And the Rest Is History (20 page)

When
To Have and Have Not
wrapped, Bogart did not forget Lauren and sent her a love letter: “And now I know what was meant by ‘to say good-bye is to die a little.‘” He also gave her a gold ID bracelet; on one side was her name, and on the other were the words
the whistler
. However, he still was not willing to end his marriage. For her part, Mayo tried to stay on the wagon and change her behavior; she knew how enamored her husband was of the young and beautiful starlet.

At that juncture, Mary Chase's play
Harvey
was debuting in New York; it was the story of a man in love with a giant rabbit who was invisible. In deference to the fact that Humphrey was supposed to have ended the affair to placate his wife, Lauren bought Bogie a small bronze rabbit to signify that Harvey absent was Harvey still.

Finally, during their second film together,
The Big Sleep
, it became apparent to all members of the ménage à trois that Mayo had thrown her last plate. Rick Blaine in
Casablanca
was willing to let Ilsa get on the plane; Humphrey Bogart, however, could not let go of Bacall. Mayo, not able to admit otherwise, admitted defeat and agreed to a Reno divorce. As soon as the ink was dry, Bogie and Bacall were married in a quiet ceremony at the country home of Humphrey's close friend, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louis Bromfield, at Malabar Farm in Ohio, on May 21, 1945. The head of Warner Brothers, Jack Warner, gave the couple the Buick from
The Big Sleep
(one of the four movies they were to star in together). Bogart joked that the “something old” was himself, and despite his tough-guy image, he cried as he watched “Baby” walking down the aisle.

Humphrey, the highest paid actor in Hollywood, purchased a white brick mansion in an exclusive neighborhood in Holmby Hills, replete with two Jaguars and three Boxers. One of their neighbors was close friend Judy Garland. A few years later their son, Stephen, was born, named after Humphrey's character in
To Have and Have Not
; this was followed by the birth of their daughter, Leslie, named after the British actor Leslie Howard, a friend of Bogart's who had been killed in World War II. Lauren kept her finger in acting, though she considered her greatest role that of Humphrey's wife. She was on location when he starred in
The African Queen
, as happy being a homemaker in the African jungle as on their Californian estate. It was a decision she never regretted. In her autobiography,
Lauren Bacall by Myself
, she wrote, “Whenever I hear the word happy now, I think of then.”

The Bogie and Bacall marriage was an extremely happy one until an afternoon in 1956 when the Grim Reaper knocked at the Holmby Hills door. Bogie had come home and told his wife that he had run into Greer Garson, who advised him to see her doctor about his cough. Humphrey, who had always been a heavy smoker, had contracted cancer of the esophagus. An operation was undertaken, but it was too late to spread the halt of the disease. At age fifty-seven, Hollywood's once most romantic lead and resident tough guy was bedridden, his frame wasted away to eighty pounds.

In January 1957, Lauren was getting ready to pick up her children from Sunday school. Before departing, she asked Humphrey if he felt better after his terrible night, to which he replied, “It's always better in the daylight.” She kissed him, and he said his last words to his first love, “Good-bye, kid. Hurry back.” When Lauren and Humphrey had kissed in
The Big Sleep
, she had said, “I like that. I'd like more.” Her words were prophetic of how she felt at the loss of her beloved husband after twelve years of bliss.

23

1950

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

F
irst Ladies have at times achieved renown apart from their famous husbands: Abigail Adams for promoting the rights of women, Eleanor Roosevelt for creating the March of Dimes, Jacqueline Kennedy for imbuing Camelot with elegance. Nancy Reagan's legacy, however, is the love affair she enacted against the backdrop of the White House, wherein she walked, hand in hand, with her life's leading man.

Anne Frances Robbins was born in New York, the daughter of an actress and a car salesman. When the marriage disintegrated, Edith Luckett, unable to care for her infant, whom she called Nancy, left her in the care of her sister. Six years later Edith married Loyal Davis, a prominent Chicago neurosurgeon, who formally adopted her daughter.

In her Smith College yearbook, Nancy wrote, “My greatest ambition is to have a successful, happy marriage”; however, still not having met Mr. Right, Nancy followed in her mother's footsteps and began her Hollywood career. She did not become a star; however, through serendipity, she became the North Star to a Hollywood leading man.

Nancy's destiny, Ronald Wilson Reagan, was born in Illinois and lived over the H. C. Pitney Variety Store. After attending Eureka College, because of his compelling voice he was hired as an announcer for the Chicago Cubs until a screen test led to Warner Brothers Studios. He spent the majority of his Hollywood years in B movies, where, he joked, the producers “didn't want them good, they wanted them Thursday.” His career was derailed by his stint in the army; when he returned, he was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild. It was through this position that he was to meet his forever First Lady, to whom he would later say, “God must think a lot of me to have given me you.” However, their first encounter had less to do with divine intervention than with Nancy's own machinations.

