By Myself and Then Some (46 page)

I’d been offered a part in a movie called
Written on the Wind –
a lot of money for three weeks’ work. It was a soap opera with Rock Hudson, a hot new star. My career had not been flourishing, yet again, and when I told Bogie about it, he thought I should do it if the set-up seemed right. It had a big budget, a good cast. I’d never done anything quite like it before – a really straight leading lady, no jokes, so I said yes. But I was able to go to Chicago with Bogie for a few days’ location shooting as my picture wouldn’t need me until November. And one afternoon I had tea with Adlai. I was still somewhat in awe of him, although we had strengthened our relationship through the written word. I was brave on paper, setting down whatever seemed important to me. Face to face, I was less outspoken. He took it all in good humor.

Poor Bogie was under the weather in Chicago. He’d always been a cougher. From the first day of shooting
To Have and Have Not
, between ‘rolling’ and ‘action,’ I’d heard him cough. Often sitting in a theatre he would cough when there was silence on the stage or an actor was speaking quietly. It was sometimes irritating. At times he’d cough in a way I’ve never seen before or since – in a series, unable to catch his breath. His explanation was that he’d always had a sensitive throat. In Chicago he saw a doctor for a vitamin shot – he couldn’t miss a day of work, after all. He got through the location work and was soon back to his old self after we returned home. He continued his filming there while I began mine.

Noel had sent me a cable asking if I’d play Elvira, the ghost in
Blithe Spirit
, on television with him. I was terrified, but of course said yes. To work with Noel Coward was an opportunity not to be missed. As television was still fairly new and I was so scared, I wouldn’t have dreamed of starting rehearsals without knowing my lines. Anyway, Noel insisted on it. It wasn’t easy to learn them while shooting
Written on the Wind
, but I did my best. Claudette Colbert was to play the second wife, Ruth, and Mildred Natwick was to recreate her original Broadway role of Madame Arcati. Noel was directing as well as acting. He’d had some trouble with his leg, but was going to be full of shots so it would be okay.

Noel arrived in California early in December, and we began our three weeks of rehearsal. On the first day, all but Claudette knew their
lines. She and Noel were old friends – she’s a terrific lady and a good actress – but she liked to work with script in hand. That did not suit the Master at all, he had specifically requested that we be word perfect, so an edginess began between them. They were both right, but when working with Noel you did it his way. The edginess grew. He said, ‘Look at Betty – she’s been filming, yet knows her part perfectly.’ That only made me want to kill myself. One day during rehearsal he lost his temper – Claudette still had the script in hand – and said, ‘That’s the wrong line.’ Claudette said, ‘You’ve got me so nervous I’m saying the lines backward.’ Noel: ‘And that’s exactly how you’re playing the part.’ She’d had her clothes made by Balmain, as she always had – and insisted on being photographed only on the left side of her face. Noel thought both sides were the same – she’d made a successful career thinking otherwise – and he had no intention of turning the sets around – oh, it was a wonderful three weeks. I tried to pacify Claudette, who was really and rightly very upset and nervous; I had no argument with her – everyone was nervous about live television anyway. Then Noel decided we had to have an audience in the studio and he would invite them. That meant Hedda, Louella, and every big star you could think of would be there. Panic. I said, ‘Of course. I’ll die, but of course.’ Noel ran a tight ship.

So
Blithe Spirit
was performed ‘live’ in front of a name audience of about one hundred people, and – thank God – it went off without a hitch. Relations between Noel and Claudette were still strained, but the performance was a success. Our dressing rooms were swarming with people afterward – Quent Reynolds was in town and came with Bogie, Judy, Merle Oberon, Clifton Webb, Liz Taylor. I felt very good about this show – was mad about my gray ghost make-up, enjoyed doing it, was less nervous than in
Petrified Forest
, though still nervous enough for four. Bogie was proud of me. He said, ‘You must look at your print of it. [Part of my deal was to get a print.] You used every moment – stayed “alive” even when you weren’t speaking.’ In other words, I had stayed in the part throughout – continued to think, though silent. To have Bogie so positively approving was an event. He only said what he meant – he never lied to me. He had told me years before that as a young actor he’d been in David Belasco’s office one day when a playwright was coming in to see the famous producer-director. Mr Belasco sighed and said to Bogie, ‘It’s a terrible play he’s written.’ But
when the playwright came in, Belasco praised him – told him he’d liked the play, but that he had too many productions scheduled to think of putting it on for some time. Later Bogie asked Belasco why he had lied. ‘When you know someone can do much better, then you criticize and make him go back and write and rewrite. But when you know it’s the best he can do, then you praise him.’ That attitude had nothing to do with Bogie’s comments on
Blithe Spirit;
he had been all too critical on other occasions!

