His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [145]
Much as he enjoyed Sinatra’s company, Bogart said, “I don’t think Frank’s an adult emotionally. He can’t settle down.” Later, he told reporters that Frank’s idea of paradise is a place where there are plenty of women and no newspapermen. “He doesn’t realize it, but he’d be better off if it were the other way around.”
Bogie and his wife formed a group known as the Holmby Hills Rat Pack, which was dedicated to drinking, laughing, staying up late, and not caring about public opinion. Frank was named pack master, Judy Garland, first vice-president, and her husband Sid Luft, the cage master. Agent Irving “Swifty” Lazar was recording secretary; Nathaniel Benchley, historian; and Lauren Bacall, den mother. Bogie was in charge of Rat Pack public relations because he was always good for an uninhibited quotation, and the press had real affection for him. The more he abused them, the more they liked him. David Niven, Mike Romanoff, and Jimmy Van Heusen were also members of this group, which Bogart said existed “for the relief of boredom and the perpetuation of independence. We admire ourselves and don’t care for anyone else.”
Some Hollywood Republicans like William Holden resented Bogie’s Rat Pack, which adored Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Adlai Stevenson. “Their conduct reflects on the way a nation is represented in the eyes of the world,” said Holden. “It might sound stuffy and dull, but it is quite possible for people to have social intercourse without resorting to a rat pack and even to drink or do anything without resorting to a rat pack. People have worked for years to lend some dignity to our profession, and the rat pack reflects on the community and on my children and on their children and everybody’s children.”
On February 29, 1956, Humphrey Bogart was diagnosed as having throat cancer. He required surgery and radiation treatments to contain the malignancy. Unfortunately, the doctors operated too late, and Bogie had less than a year to live. As one of his closest friends, Frank visited him regularly when he was in town.
“It wasn’t easy for him,” said Lauren Bacall. “I don’t think he could bear to see Bogie that way or bear to face the possibility of his death. Yet he cheered Bogie up when he was with him—made him laugh—kept the ring-a-ding act in high gear for him. He did it all the only way he knew how, and he did it well.”
Bogie loved to hear about the practical jokes Frank played on their friend, Swifty Lazar, and applauded the lengths to which he would go to torment the tiny, bald-headed agent whose obsession with cleanliness was a familiar joke within the Rat Pack. Bogie used to take off Swifty’s shoes and socks and rub his bare feet in the carpet just because Lazar couldn’t bear naked contact with any floor. Bogie was delighted when Frank called him about hiring a plasterer to go into Lazar’s apartment and brick in his clothes closet with drywall so that when Swifty walked in he thought he was in the wrong apartment. Finally realizing it was his apartment, he went crazy when he couldn’t get to his little suits and velvet slippers. He started screaming at Frank and banging on his door, refusing to speak to him for weeks afterward. Another time, Frank took Lazar’s favorite hat and served it to him under poached eggs, which amused Bogart no end.
In October, when Frank was playing the Sands, he sent a chartered plane to Los Angeles to fly Cole Porter, Martha Hyer, Harry Kurnitz, Nancy Berg, Mike and Gloria Romanoff, the Burt Allenbergs, and Lazar to Las Vegas to celebrate Lauren Bacall’s thirty-second birthday. Bogie did not attend. Instead, he spent the day on his boat with his son.
“He was somewhat jealous of Frank,” said Lauren Bacall many years later. “Partly because he knew I loved