William J. Mann Looks Behind the Myth of Bogie and Bacall

You've probably heard the old Bertie Higgins song: "Here's lookin' at you, kid / Missing all the things we did," the lyrics declare. "We had it all / Just like Bogie and Bacall / Starring in our own late late show / Sailing away to Key Largo."

The lyrics recall the filmography of tough guy matinee idol Humphrey Bogart and touch upon the movies he made with his most famous screen partner (and fourth wife) Lauren Bacall. The couple are legendary for their partnership onscreen and off, but, as always, there are real lives – complicated, messy, only sporadically fulfilled – behind the glamour.

Out biographer and film historian William J. Mann covers one of Hollywood's original power couples in his new book "Bogie & Bacall," starting with Humphrey Bogart at age 20: Paying his theatrical dues as a stage manager, "Hump," as he was known then, is finally finding his way to a calling after doing poorly at school and feeling that he was a disappointment to his well-to-do parents. It took decades, but Bogie finally found success in Hollywood with a string of hits, several of them now regarded as classics, and three Oscar nominations including for "Casablanca" and "The Caine Mutiny." He won the gold in 1951 for "The African Queen."

Marital happiness was another long-term project. After three marriages and a dalliance or two, he fell in love with Betty Joan Perske, whose own Hollywood star had risen at a much younger age. When they wed in 1945, Bogart was middle aged and Betty – known professionally as Lauren Bacall – was only 20. The marriage was not entirely happy, but it did produce two children and, thanks to the four movies the couple made together – as well as Bacall's mythmaking – the institution that was "Bogie and Bacall" achieved the status of legend.

Bacall had more than half a century to build and safeguard that myth. Bogart died at age 57 in 1957, leaving Bacall 57 more years until her own death in 2014. During that time, she remained active in film and theater, winning two Tonys and an honorary Oscar, and marrying Jason Robards, with whom she had a son. But, Mann argues in his book, Bacall's peak was behind her; she still enjoyed a long and fruitful career, but she clung to many resentments, too.

Fascinating as individuals and compelling as a duo, Bogie and Bacall seem like just the sort of Old Hollywood subjects in which Mann specializes. His books include biographies of Marlon Brando, Barbra Streisand, Kathryn Hepburn, and Elizabeth Taylor, as well as a real-life murder mystery, "Tinseltown" (2014), a true crime thriller that relates the killing of film director William Desmond Taylor – who is thought to have been gay – in 1922. Mann is also the author of six novels, including the "Boys" trilogy, a seminal work in gay literature comprising "The Men from the Boys" (1997), "Where the Boys Are" (2003), and "Men Who Love Men" (2007).

EDGE caught up with William J. Mann to discuss his latest meticulously researched biography, its double-feature structure, and the things that set it apart from his earlier work.

EDGE: Many of your bios of Hollywood stars have had an LGBTQ+ angle, but there's not a direct queer element this time.

William J. Mann: You know, it occurred to me as I started researching that this was the had the least queer content of any of my books. My editor and I were kind of batting around names for my next book, and he said, "You know, there's never been a book done about Bogey and Bacall together." I said, "You know, I think Humphrey Bogart is amazing, but what more can I say about him?"

As I got going [with research], I kept saying, "Usually there's some gay character or some gay storyline." The interesting thing about Bogart is that he, like many of his generation, had this kind of antipathy towards effeminate gay men, or effeminate men in general, and that's moderated by Bacall, who had lots of gay friends in the theater and fashion worlds. She moderated that to the point where he counted some very effeminate gay men like Truman Capote and Noël Coward and Clifton Webb as his friends.

EDGE: Given that Bogie was so hypermasculine and homophobic, was it exasperating to research and write about his life?

William J. Mann: In the beginning, he wasn't very likable. He was angry, he was alcoholic, and he was always picking fights – he was goading people, he often gay baited.

But I began to realize that it was a cover. He was somebody who was insecure in his own masculinity – big surprise, right? I mean, usually the biggest bullies are insecure in some way, and he was [insecure] because he was not a big guy. He was very self-conscious of his rather effete upbringing in the upper crust of New York society. He never fit in at these posh boarding schools that his parents sent him to. I think it came from him trying always to be the tough guy when, in fact, he didn't feel like he was the tough guy.

EDGE: Bogie does show some evolution. There's that line in the book, which might be apocryphal, where Bogart says to somebody – I forget who – something like, "I am not into guys, but if I were, I'd be into you."

William J. Mann: Noël Coward told Bacall that Bogey had said that to him. I don't see why he would lie about that, but it doesn't sound like Bogey. But I think it does reflect his attitude. He may have said something similar to that in jest.

EDGE: It feels like the book shifts tonally once Bacall enters the picture.

William J. Mann: Her entrance into Bogey's life brought a whole new energy. People think it was a fairy tale, like, "They lived happily ever after until he died." There were a lot of struggles, and there were a lot of emotional infidelities. But, at the same time, they were really good for each other. He never really stopped drinking, but she had enough of an influence on him that he did moderate his behavior.

He also had been very misogynistic in the early years, expecting his first three wives to take a back seat to his career. With Bacall, he was encouraging her for a career. I think their politics recalibrated their relationship, because they had this common cause they were both very concerned about: The direction of the country during the McCarthy era, with the investigations by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Because many women were involved in that effort, I think Bogart also began to say, "You know, maybe a woman can actually be an equal partner to me." That's due to the energy she brought in to shake up his life.

EDGE: You recall in the book that it was the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, near Harvard Square, that started programming Bogart film festivals and helped re-enshrine Bogey in American culture in the 1960s. Without that, could Bacall's efforts to create a legend around herself and Bogart have succeeded?

William J. Mann: The Bogey Cult, which arose not long after his death, really takes off in the 1960s. Bacall very early on recognized that this was going to be good for her, so she made sure that she gave the public the Bogey that the Brattle was showing. This was the tough, cynical, but deeply honorable guy, an all-American hero, but with hard edges. She made sure that, in her own stories of Bogart, that's who she described. I think she rode that wave very successfully.

EDGE: Almost all of your nonfiction books have had to do with old Hollywood, at least to some extent. Would you write about modern Hollywood?

William J. Mann: The short answer that question is, No. One of the things I enjoy about the work I do is the fact that people wrote letters to each other back then, and there was much less gatekeeping, so people's papers are available. For someone who's been dead as long as Bogart, there aren't that many people left to talk to who knew him, which is a drawback. But lots of people remembered Bacall, so I talked to a lot of them, and because she wasn't with us anymore, they felt much more free to speak.

If I was to write a book about someone who's still current today, it would be very difficult to get the kind of insight or up-close understanding of what's going on, or what has gone on, in their lives, because there is so much gatekeeping and no one writes letters anymore. I don't know how someone's gonna write biographies 20 years from now, because what are people going to [do], somehow get people's text messages? It's all about access and availability.

"Bogie & Bacall" is available now.