Catherine Curzon’s brand new book, The Real Bogie and Bacall, is out today; order it here or wherever you get your books!
It was the Hollywood romance that warmed hearts and thrilled audiences, but the path to true love was littered with alcoholism, abandonment and bitter disappointments.
Humphrey Bogart had crawled up the hard way, leaving behind a childhood without affection for a life as the idol of millions. Bogie’s road to stardom had been long and tough, forging a superstar who hated being in the spotlight as much as he loved being in the bar. With three marriages to his name and a reputation as one of the hardest drinkers in Hollywood, happiness was always fleeting.
Lauren Bacall grew up in New York as the apple of her hard-working mother’s eye, dreaming of a life in the limelight. Modelling by day and tearing tickets at night, when she was summoned to Hollywood to make a screentest, young Betty Bacall grabbed it with both hands. There she was reborn as the vampish Lauren Bacall, a teenage nobody who would make her debut in To Have and Have Not opposite the quintessential Hollywood tough guy, Humphrey Bogart.
Nobody expected what came next, but the love affair between Bogie and Bacall took the world by storm. The Real Bogie & Bacall tells the story of two people whose romance shouldn’t have worked… but did.