As a twenty-six-year-old starlet, Nancy was aghast to discover her name on a list of Communist sympathizers. MGM promptly placed an item in a gossip column noting that she was not
that
Nancy Davis; however, she saw opportunity in the mix-up. She had seen Ronald Reagan on the silver screen and she had liked what she saw. Deciding to kill two birds with the one stone, she cajoled her friend into persuading Reagan into inviting her to dinner, ostensibly to discuss her situation. Ronald agreed, but as protection from a bad blind date, warned her that it would have to be an early evening as he had a predawn call the next day. Nancy responded with a similar early-exit line.

The first time Nancy met Ronald was on November 15, when they had dinner at LaRue's, a glamorous restaurant on the Sunset Strip. After their meal, Ronald asked her to a Sophie Tucker performance, where they would take in the first act. They stayed for the second show, which ended at three a.m. The following evening they met once more at an Oceanside restaurant. Nancy later remarked, “I don't know if it was exactly love at first sight. But it was pretty close.”

From that first date Nancy knew she wanted Ronnie's ring to grace her finger; however, Reagan, having recently divorced actress Jane Wyman, was cautious. After two years of dating, Nancy once more decided to nudge fate; she told him she was going to leave for New York City to star in a play. Shortly afterward, while they were having dinner at their usual booth at the Beverly Hills Chasen's, he said, “I think we ought to get married.” Nancy responded, “Let's.” At the onset of their union, no one could have predicted that the two actors would one day play their greatest roles: he as the leader of the free world, and she as the woman who loved him.

Not wanting to turn their wedding into a paparazzi buffet, the couple decided to wed in a private ceremony on March 4, 1952, at the Little Brown Church in the Valley, with only William Holden and his wife as guests. Nancy recalled of her nuptials that she was so far into the stratosphere that the only words she was able to hear were “I now pronounce you man and wife.” The bridal night was at the Old Mission Inn, where Ronald carried her over the threshold to a room that held red roses, followed by a Phoenix honeymoon to spend time with Nancy's ecstatic parents. Later Nancy would adoringly beam, “What can you say about a man, who on Mother's Day sends flowers to his mother-in-law, with a note thanking her for making him the happiest man on Earth?” Seven months later Patti was born; their second child was son Ron. Nancy was only too happy to trade in her career to be a full-time wife and mother. Later she wrote of her devotion, “My life began when I met Ronald Reagan.”

During their first year of marriage, Ronald's career constantly took him on the road. Nancy's ritual for her husband's departure was to slip little notes and jelly beans into his suitcase and then drive him to the station, where she would remain until the very last minute. Then, depressed, she would go home and knit him socks. Ronald's ritual was to write her letters of longing on hotel stationery: “My Darling, I'm sitting here on the 6th floor beside a phony fire-place looking out at a gray wet sky and listening to a radio play music not intended for one person alone.”

Ronald's next job was as a host for the television series
Death Valley Days u
ntil his passion for politics led him to two terms as the California governor. When he embarked on the campaign trail for chief executive, after an exhausting day of events, Nancy, too wound up to sleep, ate apples in bed while she read. Worried that the noise from chewing would disturb her man, she switched to bananas.

When elected president, Reagan quipped that he was “living above the store again.” Though life changed greatly, one constant was that President Reagan continued to write love letters, though this time on White House stationery. That year, one read, “Our wedding anniversary. 29 years of more happiness than any man could rightly deserve.” And Nancy continued with “the gaze”: a long, adoring look that came to her eyes when she looked upon her spouse.

One of the legacies of Reagan's administration was his campaign in the cold war, wherein he called Russia “the evil empire” and, in front of the Berlin Wall, demanded, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” His most moving speech was on the night of the explosion of the
Challenger
: “The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.... We will never forget them ... as they ... ‘slipped the surly bonds of earth' to ‘touch the face of God.'” For her part, as First Lady, Nancy Reagan embarked on many projects—such as her anti-drug campaign with its famous slogan, “Just Say No”—but first and foremost her job was as the fierce protector of her husband.

Unfortunately, even as the dragon at the gate she could not be a talisman against harm. Three months after Reagan's election, John Hinckley Jr., in an insane plot to impress actress Jodie Foster, attempted to assassinate Reagan. The bullet lodged an inch from his heart. In the operating room Reagan joked to the surgeons, “I hope you're all Republicans,” to which one replied, “Today, Mr. President, we're all Republicans.” When Nancy was allowed to see him, Ronald removed his oxygen mask and joked, “Honey, I forgot to duck,” a reference to the defeated boxer Jack Dempsey's jest to his wife. Devastated, Nancy returned to the White House and slept on her husband's side of the bed, holding one of his shirts, where she was comforted by its scent. She wrote in her diary, “Nothing can happen to my Ronnie. My life would be over.” The bullet was successfully removed and Ronald said he believed God had spared his life so that he might go on to fulfill a greater purpose—and remain at Nancy's side.