Lauren Bacall - By Myself and Then Some

I give lectures from time to time and the venues have altered through the years. I always like to change the talks a bit depending on the audience and the location. Greg had started to do his ‘Evenings with Gregory Peck’ so I asked him what his format was. He gave me a rough idea and asked if I’d like to see one of his. Yes please, Greg. I would love to. On my return home, there it was, a video of Greg’s evening. It was filled with anecdotes – Irish stories – his movie life – all warmth and laughter. What struck me particularly was the way he answered one question. Someone asked him how he would like to be remembered. His response, after a pause, was that mostly he wanted to be remembered as a good husband, a good father and a good grandfather. Extraordinary – pure Peck!

He of course was all those things but it clearly demonstrated how family oriented he was, how much he valued his wife, his children and grandchildren, his home, how much pride he took in all of it. And I think of what I have missed. Having lived alone for so many, many years, I never had a complete family life. My children and grandchildren are my family but we don’t live in the same cities so we don’t spend that much time together. And I work so much of the time that the work itself is temporary family for me. I love and adore my children and grandchildren but of course one learns very quickly that they have different interests and priorities, so we must do what we can when we can.

L ess than two weeks after Greg’s death, George Axelrod, another friend of fifty years, died. Of course, it was his play, Goodbye Charlie , that brought me back to Broadway and the beginning of making my childhood dream come true. He was a classy man of original ideas and great intelligence. ‘I’m in the hit business, baby,’ he would say to me. And he had been – until Goodbye Charlie which unhappily did not receive favorable reviews. I did – the play didn’t – though it ran to full houses for three months. George could not take the rejection. He felt he was no longer the whiz kid. So when Hollywood beckoned, he left New York and settled in Los Angeles. He worked with Billy Wilder, Josh Logan, and John Frankenheimer. Seven Year Itch , one of his biggest hit plays, was transferred to the big screen to be followed by many more. He was a lovely man, vulnerable followed by hypersensitive. After The Manchurian Candidate , a wildly successful – and finally cult – classic, which he wrote brilliantly, George continued to make contributions to the motion pictures, well received but not compared to Manchurian . He did not feel appreciated, as those of us have felt the same for years, many years. It is the way of the motion picture mind. You start off being the flavor of the month, dwindling down to not being thought of, certainly unappreciated. If you’re over twenty-five years old and not bringing in the big bucks, you are ignored. Not a pretty picture, but an accurate one. It happened to George as it has happened to me and countless others.

Anyway, when he and Joan moved to London they were welcomed with open arms. His talent was respected. He was. Life was good for many years there. Finally, however, what happens in many countries is you feel more like a foreigner, less like you belong, and work is scarce. George was a writer, a good one. He needed to write. So as Joan had a magic touch when it came to living, back to California they went and finally settled happily there. And there they stayed until the end. George had everything to do with my reason to move back to America. And over a period of fifty years, we remained super friends. So once again a piece of my life had been chipped away. Getting older, though necessary, leaves a great deal to be desired.

Katharine Hepburn died eight days later – the final blow of 2003. It was not unexpected – she was ninety-six years old and the quality of her life had not been what she would have wished. But she was there. She was there and I could not conceive of there being a time without her. She was Miss Hepburn – Aunt Kat – Katie – Kate – Kathy (to Spencer Tracy). She was all of those depending upon your relationship. And she was also Katharine. With an ‘A’.

She was loyal – demanding – pure and purely demanding – open – reserved – formally informal – proud – intimidating – exasperating – funny – touching. She was a worker – a riser above everything – passionate in her likes and dislikes – saying what she thought but keeping herself to herself – loving – sentimental – a lover of beauty – of nature. She was there for all who needed her – really needed her and were in need. She was especially, wonderfully, uniquely, one of a kind. For all she was – has been – has given on all levels – publicly or privately – she enhanced this life.

There was more public attention paid her than anyone in memory. Tribute upon tribute on television, newspapers, magazines devoting whole issues to her. It continued for months after her passing. As a woman, she had made a powerful impact on all who didn’t know her. She was independent. She chose her way of life – hurting no one – and never vying for approval. She leaves me with so many pictures of her in so many different places at so many different times. She unknowingly made me aware of ways to live and to behave that were new to me. So although there is a large, empty space in my life without her, there is all that past to remember. She could do so many things. She applied herself. How many surprising, great meals that she cooked when I had evenings with her and Spence.

She painted – she drew a character portrait for Bogie and me. She watercolored a self-portrait for me – delivered the day after I won the Tony for my performance in Applause over hers in Coco . As I read her praise of me written more than thirty years ago, I am filled with nostalgia, great love for this amazing woman and am stunned by her flattery. For better or worse, here it is in her own words:

My own dear friend DESERVED – WARRANTED

All that pure simplicity, unguarded modesty and Boyish courage

poured into a frame of leonine splendor

You ROSE – you CONQUERED

And none could be more pleased than I –

Your smeared* friend, [*referring to the edge of the printing]

Auntie Kate

ON THE OCCASION OF THE TONY AWARDS April 19th 1970

I blushed when I first read it. I blush as I write it now. So flattering – so sweet – that she thought so highly of me. She could never say it, anymore than I could, but she could write it – as I could. Remembering the fifteen-year-old me in the third balcony watching her on stage in The Philadelphia Story – in complete awe – to the meeting of her, getting to know her, during the filming of The African Queen in the wilds of the Belgian Congo and the Victoria Falls, seeing the side of her few would have seen – to being accepted as a true friend despite the difference in our ages – with our bond growing stronger through Bogie’s illness and death – then the following years of closeness as we traveled for work and life in general until Spencer’s death, and being able to talk about our lives on a personal level – to her arriving at my apartment with a small bouquet of flowers in her hand a few hours after I brought my newborn son, Sam, home from the hospital – the first of my friends to set eyes on him – his godmother. Typical Kate – is it any wonder I adored her and felt and told her that ten minutes of her would be worth twenty-four hours of anyone else. Sentimental in spite of herself. When I was very rundown in the Bel-Air Hotel with two-year-old Sam, and Jason living the part of Eugene O’Neill’s Hughie, disappearing – it was Kate who shook me up, telling me, ‘You’ve got to get out of this. You’ve forgotten what a tree looks like – the sky. You have to come down to a beach house I rent in Trancas and breathe the ocean air.’ I did that then and so loved it and the house that I rented it for several years after that, both with and without Jason.