When our final interview is over, I help Bacall up from her chair, and she walks with me to the door. “You haven’t told me a thing about you!” she says as I stand there with one foot over the threshold. She gives me a hug and a kiss and then issues one last lament: “I can never get a voice-over job. People say, ‘With your voice?’ I say, ‘Yes, with my voice.’ It’s all Bogie’s fault.” She leans forward and pokes a finger in my chest. “Remember what Bogie and my mother both used to say: ‘Character is the most important thing. All that matters is character!’ ”
With that she shuts the door.
When she is off the phone, I ask, “Where is the Oscar?”
“It’s hidden in my bedroom,” she says. “I’m ready to throw it out the window. I hate it now. Every time I look at it, I remember that day, and I think it was probably the worst thing I have ever done. What should have been one of the best days in my life is one of the worst.”
“How so?”
“Because I only talked about Bogie,” she says. “My three children were sitting out there, and I never talked about Jason, and I never mentioned Sam, my youngest child. I had a lot I should have said about Jason, and Sam”—who is an accomplished actor in his own right—“was sitting right there. I think that’s about as bad a thing as I’ve ever done. I just kind of went blank. And I knew it, and I tried to get back on, and I couldn’t, because they had all of the film cuts planned, and so they were right into the next thing. I think it scarred my son terribly, and there’s no excuse for that, especially in view that I so adore him.”
HI RES
“Charlie and Ann Lederer gave a party for the Shah of Iran. When the incumbent of the Peacock Throne complimented Lauren Bacall by saying, ‘You were born to dance, Miss Bacall,’ she replied with gusto, ‘You bet your ass, Shah.’”
—David Niven, Bring on the Empty Horses
There are so many kinds of friendship: those from childhood and school; friendships—the passing friendships, the faraway ones; the I-would-do-anything-for-you, the understanding, compassionate; the part-time social and the work friendships…For me, there is still nothing to compare with the sound of a familiar voice filled with warmth and welcome when I pick up the phone.