Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

iA Widow's Torment f ' \(Continued from page 45) Lauren made up her mind, packed her belongings, took her two children, Stevie, •aged eight, and Leslie, a perky four, and moved to New York, far from the shop talk and shattered dreams of a Hollywood that no longer was home for her — not without Bogie. When love has been good to two people, 3nd love was more than good to Lauren and Bogie, it sometimes robs the survivor of the will to love again. But Lauren Bacall is made of stronger stuff. She has the guts to face her mirror and call a 6pade a spade. "Our marriage was so good I find it difficult to live any other way." In love, there are givers and there are takers. Lauren is a giver. Bogie was fa taker, a man who had lost at marriage t three times by trying for the impossible: a bachelor's freedom within the cast-iron I conventions of marriage. j! But with Lauren, he learned to give. fThen all too soon he was gone. And Lauren had to learn to give all over again. Reincarnation of Bogie New York was the spirit and the soul that helped Lauren to forget and to ^nd a man, a man who in his own Bogart fashion, helped Lauren to smile again. Jason Robards, Jr. is a sensitive, some:imes violent stage actor, who is to the teeth a reincarnation of Bogie. But Jason prefers to live on as Jason, not as :he spirit of a dead man. Jason will not olay Bogie, though their physical resemblance is not to be denied. "Jason did Petrified Forest on the Equity Library Theatre stage some years back, and he did the role Bogie played on screen, and it was frightening the resemblance the two rebels had," a director opined. Lauren noticed the resemblance immediately, but Jason, who became her ;lose friend in short order, fought to keep nis own identity, fought to free himself Df the ghost-like role that Lauren was Drojecting him into. On a recent night, they entered the 3aq Room, an intimate West Side spot A'here an uninhibited song stylist named Janice Mars sang lover's blues like blues were meant to be sung. Sitting in the oom were the perpetual newlyweds, Bob Wagner and Natalie Wood. [ "Hi Betty," Bob warmly greeted Lauren. Natalie smiled at their long time favorte, Lauren Bacall, who to her good friends s always Betty. Jason calmly surveyed he room. Janice Mars was about to do another number. "Hey, Jase, join me," she called. Jason winked at Lauren, she smiled back 2i the off-handed way that only she can, »nd Jason was off to the races in a ivheel-and-deal manner reminiscent of 3ogie, yet completely his own effortless <nd unapproachable Robards' way of aughing at life. Jason, in his slow gin baritone, belted •ut an old Irish ditty that was blues in he Dublin style. Janice Mars, playing it traight faced, chimed in behind Jason, md Lauren — she just smiled her warmhearted approval at a man who had taught ler how to smile again. "Hey, honey, join us," Jason tossed in an aside to Lauren. The crowd, not knowing to what extent he would take their prodding, gently inisted she bail Jason out with a singing oice. And, there, in the smoke of a dimly lit back room, with the bluish light playing across their happy faces, a happiness long gone seemed to be reborn, as Lauren and Jason sang in a broken -bottle pair of voices that would have made Bogie laugh a thousand times over. "They look great," laughed Bob Wagner. "It's good to see her smile again." "It's like old times," Natalie added. Lauren Bacall's smile that night was a smile long overdue. And the man who put the smile on her face is a man who has successfully come through a school of hard knocks. Jason Robards, Jr. like Betty Bacall, has known moments of great sorrow. His idol, Jason Robards, Sr., was a talented stage star who went blind at the height of his career. The boy Jason worshipped his father and the thought that his idol, now blind and weary, would never be on a stage again saddened him beyond all sadness. "My dad was a great actor," Jason said, "and it was sad to see him die inside each day." Finally, after years of darkness, the miracle came to pass. Jason Robards, Sr. got his sight back, and to Jason, Jr. it was as if the heavens had opened to them. Jason had a tough ride himself. After Navy service, during which a ship he was on was torpedoed, he came back to a theater that was not overly anxious to welcome home any more actors. But he plugged, and after his Equity Library Theater stint in Petrified Forest. he did a number of live television shows in which his work was noticed. Finally, his big break came on Broadway in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night. The raves were all his, and he followed Journey with The Disenchanted, playing the sodden drunk that Scott Fitzgerald, the legendary writer of the '20's, seemed to have become in his last days. But Jason's marriage was not working out too well. There were fights. Separations. And a growing apartness. His energy seemed to be channeled into areas that can only be harmful to a creative talent. His drinking bouts became almost as legendary as Bogie's. Then . . . He met Lauren. Lauren, having moved into the stately Dakota apartments on Central Park West, and having stepped into the New York social whirl, found little time on her hands, but still there was a great void in her life. She could not find a man to replace Bogie. Then . . . She met Jason. She recalled the day when she was only nineteen and the worldly-wise Bogie had swept her off her feet and married her. "I wasn't exactly what you'd call a woman of the world." Bi t when she met Jason, she had had a taste of the world of glamour, and had known the thrill of international adulation. But . . . The same feeling that had hit her with Bogie when she was a fresh-faced unknown of 19, hit her again. She has found many happy moments in the company of the completely uninhibited Jason Robards. In New York, a party is not really a party until Jason hits it. Then, he swings into high gear, taking over the singing, dancing, and merry making. A party brightens with his appearance, and so does Lauren, for Jason has that hell-for-leather attitude toward life that her beloved Bogie had. Lauren has met the challenge of loneliness and appears to have come out of her self-imposed shell. —and Show You Howto Make $75 to $500 inYourSpareTime ; Uu-I upon for 'l sun.-ariona] fa-t ■ Chris Car 3r Kvervlav A ort m.n t r<.r birthdays, etc. W"* Also Stationery. Novelty Gift*. Knenil.-, neitrle bors order on sight. Keep up to SOc of every $1 you take in. 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