Humphrey Bogart Books

Haven't read it. I just was looking at the reviews of this book because my husband and I met the author in a bar in New Orleans one afternoon in June, 2006. We frequent Touche's on Royal Street,when we are there. Donna the bar "hostess extraordinaire" serves her usual local characters and there is always a couple of locals you can just sit back and listen to while queching your thirst on a hot and humid New Orleans afternoon. Ms. Thompson was sitting at the bar that Saturday afternoon, dressed the part too, hat and all. It was a show to watch and a story to hear. I was struck how sad it is that she is now alone with her memories and has only the past to keep her company. However, I think she does get a kick out of seeing peoples reaction when the find out who she is and she begins to banter about her life with a Hollywood Icon.

One approaches this book with an air of caution and curiosity as to the author's motives. I stumbled upon this after reading Lauren Bacall's wonderful autobiography which, incidentally, was published a few short years before Bogie & Me. I have to wonder if the attention given to Ms. Bacall's bio was Ms. Thompson's motivation for writing this memoir.

Ms. Thompson actually explains that her motivation is that Bogie would love to see her shake everyone up with the information that he had a long-time mistress, since he loved shocking people. No doubt his wife and children were shaken up by the news.

I had hoped to come away from this book believing that this woman is a con, but some of it rings true. That said, I think you could call this more of a collection of anecdotes rather than a thoughtful and introspective memoir. The author remains morally ambiguous throughout the text. At any rate, a lot can be learned from this book about Bogie's personality.

This book details a clandestine affair between the author and hard drinking Hollywood Star Humphrey Bogart while he was married to Ms. Lauren Bacall. Wether or not this affair actually happened or is just "wishful think" on behalf of Ms. Thompson is open to debate. The author has quite a few unflattering things to say about Ms. Bacall who I believe is one of the few actresses left in Hollywood with any real Class which is a rarity these days. One gets the impression that Ms. Thompson was and is very jealous of the fact that Ms. Bacall was Humphrey Bogart's Legal wife and she wanted to be that instead of just being his mistress.I do find it very sad and pathetic that some unknown hairdresser tries to "cash in" on a deceased celebrity's fame who is not around to offer his version of events. I give this book one star and intend to thrown it into the trash can where it belongs.

It's actually hilarious when you consider Bacall's memoirs (By Myself) and Bogie's lectures to Bacall on the subject of marital fidelity and how much he hated phonies, to realize that he was having a fifteen year affair with his hairdresser, simultaneous with two of his marriages. But he was a high-functioning alcoholic and he actually had his life beautifully arranged; the girlfriend tended to him on the set and on publicity tours and the wife at home.
The book is quite readable and enjoyable, if slight, and these are two people whose company you'd enjoy if you like to go out and drink a lot which apparently they spent a lot of time doing. I'm sure Thompson had no notion how revealing this book would be about their characters. They're both quite amusing, quick with the wisecracks and were obviously good friends as well as lovers. She was apparently his primary enabler, but didn't go over the edge herself. Since both of them were justly proud of their professional accomplishments, they managed to maintain the discipline they needed for professional purposes.
Thompson also has a few entertaining stories to tell about him and their adventures together. The book is slight, but you do get a picture of the Hollywood they inhabited and some more insight into Bogie's character, a man who enjoyed putting people on and practical jokes and was a world class chess player also. You can't help liking them and admiring what they accomplished in their lives, although neither is someone you'd put on a pedestal.
I just can't stop shaking my head over the "phonies" thing. If you read it, you'll see. Bogie had some act going. Well, he was a truly great actor. It shows.

Sometimes I enjoy reading trash. I read the two reader reviews and decided to purchase this book as they were both positive reviews. After reading it - I realized I had read basically NOTHING. I can only guess the writer was badly in need of money to write this. If she did indeed care for Bogart, and there was an affair (which I'm not convinced of after reading this fluff), then why would she want to hurt his still living wife and children, knowing it would be something he would never have wanted, would have in fact been deeply hurt by? My copy is going into the garbage where it belongs. I like at least a little fact and substance when I'm reading trash.

I stumbled upon this book with its extensive online excerpts while researching Eva Von Berne, a Viennese actress-model discovered by Irving Thalberg and Norma Shearer on their 1927 honeymoon. Miss Von Berne was brought to the U.S. and MGM publicists immediately began releasing press stories for fear they would repeat their earlier mistake of believing that little would become of another MGM import, Greta Garbo. But in this case the 17 year old Von Berne couldn't act and was slightly overweight (120 lbs.!) She was sent back to Europe on a boat where she made three more films before she passed away. The point being that she was only in the U.S. a short time, that it is unlikely that Thalberg would have been having sex with her on his honeymoon, and even less likely that Von Berne would have been around to commment on the Jean Harlow-Paul Bern nuptials since she died before the engagement was announced. Hollywood is FULL of people who like to trash stars - both dead and alive - and writers who believe these unreliable stories and use both the tellers of the tales and the dead celebrities to make money. This includes marginally more responsible writers who have axes to grind and want all stars to be ambisexual. I'm not suprised no one has sued him because doing so would give this book waaaaay more publicity than it deserves. Its a word version of the 1930's "Tijuana Bibles" that used the same content, only pictorially.

