Modern Screen (Jul-Dec 1945)

Perfumed DEODORANT Effective perspiration retardant, delicately scented with a rare flower essence. Protects up to three days. Skin-safe, non-irritating. Harmless to finest fabrics. Bottle, 50c plus tax at beauty shops and cosmetic counters. ,^»— ^ A/jo^Wfo^Jim^HAND CREAM for softer, smoother, lovelier hands and skin. Neither sticky nor greasy. Jar, 55c plus tax. House of Lowell, Inc., Tipp City, Ohio Endorsed by ^ John Robert Powers in fine rayons about $1.79 at better stores 108 Louis Herman & Co. creators of MOVIE STAR SLIPS Depti I 159 Madison Ave., N.Y. 16, N.Y. and a rugged looking courthouse. There weren't a lot of cars parked around the business center and much of the place was dark. But the reporters! It isn't every evening that two world famous people come here to be married. . . . They had to get up at six o'clock in the morning, next day, to drive in from the Bromfield farm for their marriage license. There was a doctor who was ready to shut himself into his laboratory to make blood tests in a hurry. There was a probate judge whose privilege it was to waive the five-day delay. There was Judge H. H. Shettler, whose enormous privilege it was to be to perform the ceremony. So they got their license and there was time for Louis to take them for a good workout in the fields. "Maybe Modern Screen would like to see Betty on a manure spreader?" Bogey suggested. "That's what we get when we come here — work with manure." There's been screwy weather in Ohio all through the spring. But the sun came up to shine on a very happy bride on May twenty-first. People came from all over, but Lauren wanted her wedding very simple and very private. She wanted Bogey and her beautiful young mother. She wanted Louis Bromfield for best man and George Hawkins, his handsome secretary -manager, to give her away. The judge to read the ceremony. Lovely, slender Hope Bromfield, Louis' seventeen-year-old daughter, to play the wedding music. Mr. Bromfield's wife and mother. And could that be all, she asked, just those special few? It could be managed — it took doing. The Bromfields have hundreds of friends everywhere in the world. The press was excited over the proceedings. It isn't easy for anybody to be turned away from Malabar. A.nd yet, somehow — it was done. There's a great central hall at Malabar. A huge recessed window at one end brings the whole breath taking landscape into the room. There were flowers banked in the window. Hope Bromfield played. The Warsaw Concerto on the big piano. The Warsaw Concerto — it has certain sentimental associations for the pair of them. And then the Lohengrin wedding march. The judge stood in the window reading a simple service. . . . "I charge you both to remember that love and loyalty alone will serve as the foundation of an enduring and happy home . . ." The lovely girl in rose-beige lifted her eyes — the Look was a still one now, a vow and a sacrament . . . They both want an enduring and happy home. . . . "Your life will be full of peace and happiness and the home which you are establishing will last through every vicissitude . . ." There is on the floor of the hall, a great, striped tiger skin rug Louis Bromfield shot in Mysore, India. Humphrey Bogart stood on this tiger skin now, a certain leashed power in his shoulders under the trimly cut suit. He looked at the lovely girl, and there was no hardness there. There was wonder, and peace, and a growing happiness. "Will you, Humphrey Bogart, have Betty Joan Bacall, to be your wedded wife? Will you love her. . . ." There were two rings to be exchanged. Lauren had worn on her finger the giant chrysoberyl which was her choice "far above rubies." Now the slender wedding ring slipped on her finger. Bogey and Lauren Bacall were man and wife. They stood still for a moment. The judge smiled. "It's all right — you can kiss her now." A lot of people wanted to kiss her — she gave a warm kiss to big George Hawkins, she had an embrace for Louis, she turned to her mother. "It's wonderful — and it's over," she whispered. "I'm Mrs. Bogart — Mrs. Humphrey Bogart . . ." The press crowded around Lauren, but she ran up the stairs, motioning the men away. She poised her flowers high, ready for the traditional hurling of the bouquet. "Out of the way, boys," Lauren said severely, her eyes on young, pretty Hope Bromfield. "She's going to get it." Hope went up on tiptoe and the flowers sailed into her hands. They all came out into the sunshine. They came across the screened verandah and suddenly Lauren leaned forward and kissed Humphrey — a swift, little girl kiss, with her eyes laughing, and her long curly mouth mischievous. She daubed a speck of lipstick from his mouth and giggled. "Are you happy?" somebody said to Bogey. ••"What do you think?" "She's a beautiful thing," a wistful guest murmured. "She's better than that," flashed Bogey. "She's sweet and kind and good." That's what everybody was saying — the Bromfields who have known great people all over the great world, and who with three daughters of their own, Hope, Ann, and Ellen, have taken Betty Bacall for a fourth. She came hurrying out at a photographer's plea, and the door swung behind her and nipped the tail of one of the huge brown boxers that roam about the premises. "Oh, darling!" Lauren wailed. She sat down and hugged the fierce-faced, lovingeyed dog and apologized to him deeply, she told him over and over that it had been a mistake and she was terribly sorry. This was Prince, who, during the wedding ceremony, came strolling into the room and lay down, trustingly, on the judge's shoes. Later, "Climb up on the roof, will you?" a photographer suggested and Bogey said, "I'd love to," and Lauren added, "and I'll hang by my toes. Right?" Humphrey shrugs away the notion that he and Lauren may do a stage play together. "I haven't been in a stage play for so long, I'd be scared to death — and we're both tied up with contracts." So tied up, in fact, that they are going straight back to Hollywood after this halcyon interval in Pleasant Valley. Overnight at the farm — one day's honeymoon in Chicago. Then to work. But they were married at noon when the sun was' high and the air sweet and for the rest of this glowing day they were bride and bridegroom and nothing else. "Will you stand over here, Mrs. Bogart?" Lauren Bacall flung back her hair and cried out. "WHAT did you say?" "Mrs. Bogart . . ." "Say it once more . . ." "Mrs. Bogart . . ." "I LOVE this man!" she exclaimed. It was time to go into the huge, gracious dining room, where the tall four-layer cake was brought in. Humphrey Bogart swung the knife over the shimmering cake. "A-aah!" breathed everybody. He looked up with a darkly gleaming grin. "Wait," he said, "wait till Van Johnson does this!" A breathless young girl came up to Bogey, justcas Louis Bromfield seized and ate the first hunk of cake. Humphrey listened attentively — he nodded, and went over to speak to Lauren. Two girls wanted pictures taken, wedding pictures of Lauren and Bogey — and could the girls be taken too? They were