The Touching Item Humphrey Bogart Was Reportedly Buried With
The work of the great screen actor Humphrey Bogart could give future historians a crash course in 20th-century masculinity. Over the course of more than 50 movies filmed throughout a career that stretched from the 1920s to the mid-1950s, Bogart gave life to archetypal hard-boiled detectives Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade, and everything from military men ("The Caine Mutiny") to drifters ("The Treasure of the Sierra Madre").
But unlike contemporaries like John Wayne, who are remembered today as all-action tough men, the jewels in Bogart's filmography see him portraying damaged men grappling with the Golden Era's most iconic cases of tragic love, most notably in the 1942 classic "Casablanca." Containing some of the most memorable scenes in all of cinema, as well as some of the best-known – and most paraphrased – lines, including: "here's looking at you, kid," "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world," and "We'll always have Paris" (via The India Times), the movie has ensured that on-screen romance will forever be influenced by Bogart's grizzled tones.
And in his own short life — Bogart died in 1957, aged just 57 — the actor was no stranger to romance. He was married a total of four times, most notably to Lauren Bacall, his co-star in a number of movies and whom he wed in 1945. According to numerous sources, it was thanks to Bacall that a touching memento of their love was left at Bogart's final resting place.
Love on set
According to Biography, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall fell in love on the set of "To Have and Have Not," Bacall's big-screen debut. Originally expecting to make her mark on Hollywood starring opposite the classically good-looking Cary Grant, Bacall was not immediately taken with Bogart, who was 25 years older than the 19-year-old at the time. However, the pair soon struck up a rapport, with the entire crew undoubtedly growing aware of the stars' blossoming romance. Biography claims that the two first kissed in Bacall's dressing room, and that Bacall first gave Bogart her phone number by writing it in the back of a matchbook.
As the movie expert Leonard Maltin explained to Vanity Fair, "To Have and Have Not" is "one of these instances where it's quite possible that we are eyewitnesses to an actor or actress falling in love, and while good actors make us believe that all the time, there has to be some extra kick when it's real."
Per Biography, the chemistry between the stars was so visceral that the director, Howard Hawks, had the ending of the movie rewritten so that Bogart's character, who was meant to pursue another love interest, eventually found love with Bacall's.
In the final scene, Bacall utters the movie's most famous line: "You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow." According to A. M. Sperber and Eric Lax's biography of Humphrey Bogart, when the pair finally got together, the veteran actor presented Bacall with a gift: A bracelet with a golden whistle, in reference to the scene.
The marriage of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall
According to Biography, the whirlwind romance that had blossomed on the set of "To Have and Have Not" was hard-won. Humphrey Bogart was married to his third wife, Mayo Methot, at the time he met and fell in love with Lauren Bacall, with the same source claiming the hard-drinking married couple was nicknamed the "Battling Bogarts" for their constant arguments and physical fights. The year before Bogart met Bacall, Methot had stabbed Bogart in a fit of rage.
Bogart and Bacall met intermittently in secret following their work together on "To Have and Have Not," but little happened between them until 1944, when the pair once again shared the screen in "The Big Sleep," again directed by Howard Hawks, who was reportedly jealous of the relationship. Biography claims that Bogart flip-flopped on leaving Methot, and hurt Bacall in the process, but the actor did, finally, file for divorce, and married Bacall just 11 days after his separation from Methot was made official in 1945.
Bogart and Bacall remained happily married for the remaining twelve years of his life, and had a son, Stephen, in 1949, and a daughter, Leslie, in 1952. Bacall wore the golden whistle bracelet throughout her marriage to Bogart, and was photographed often with the item adorning her wrist. Per Bogart's biography, after the actor's death, Bacall placed the love token in the box that holds his ashes in the Garden of Memory in Forest Lawn, California, where it still remains.