Bogie & Bacall - by William J Mann (Hardcover)

About the Book

Mann offers a comprehensive look at Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, and the unlikely love they shared. He details their early years, paints a vivid portrait of their courtship and twelve-year marriage, and offers a sympathetic yet clear-eyed portrait of Bacall's life after Bogie. Mann considers their relationship from surprising angles, and in doing so offers a fresh look at this famous couple, their remarkable relationship, and their legacy. -- adapted from jacket

Book Synopsis

From the noted Hollywood biographer and author of The Contender comes this celebration of the great American love story--the romance between Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart--capturing its complexity, contradictions, and challenges as never before.

In Bogie & Bacall, William Mann offers a deep and comprehensive look at Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, and the unlikely love they shared. Mann details their early years--Bogart's effete upbringing in New York City; Bacall's rise as a model and actress. He paints a vivid portrait of their courtship and twelve-year marriage: the fights, the reconciliations, the children, the affairs, Bogie's illness and Bacall's steadfastness until his death. He offers a sympathetic yet clear-eyed portrait of Bacall's life after Bogie, exploring her relationships with Frank Sinatra and Jason Robards, who would become her second husband, and the identity crisis she faced.

Surpassing previous biographies, Mann digs deep into the celebrities' personal lives and considers their relationship from surprising angles. Bacall was just nineteen when she started dating the thrice-married forty-five-year-old Bogart. How might that age gap have influenced their relationship? In addition to what she gained, what might Bacall have lost by marrying a Hollywood superstar more than twice her age? How did Bogart, a man of average looks, become one of the greatest movie stars of all time? Throughout, Mann explains the unparalleled successes of their individual careers as well as the extraordinary love between them and the legend that has endured.

Filled with entertaining details and thoughtful insights based on newly available records and correspondence, and illustrated with 30-40 photographs, Bogie & Bacall offers a fresh look at this famous couple, their remarkable relationship, and their legacy.

Review Quotes

" Big, sprawling, meticulously researched. . . . Tells us everything we ever wanted to know about the man and then some." - Washington Post on The Contender

"Structuring his biography like a film, Mann jumps from one key moment in Brando's life to another--the dysfunctional family life, the great movie roles, the tempestuous and often callous relationships with lovers, the tragedies that befell his children--and, while the book brings something new and often revelatory to all of these familiar aspects of the Brando saga, Mann is at his best when he digs into Brando's tortured relationship with acting itself. . . . A compelling biography, rich in complexity and irony." - Booklist (starred review) on The Contender

"Mann uses painstaking years of research, conversations with those who knew Brando best, and his own knack for delving into the lives of Hollywood luminaries to offer fans up a staggeringly comprehensive tale of Brando's life." - Entertainment Weekly on The Contender

"Engrossing.... Scrupulously attending to the distinct personalities, cultural conditions, and media environment that joined forces to create `arguably Hollywood's greatest love story, ' Mann delivers a spirited narrative that's hard to put down....Film buffs will eat this up." - Publishers Weekly

"Well-researched . . . . Mann is perceptive, careful and experienced in writing about the film business." - David Thomson, London Review of Books