Totally agree with all the negative reviews about this book! I've gotten up to chapter 6, after about 2 weeks of reading, and I'm not sure I can go on. Porter barely talks about Bogie's early career except to say which costar he had his eye on. The detailed conversations included make me wonder if everyone in Hollywood was also wearing a wire besides sleeping with everyone. Even if this is based on part of the journals kept by MacKenna and others, no one I know writes in that much detail. Especially when they weren't there to witness the event in the first place. I'm torn between finishing this book to see if anything remotely interesting about Bogie's career is revealed, and my pride of always finishing a book I start, or just tossing it back onto the bookcase to await the next book drive at the YMCA. I wonder if it's took late to my money back? I feel dirty contributing my money to this kind of sleazy so-called biography. And to those who rated this 5 stars, did you copy your review straight from the book's back cover or the publisher's press release? If you're die hard fan of the supermarket tabloids and need some juicy gossip, filled with some soft core porn, then this book is for you. Otherwise, skip it!

That this trash is a hideous pack of lies is a given. Did it ever occur to this Porter imbecile that all the dead people he delights in lewdly slandering have descendents? How does he think THEY feel? Such gutless, tasteless lying to sell a couple of books. His lies about the great Glenda Farrell border on criminal. THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW!!

I was given this book as a birthday treat from a wonderful young man who is a friend of recent standing. He is to be commended for knowing the kind of thing I like and supplying it under conditions of complete surprise. But alas, I come to bury Darwin Porter's book not to praise it.

I can't believe, first all, that Porter thinks he is fulfilling the sacred wishes of Kenneth McKenna (d. 1962) to have the whole truth about Bogart published. Why would that be anybody's dream? That's just hogwash. If McKenna actually left diaries or journals or whatever, let's have them deposited in a place of public record, a university or industry library, for all to read. Porter then says that he supplemented the information McKenna left with him, with a series of interviews with Joan Blondell, John Springer, Shirley Booth, Ruth Gordon, Louise Brooks, and Mae West, needless to say, not one of his sources is alive. He makes the often maligned Boze Hadleigh seem like he has the journalistic integrity of David Halberstam.

I am curious about George O'Brien and the care with which he polished, lubed and prettified his amazing, maneating orifice. Also the story of "Big Bill" Tilden having his way with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., when the latter was only 13. Truth can sometimes be stranger than fiction, but we're in Never Never Land here.

I will issue this caveat,I am hardly homophobic and a very liberal person to say the least,that said:This book can only be looked at as a joke.It would seem Mr.Porter needed to write out a gay fantasy where everyone beds eachother regarldess of sex,and our characters inhabit a world where every male is well endowed,and they all know this because they (as Mr.Porter writes time and again)"did the obligatory pecker check while standing at the urinal".As other reviews have stated,this book has phoney dialogue that the author could never have been privy to and no bibliography to back it up.It's a bad game of sexual telephone at best,to be looked at as historical fiction for the Tom of Finland crowd.At worst,it's a lousy attempt to cash in on Bogart and the nostalgia of his day.It is no wonder no big publisher picked this up.And that not being for a lack of couth on the major publishers part,it is just that even if Mr.Porters claims could be backed up his juvenile prose still sinks this ungodly tome.Enjoy!!!!!!!

I concur with pretty much all of the opinions here. I don't think it's any secret that the "Rat Pack" were not the most honorable of fellows but I think it is more of an insult that these two hacks thought they had the ability to write any sort of decent bio about them. What is worse, as one reviewer pointed out, was their feeble-minded review of their fimology (like anybody cares what they think?). Horrible book, waste of time.

The back cover suggests that the main reason for the Rat Pack's appeal was the fun they seemed to be having. The contents, however, seem to be intended to deconstruct this premise. One by one, in numbing detail, the five men (and "mascot" Shirley Maclaine) are subjected to jaundiced, gossipy biographies that portray them as pathetic characters. Very little of the information is original - many of the anecdotes related here are familiar and seem selectively drawn from more in-depth biographies. The tone is consistently vulgar and deprecating. There are also tedious reviews of all the films of every Pack member, including critiques of seemingly every cast member's performance, prolonging an already unpleasant read. It is as if the authors wished to undermine the undeniable talent and charm these performers had, and which remains their legacy. This cheap anthology simply exploits that legacy.

I'm going to throw away my copy, too. Perhaps the most annoying aspect, for a film buff, is how the authors add insult to injury with their "film reviews." It's bad enough that they get facts wrong -- most of the score to ON THE TOWN was NOT written by Leonard Bernstein, for example -- but then these ignoramuses presume to pass negative judgment on classics like ON THE TOWN and FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, a right they clearly haven't earned with their "research."

The only reason I give this book one star is because zero stars wasn't an option. It took two guys to write this tripe? One monkey could have done a better job. This book is lazy and poorly written and I am ticked off that I wasted my money on it. The definitive book on the Rat Pack has got to be Shawn Levy's. After reading the first two pages of Levy's book I was hooked. The difference between a real writer and a couple of hacks.

Here is the deal. If you are just starting to get into the Rat Pack or any of the players individually. Then this book is a good start. I would call it the Cliff notes of the individuals and their movies. If you have seen all the movies including the Matt Helm movies or if you have already read books on Dean, Frank, Sammy's biography then you are way ahead of this book and pass it by.

But if you have not seen the movies and want to learn the basics of each man and then from there search into each one of them seperatly then this is a good starter. There are some great books on all the guys but you will finded Sammy's Biography to be the most fun. Remember to check out deanmartinfancenter.com for more info on the Rat Pack. For the guys who wrote this you could have given us some fun facts or answered some questions, instead they read everyone else book and put together their own version.