Lauren Bacall (1924–2014) in this engrossing examination of the couple’s intertwined careers and mythologized romance. Emotionally deprived rich boy Bogart found his niche on Broadway in the 1935 play The Petrified Forest (the first in which Bogart “glimpsed his own potential,” according to Mann). Later roles in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca cemented his status as a cinematic icon. Meanwhile, alluring magazine photos of New York–born model Bacall helped get her cast in director Howard Hawks’s 1944 film To Have and Have Not. Her chemistry with costar Bogart, then 25 years her senior, caught fire while shooting the famous scene in which her character teaches his to whistle, sparking a passion that led to their marriage a year later. Mann traces the development of the “Bogart-Bacall brand,” a screen team whose electric appeal drew audiences to such box office hits as The Big Sleep, and details the couple’s trials, including fights, rumored affairs, and Bogart’s alcoholism. Scrupulously attending to the distinct personalities, cultural conditions, and media environment that joined forces to create “arguably Hollywood’s greatest love story,” Mann delivers a spirited narrative that’s hard to put down despite its heft. Film buffs will eat this up.

May 15, 2023
Drama in the lives of legendary actors. Mining recently available archival material, Mann, who has chronicled the lives of Marlon Brando, Barbra Streisand, and Elizabeth Taylor, sifts through myths and gossip about Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957) and Lauren Bacall (1924-2014) to offer a cleareyed, sympathetic dual biography. Bogart, who grew up in a wealthy family devoid of outward displays of affection, harbored a profound sense of inadequacy throughout his life. Mann follows his acting career from stage to screen. He debuted on Broadway in 1922 and won his first movie lead in 1930. In 1936, he starred with movie icons Leslie Howard and Bette Davis in The Petrified Forest, a movie, Mann notes, that "changed everything" for an actor who was "as unlikely a star as they came." But acting success belied personal turmoil. Bogart "was already a serious drinker by the age of twenty-two," and his drunkenness often resulted in public brawls. Married and divorced twice, his third marriage was foundering when he was cast opposite newcomer Bacall--producer Howard Hawks had just changed her name from Betty--in To Have and Have Not. Bacall, 18 at the time, recalled thinking that "he was a good actor, but I never palpitated over him like many a lady did....He was not the prince on the white horse that I had imagined." Nevertheless, by the end of filming, they had become lovers, and in 1945, they married. The ambitious Bacall also craved her absent father's love; despite undeniable success, she felt like an imposter, "unworthy of what she'd been given, while at the same time convinced that she deserved more. She was still the little girl whose father didn't love her." After Bogart's death from cancer, Bacall married hard-drinking Jason Robards Jr., a tumultuous liaison that soon ended; and, happily, she reignited her career on Broadway. A star-studded, well-researched portrait of two superstars.

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