Bogart by Stephen Humphrey Bogart

probably thought there was something pretentious about the work.
    “Goddamn phony a rtists,” he said.
    “What did you say?” Sam asked him.
    “The paintings on your walls,” Bogie said. “They’re a bunch of phony crap.”
    “Really?”
    “Yes, really. You know what I ought to do?”
    “What’s that?”
    “I ought to throw them all out.”
    It was then that Mrs. Jaffe entered the conversation.
    “Get out,” she said.
    “Huh?”
    “Get out, Mr. Bogart. Leave my house. You are not behaving properly.”
    Bogie left and never criticized the Jaffes’ taste in paint ings again.
    John Huston is another close friend whom Bogie fought with. Kate Hepburn told me that Bogie and Huston ex changed words while making The African Queen. And Jess Morgan, who was a friend to both men, says that Bogie and Huston were two strongminded men who fought often. But Huston, apparently, didn’t think of their disagreements as fights because he said that it was during the filming of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre that he and Bogie had “our one and only quarrel.”
    As Huston told the story, Bogie was getting impatient for shooting on Sierra to end because he wanted to get the Santana into a race to Honolulu. Bogie was afraid that the picture would run over schedule and he would miss out. Huston said my father “sulked and became progressively less cooperative.”
    One day they were shooting a scene between Bogie and Tim Holt.
    “Okay,” Huston said after they cut. “Let’s do one more.”
    “Why?” Bogie asked.
    “Why what?” Huston asked.
    “Why another take?”
    “Because I need another,” Huston said.
    “I thought I was good,” Bogie said.
    “You were,” the director said. “It has nothing to do with you, Bogie. I’d just like to shoot it again.”
    “Well, I don’t see why you have to shoot it again. I thought it was pretty good,” my father said.
    “Please,” Huston asked. Now he was getting annoyed. “Just do it.”
    Bogie did the new take, but he wasn’t happy about it. Later that evening, when Bogie and Huston and my mother sat down to supper, Dad started grumbling again.
    “Too goddamn many takes,” he said. “Don’t need them all.”
    “What’s that, Bogie?”
    “You’re taking too goddamn long to shoot this movie,” Bogie said. He leaned across the table, poking an accusing finger at his friend. “The way we’re going, I’ll miss my race.”
    That’s when Huston reached out and grabbed Dad’s nose between two fingers and started squeezing.
    “John, you’re hurting him,” my mother said.
    “Yes, I know,” Huston said. “I mean to.” He gave Dad’s nose one more solid twist and let it go.
    Later my father felt bad, because he had fought with his friend. He came to Huston. “What the hell are we doing?” Bogie said. “Let’s have things be the way they have always been with us.” They made up and sealed it with a drink. Bo gie, by the way, did miss the race.
    Richard Burton also remembers that Bogie could be rough on his friends. Burton recalls one Catalina night out on the boat with Bogie, David Niven, and Frank Sinatra, who crooned all night long for dozens of other sailing people who floated around the Santana in their dinghies.
    Burton says, “Frankie did sing all through the night, it’s true, and a lot of people sat around in boats and got drunk. Bogie and I went out lobster potting and Frankie got really pissed off with Bogie. David Niv was trying to set fire to the Santana at one point, because nobody could stop Francis from going on and on and on. I was drinking boilermakers with Bogie—rye whiskey with canned beer chasers—so the night is pretty vague, but I seem to remember a girl having a fight with her husband or boyfriend in a rowing dinghy and being thrown in the water by her irate mate. I don’t know why, but I would guess that she wanted to stay and listen to Frankie, and he wanted to go. And Bogie and Frankie nearly came to blows the next day about