...and it really was a tale of love and glory. Four was the charm for Bogie, and 20-year-old Betty Perske found herself, at 20, embarked on a marriage that completed her transition into Lauren Bacall. They were two radically different people, at totally different times in their lives, but they made something that for many - in terms of intensity, devotion, and sheer charisma - stands as one of the marriages against which others can be measured.
For them, the old trope about Astaire and Rogers ("he gave her class; she gave him sex") morphs into something like "he gave her wry; she gave him warm." Together, whenever we see them together, they give us a particularly potent form of star power.
And it all happened today, May 21, in 1945. I'm glad the bride is still with us, and I hope she knows, no matter what the future brings, just what she meant and means, as time goes by.
They really did make sense in the oddest way. Even though they look on first glance to be so mismatched somehow they complimented each other perfectly. Perhaps it was that Betty even at that age was a tough no nonsense broad without the drinking problem and insane jealousy that plagued his previous wife Mayo. She hasn't been as visible lately, I understand she's had a good deal of trouble recovering from a broken hip, but she did work last year so lets hope she's on the recovery road.
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