Clifton gave a large party for Noel before the TV show and told me that Hedda was going to be there. I’d had nothing to do with her since she’d printed some lousy remarks about me, as well as trying to keep John Wayne and Bill Wellman from hiring me for
Blood Alley
. Clifton had decided it was time we made up. I’d been drinking martinis – don’t ask me why. Clifton put one arm around Hedda and the other around me. ‘Come on, you two, make up – this is ridiculous.’ He hated people he liked not to like each other. I fumed at Hedda, told her she’d been a bitch to try to keep me from working. She said, ‘You’re right, I was. Why don’t you give me a kick?’ Whereupon she turned around and I kicked her in the ass – most unladylike, but very martini-like – whereupon everyone laughed loudly and a truce was declared.

We all went to Frank’s in Palm Springs for New Year’s – a lovely way to start the year, with close friends who loved one another. Noel went back to town on Sunday for some reason I don’t remember. The Romanoffs were staying till the next day – the Nivs and us were going back. That night as dinner came to a close, Frank, looking sad, begged us to stay on. Not begging in the true sense, but begging in Frank’s sense – looking very forlorn and alone. I thought, ‘Oh, the poor guy, we should stay.’ I looked at Bogie and he said, ‘Sorry, old pal, we’ve got to get back to town.’ In the car going home, I said, ‘We should have stayed.’ Bogie said, ‘No, we shouldn’t. You must always remember we have a life of our own that has nothing to do with Frank. He chose to live the way he’s living – alone. It’s too bad if he’s lonely, but that’s his choice. We have our own road to travel, never forget that – we can’t live his life.’ As always, Bogie was dead right. He stood behind his choices, and, persuasive as Frank could be, he could never make Bogie forget who he was. That intractable sense of self was Bogie’s greatest strength and certainly one of his greatest
attractions for his men friends – to say nothing of his women, to say nothing of future generations.

1956 was to be the year that Bogie and I were to make our first film together since
Key Largo
eight years before. Warner Bros. had bought John P Marquand’s novel
Melville Goodwin, U.S.A.
, a love story about a military man and a Clare Boothe Luce-type woman. We were both looking forward to it. We’d been married ten and a half years by then. Life seemed very good indeed.

B
ogie came home one day
and told me he’d run into Greer Garson at lunch. Greer had said she didn’t like his cough and that he must go to see Dr Maynard Brandsma, her doctor, an internist at the Beverly Hills Clinic. She’d actually dragged him there for an examination. I was so used to Bogie’s cough that I hadn’t been aware of any change. He’d been off his food a little, but that wasn’t unusual – he said that sometimes his throat burned when he drank orange juice. Not enough to do anything about it. I should have realized at once that the mere fact that he’d consented to go with Greer to a doctor was indicative of something serious. But any time I ever mentioned a doctor to him, Bogie bristled, so he wouldn’t have listened to me in any case. The doctor found his esophagus a bit inflamed and wanted him to come in for a sputum test in a few days. Bogie had his sputum test and Dr Brandsma said he’d call in a few days with the results. The whole medical scene was foreign territory to both Bogie and myself, so we didn’t pay too much attention.

The Desperate Hours
opened and we went to the big premiere, which also honored Willie Wyler. Bogie had loved working with Willie again – Willie always made you try harder, go beyond yourself. His and Huston’s methods were different, but they both stretched real actors.

And we were having great fun shooting our wardrobe tests together for our new picture – mine was to be very chic, mostly designed by Norman Norell. I couldn’t believe Bogie and I would be working together again after so much time. The crew were all familiar to us – Warners was another home in a sense, we knew it so well. Our sense of play, of bouncing off each other, was so great that the test was almost like playing a scene – we were Slim and Steve all over again. The picture would begin at the end of February, and then in the spring
Bogie was going to make
The Good Shepherd
at Columbia for his own company. It was a sea story by C.S. Forester and Bogie was excited about it.

