NEWS

Bogie/Bacall 70th Wedding Celebration at Malabar Farm

Lou Whitmire
Reporter

MANSFIELD – The marriage of Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart at author Louis Bromfield's Malabar Farm on May 21, 1945, remains the most prominent brush with celebrity in the history of Richland County, one that will be hard to top.

An event designed to celebrate the couple in light of the 70th anniversary of their marriage, co-sponsored by the Malabar Farm Foundation and the Malabar Farm State Park, will be held May 16. All proceeds of the Foundation will benefit the restoration of the historic artifacts in the Big House.

The public can choose to have a Vow Renewal in the spot where Bogie/Bacall were married. Packages include music, officient, photos, commemorative folder, rose and Malabar homemade fudge. Cost is $70 and pre-registration is required through Victoria Cochran, 419-892-2929 or at mffspecialevents@yahoo.com

A Wedding Show will be held with all things wedding in the barn from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. which is free to the public.

A Cake Decorating Contest with categories for amateurs and professionals will be held on May 16 too. Cakes will be judged and voted on by those in attendance throughout the day. Cost is $10 per entry. Siera Marth is coordinating and she can be reached at 419-892-2784 for questions.

House tours with emphasis on Bogey/Bacall's history in the Big House and their relationship with Bromfield will be held at noon, 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Cost is $4 for adults, $3.60 for seniors, and $2 for children.

There will be a Wedding Reception with Hollywood "stars" in attendance. Guests are cordially invited to attend the wedding reception of Bogie/Bacall in the Big House of Malabar Farm 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on May 16. Guests will enjoy live music, interact with "stars," enjoy appetizers, punch and cake. Preregistration is required through Cochran.

On May 17, a "Sunday Drive" Car Show will be held from noon to 4 p.m. All classic cars are welcome but Malabar Farm will feature cars from the '40s in honor of the wedding. Classic cars can register from 10 a.m. to noon for $10. The first 50 will receive a commemorative dash plaque. There will be a DJ, carhop, foods and door prizes.

There will again be tours of the Big House. Classic cars can register from 10 a.m. to noon for $10 and the first 50 will receive a commemorative dash plaque. "Malabar Favorites" awards will be awarded to 25 participants.

To this day, Bogie and Bacall reign among the most glamorous showbiz couples Hollywood has ever known.

The News Journal gave ample coverage to the wedding at the time, squeezed between grim articles on a pitched battle with the Japanese on the Pacific island of Formosa (present-day Taiwan), the liberation of the Dachau prison camp in Austria and sugar shortages here at home. There was still a war on, after all.

But a pair of articles and multiple photographs gave a sense of the wedding, which despite its high profile was informal and small.

"From the time the couple stepped from the summer porch and onto the lawn, until nearly 4 p.m. yesterday, flash bulbs blinked from every direction and from all angles. Reporters literally followed the movie personalities around like house pets," News Journal reporter Marguerite Miller wrote.

"All this led up to the common and unanimous opinion of all newsmen and cameramen present, 'They're swell folks.' And they were."

The wedding party consisted of, in addition to the bride and groom, Bromfield, best man and a friend of Bogart, who hosted the wedding on his farm at the actor's request; Bromfield's wife, Mary; Bacall's mother, Natalie; George Hawkins, Bromfield's manager; and Municipal Judge H.H. Schettler, who officiated the ceremony.

Despite the seemingly ample access given to the press, news coverage of the wedding featured very little commentary from the newly married couple, while several paragraphs were devoted to what Bacall wore, a nod to the feature journalism conventions of the time.

Instead of a traditional white wedding gown, Bacall was attired in "a suit of doeskin in a delicate rose-beige shade fashioned along simple but attractive lines. Her brown heel-less pumps were of perforated gabardine trimmed with matching faille bows," according to The News Journal. Bogart wore a suit.

The couple met and fell in love a year earlier on the set of their first of four movies together, "To Have and Have Not," although Bacall was just 19 years old and Bogart 25 years older, and on his third marriage at the time.

Bacall's mother had to give her consent for Lauren's betrothal to Bogart to take place since the actress was a minor in the eyes of the law during that era. For the purposes of the marriage license, obtained the same day in the Richland County Courthouse, Bacall declared her official residence as Lucas, Ohio, although apart from the wedding the showbiz couple spent very little time here, if any.

The very busy stars headed back to Hollywood two days after arriving here, and although Ohio required a blood test with a five-day turnaround at the time, a local doctor was somehow able to whittle the process down to half a day.

Bacall's celebrity profile was red-hot in 1945; being photographed earlier that year atop a piano, her long legs hanging over the side as Vice President Harry S. Truman sat at the keyboard, hadn't hurt. Bogart was already an established actor, having appeared in more than 50 films, including "Casablanca."

Bogie and Bacall followed up their on-screen pairing in "To Have and Have Not" with "The Big Sleep" (1946), "Dark Passage" (1947) and "Key Largo" (1948), the best of them. By 1957, Bogart was dead of esophageal cancer, at the age of 57. Bacall outlived him by 57 years.

The couple had two children, Stephen Humphrey Bogart (born Jan. 6, 1949) and Leslie Bogart (born Aug. 23, 1952).

But although her high-profile marriage to Bogart was over, Bacall was hardly finished living. After a short, ill-advised relationship with Frank Sinatra, she married the actor Jason Robards Jr. in 1961; their troubled union produced a son, Sam Robards (born Dec. 16, 1961). But their marriage ended eight years later.

As for her career, Bacall later found more success on the stage, winning two Tony Awards. The closest she came to an Oscar was for 1996's "The Mirror Has Two Faces," losing, in a major upset, to Juliette Binoche, who won for her work in "The English Patient."

While married to Robards, Bacall moved into the Dakota, an imposing apartment building on New York City's Central Park West, where she remained until she died, and just miles away from where she was born in Brooklyn, as Betty Joan Perske, to Jewish immigrants from Poland.

Bacall signed her name Betty on the marriage certificate obtained in Mansfield in 1945, although Bogart simply called her "Baby."

Lwhitmir@nncogannett.com

419-521-7223

Twitter: @LWhitmir

Reporter Todd Hill also contributed to this story