Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall Were a ‘Made-for-Hollywood’ Love Story Before His Death

When tragedy struck, Lauren Bacall expected her new husband, Humphrey Bogart, to comfort her. But after she contacted him to share that her beloved dog had been killed by a car, she got no sympathy. “He was crocked,” she revealed in her memoir By Myself. “Bogie [was] drunker than I’d ever seen him and drunker than he’d ever be again,” she wrote. “It all made me feel angry — and inadequate and uncertain.”

That night in 1945 would become a turning point in their legendary marriage. “It’s at that moment when she says ‘I can’t put up with this anymore. I’m going to have to find a way to either make this work or get out,’” William J. Mann, author of the new book Bogie & Bacall: The Surprising True Story of Hollywood’s Greatest Love Affair, exclusively tells Closer. She succeeded, of course, and “Bogie was definitely the love of her life,” Mann asserts, “but it wasn’t always easy.”

The actors had a lot to overcome from the start: Bacall was just 19 when she met and costarred with Bogie — already on his third marriage — in 1944’s To Have and Have Not. “That’s a big age gap,” Mann notes, and she “was thrust into a world she had to learn fast” in regard to both her career and Bogie’s drinking. “He didn’t even come home sometimes,” Mann says. “To imply there was just this happy Valentine’s fairy-tale love story the whole time isn’t true. Everyone said she tamed him and she sort of did, eventually, but it wasn’t easy.”

Some obstacles brought them closer, such as when they chose to speak out against the House Un-American Activities Committee and Hollywood blacklists in 1947. “They took some backlash,” Mann explains, “but it was incredibly brave of them.”

But meanwhile, in private, Bogie waffled when Bacall wanted to start a family. “He was very upset,” Mann says. “He just wanted to take care of [his wife], not little kids.” He eventually came around, and the duo went on to have “a very happy marriage, two children [Stephen and Leslie], a bunch of dogs, and a beautiful house. They were the king and queen of Hollywood for several years.”

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall’s Strong Union

The best times came to an end when Bogie’s doctors diagnosed him with esophageal cancer in 1955. Bacall rose to that challenge too. “She wasn’t only there to help feed him and all that, but she’d sleep with him in his hospital bed, too,” Mann shares. “He was so thin, she’d sometimes carry him over to the bathroom.” Once, Mann adds, Bogart “said, ‘I’m sorry to have to lean on you.’ And she said, ‘I love you to lean on me. I’ve been leaning on you for so long. It’s time you lean on me.’”

He died in 1957 at age 57. “She was there right until the end,” says Mann. “So it really is one of those made-for-Hollywood love stories.”