The doctor called Bogie in for another test – a bronchoscopy. The sputum test had produced some irregularities, and the bronchoscope would reach down into the esophagus and take a sample of tissue. After that, Dr Brandsma suggested we go down to Palm Springs for a week of rest and see how Bogie’s throat felt. It still didn’t seem ominous to us – like an infection of some kind. Yet Bogie’s appetite had definitely decreased. It bothered him to swallow. He was so thin to begin with – 155 pounds soaking wet, as he said – that he could ill afford not to eat. Frank generously offered us his house, so down to the Springs we went. After the week was up, Brandsma wanted to make another sputum test but we were still not too worried. I just knew that Bogie wasn’t up to snuff and was disturbed by his inability to swallow much solid food.

At the end of the week Bogie was still unable to eat During the best of times he was easily put off by food, but with swallowing problems he really had an excuse. He had probably lost a few pounds already.

We returned to town and Bogie immediately went to Brandsma for the sputum test. Again there were some irregularities, and Brandsma would be able to make a definite diagnosis with the results of this test. Two days later he called and said the movie would have to be postponed – Bogie needed surgery – would we both come to his office in the morning? It still did not seem threatening, I don’t know why – ignorance of medicine, I suppose. The following morning Dr Brandsma explained that the first sputum test had shown some irregular cells which had made him suspicious; the biopsy had borne out his suspicions by showing malignant cells in the tissue; and less than two weeks later the second sputum test had shown more than twice as many unhealthy cells as the first. There was no question that an operation was called for. Bogie asked if it couldn’t be postponed until after the movie was completed – we were to start in a week or so. ‘Not unless you want a lot of flowers at Forest Lawn,’ said Dr Brandsma. ‘We were very lucky to catch it so early – it’s not often that we can in that area.’ It could not wait. He knew the best possible surgeon – Dr John Jones, who had developed the blue-baby operation as well as the J, so named because the incision for the removal of one rib is in that shape.

I was stunned as I listened to the doctor, but I was totally uninformed about cancer, and my ignorance kept me fairly calm. Bogie was not pleased about postponing the picture – ‘It’ll cost the studio too much.’ Brandsma said again, ‘If you don’t have the operation, they can all go to your funeral.’ It was undramatic, rather matter-of-fact, though not cold, but Brandsma realized after even such short exposure to Bogie that he was not to lie to him.

All I understood was that Bogie needed an operation – nothing else. Dr Brandsma and Dr Michael Flynn, a throat specialist also at the Beverly Hills Clinic, had gone over everything together. They would talk to John Jones, and Bogie and I would have to meet him. We had no choice – the operation would take place as soon as possible. We went home dazed, but neither of us panicked. As always, Bogie’s attitude was: what has to be done has to be done – no need for dramatics. I took my cue from him.

The next afternoon the doctors came to see Bogie. John Jones was one of those rare doctors who communicate instantly their compassion, dedication, and mastery of their craft. Both of us liked him immediately – he inspired utter trust. He told us rather simply what the operation would be, said that we were indeed lucky the malignancy had been detected early. He would arrange for Bogie to enter the Good Samaritan Hospital the following Wednesday and surgery would be performed the following day. We explained to Steve and Leslie as best we could that Daddy had to have something removed from his throat – it wasn’t serious, but he’d be away for a couple of weeks. Steve naturally didn’t understand. Leslie, being three and a half, certainly didn’t. How could they when even we didn’t?

Our pals had to be told. We were going to Frank’s for the weekend, and the Rat Pack – the Nivs, Romanoffs, and Swifty – gathered with us that weekend. Everyone was in top form – Bogie joking about his surgery, he and Swifty ribbing each other (mind you, Swifty was terrified of illness). That weekend no one did anything but make Bogie laugh, trade funny remarks with him, and generally behave normally as only great friends know how to do. Later I was to know how horrified they all were at the thought of his illness. His not being in perfect shape had never occurred to anyone who knew him.