Lauren Bacall - By Myself and Then Some

One day I was having lunch at his poolside and was the last to leave. Finally he walked me to the door. At that moment the door opened. Standing there in white shirt, beige slacks – with a peach complexion, light brown hair, and the most incredible face ever seen by man – was Greta Garbo. I almost gasped out loud as Cole introduced me to her. No make-up – unmatched beauty. It was the only time I saw her at anything but a distance.

I had also been to Howard’s house a few times for dinner. I had gotten to know Slim better – liked her more at each meeting. She was clearly very, very bright, very original in looks and thought, and very straightforward. And with humor. They all had that – particularly Slim, Jean, and Charlie. That saved me. I could put up with anything if I could laugh.

Howard’s friends were Victor Fleming, the director, and his friendly wife, Lou; Harry Carey and his wife, Ollie; Johnny and Ginger Mercer; Hoagy Carmichael; Lee Bowman and his wife, Helene; Hal Rosson – great cameraman; Gary Cooper. There were many more. Some of them, including Van Johnson, used to race motorcycles up and down mountains on Sundays. It was on one such day, I believe, that Van Johnson was seriously hurt. Howard admired Van’s perseverance – the fact that no accident would stop him. I was introduced to people slowly – Howard didn’t want me to be seen too much, particularly before I’d done anything in films. One night in the fall of 1943 Howard and Slim gave a really big party – Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Charlie and Jean (Charlie being the only known Jew who seemed to have gained entrance to Howard’s private life). I stayed close to the piano, listening to Johnny Mercer singing his and other songs, Hoagy Carmichael playing the piano. Lee Bowman was a terrific dancer and I spent a lot of the evening dancing with him and flirting, of course. At one point I was near the piano, dancing by myself – in my own world, but aware of Hawks and others at the far end of the room watching me out of the corners of their eyes. There is strength in being a new young face thrust into a group of people too used to one another. I guess I used that. I wanted something of my own, and, failing that, was willing to flirt outrageously with a man like Lee Bowman. I went a bit far that night and Helene Bowman was less than thrilled with me, for which I could not blame her one bit. Lee took me home – somewhere along the way it was daylight, and I remember sitting on a diving board in my evening dress and then dancing with him. Harmless, and I enjoyed it completely. And that’s as far as it went. Howard and Slim thought the evening was a great success as far as introducing their protégée was concerned. They were pleased. That’s all that mattered to me.

Elsa Maxwell gave an enormous party at Evalyn Walsh McLean’s house, and Jean and Charlie took me. That was a star-studded evening. Mrs McLean was wearing the Hope Diamond, which just looked like an enormous piece of glass to me. The women were all in flowing gowns, adorned with their best jewels; I was in a short tailored dress and sat on the steps in a corner, feeling very alone but watching in awe the movie stars – old, medium, and new – greeting each other and vying for center stage. Names – names – names, and I had to pretend to be cool. I managed until one of my heroes, Robert Montgomery, sauntered over. Robert Montgomery – I couldn’t believe I was meeting him. He sat on the steps and talked to me – actually flirted with me. I thought him wildly attractive. It was time for me to leave, he took me to my car, asked me for my phone number. I gave it to him. He said, ‘Too easy.’ It never occurred to him I might be an innocent virgin who hadn’t a clue as to what he might have in mind. I suppose those men were used to women giving themselves gladly. Nothing could have been further from my mind. That was one of my first experiences with the game that was meant to be played between men and women. I knew nothing, but nothing, except how to go so far and no further. I wanted my romance to be the real thing – total – so I was not good material for that part of the Hollywood scene.

Such was the extent of my social life until the end of 1943. That September I was given a nineteenth-birthday-party lunch by Elsa Maxwell, to which Jean, Hedda Hopper, Mrs McLean, and a few other people were invited. It was a nice thing for her to do. She had a cake for me, and Hedda Hopper wrote a small piece in her column about it. That was my first mention in an important Hollywood column. Was I impressed with myself!

One day before the year’s end Howard asked me to come out to Warner Bros. He had been working on an idea that had been germinating for some time in his head. He had told me about his friendship with Ernest Hemingway, about their manly pursuits – hunting, shooting together. And fishing, natch. He owned the rights to a book of Hemingway’s that I had never heard of called To Have and Have Not and had thought he would someday make a movie of it. He wanted to use Humphrey Bogart as the male lead. Bogart was making a film called Passage to Marseille at the time and Howard said, ‘Let’s go down on the set and see what’s going on.’ Not a word about the possibility of my working. The Passage to Marseille sound stage was enormous and bare. Howard walked me over toward some light where the set was and the next scene was being lit by the cameraman and his crew. Michèle Morgan was sitting on a bench on the set. Howard told me to stay put, he’d be right back – which he was, with Bogart. He introduced us. There was no clap of thunder, no lightning bolt, just a simple how-do-you-do. Bogart was slighter than I imagined – five feet ten and a half, wearing his costume of no-shape trousers, cotton shirt, and scarf around neck. Nothing of import was said – we didn’t stay long – but he seemed a friendly man.

My first California Christmas was eventful only in that the sun was shining and it was swimming weather, as opposed to the white Christmases I had known. Howard and Slim gave me a beige gabardine suit and a brown silk blouse, which I never took off. Jean and Charlie gave me a silk scarf and a white silk shirt. They were the best-quality clothing I’d ever had and I was thrilled with them. Mother and I spent the day quietly and cozily, calling New York and speaking to the family. Wrote to everyone else. It was our first holiday time completely alone, but we were in California after all and that wasn’t too bad.

J ust after Christmas I was called to the studio by Howard and he gave me the only present I wanted from life. It was a scene from To Have and Have Not . He was going to make the movie – he had Bogart – it would start in February 1944, and he wanted me to test for it right after the first of the year. I read the scene – it was the ‘whistle’ scene. I was to do the test with John Ridgely, an actor under contract to Warner Bros. whom Howard had used before and liked. I couldn’t believe it. Was it really true I might actually get a part – go to work? I was on cloud ten – a very high, comfortable cloud, far from reality. He had mentioned the possibility of using me to Humphrey Bogart and it was fine with him – he’d been shown my first test, of course, and would be shown the second. Bogart was in Casablanca entertaining the troops and would not return before mid-January. Howard said he’d rehearse Ridgely and me every day, but nothing was definite – a lot depended on the quality of the test and Jack Warner’s approval. It was very generous of John Ridgely to test with an unknown – he was getting good parts at Warners and was offering his time with nothing to gain but goodwill. Another example of an actor’s generosity to another actor.

Not a word was to be said to anyone until a decision had been made. Charlie knew, of course, and when I called him, hysterical with joy, he laughed and said, ‘See, I told you something would happen when Howard was ready.’ In response to questions I dared not ask Howard (I could ask Charlie anything), he told me he thought my chance of getting the part was good – that Howard would not be making the test unless he thought so too.