Hollywood's Dark Screen Siren

in her first film Lauren ball was in a disturbing love triangle between her director Howard Hawks and co-star Humphrey Bogart years later Hawks was asked about what happened his answer was brutal the point of being in the theater is that you you must not make it seem stale no matter how many times you do it with her F fatal looks and iconic deep voice ball was a staple of golden age Cinema her life is practically a checklist of Tinsel Town achievements and Scandal during most of her life ball was remarkably private but Secrets never stay buried forever in 1932 her parents divorced and her father completely disappeared from her life while it brought the young girl and her mother closer together it was clear from interviews and those who knew ball that her feelings toward her absentee father were less than loving as soon as ball hit High School her Ambitions were clear she wanted to be famous and because love for acting wasn't only born out of a desire for attention she was a Bonafide fan of both stage and screen and one of her favorite Stars was Betty Davis when she was 13 she went to see Davis star in marked woman the film introduced her to her new favorite Idol Humphrey Bogart watching him she told a friend I'm crazy about that man just crazy about him as a struggling actress ball took on modeling jobs and even briefly worked as a theater Usher then when she was 18 she became a model for Harper's bizar soon after a socialite slim Keith spotted ball on the cover and found her intriguing she showed the magazine to her husband film director Howard Hawks Hawks asked his secretary to reach out to Ball but instead ball found herself on the end of a bizarre twist of [Music] fate Hawk's secretary misunderstood instead of Simply calling she sent ball a plane ticket to Hollywood to audition for an upcoming picture he was working on it was an unlikely and life-changing Stroke of Luck ball had the look but she also had hardly any acting experience with just a few plays under her belt she explained her apprehension to Hawks but he saw it as an advantage Beall didn't have any of the bad habits that other actresses he'd worked with had and he was going to shape her as an actress from the ground up when she went for her first screen test for Hawk film To Have and Have Not she was so nervous that she couldn't help trembling in order to steady herself she lured her chin and tilted her eyes up to the camera not only did it help control her nerves but the sultry pose became her signature look and it certainly Charmed Hawks and the big wigs at Warner Brothers Hawks decided that not only would he C last Beall in the film but he would focus more on her character eliminating a love triangle plot and making her the sole romantic interest of the actor he'd chosen to play the main character none other than Ball's childhood Crush Humphrey Bogart he also spent hours a day on set with her stepping away from behind the camera and coaching her whenever he could if it seems like Hawks was a little too focused on his young prote well he was despite the fact that his own wife had discovered ball Hawks was a notorious womanizer and he had his sight set on the young actress considering he'd pulled this type of nonsense before it was no surprise but Hawks didn't know what he was in for Lauren ball was emphatically not interested in her boss but that doesn't mean she was above falling for another colleague the chemistry between ball and Bogart was undeniable and it translated into redh hot passion offc screen there was just one problem his wife actress Mayo method Lauren ball was immediately taken with Bogart and apparently the feeling was Mutual because one day after filming he reached over and kissed her before asking for her phone number ball then 19 wrote it on a matchbook for Bogard who was 44 years old at the time at first they kept their Affair secret but under the scrutiny of a domineering director and jealous wife it became a race to see who would find out first spoiler alert it was Hawks and his reaction was unhinged Hawks had signed ball to a contract at the beginning of filming but now he threatened to ruin her career before it even started she turned to Bogart for advice who grew equally angry at Hawks for his ridiculous Behavior the two got into a fight and things got so bad that production on the film stopped for 2 weeks eventually Studio head Jack Warner had to intervene when to have and have not came out it wasn't an instant hit but one thing was undeniable critics loved ball a scant 8 days after the film came out Bogart announced that he'd moved out of the home he shared with his wife after the success of To Have and Have Not the studios insisted on pairing Bogart and ball for another movie and in the fall of 1944 they began to make the big sleep it looked for a second like Bogart would seamlessly move from his marriage into a relationship with ball but what he did next shattered Ball's heart into a million people es 11 days after announcing his separation he made another announcement that he would stay with method the news of their reconciliation absolutely devastated ball Bogart's marriage to method was his third and he was determined to make it last but finally he reached his Breaking Point production on the Big Sleep paused for Christmas leaving Bogart and home with his wife drinking had always exacerbated their problems and the holidays were no exception finally he left her for good and ran straight back to ball on May 10th 1945 Bogart and Method were finally divorced just 11 days later he wed ball in a small ceremony on a friend's Farm in Ohio many thought it wouldn't last after all Bogart already had had three marriages under his belt and there was that 25e age Gap as Bogart's wife ball was immediately thrust into the upper echelons of Hollywood society and inadvertently coined a phrase that would make the history books Frank Sinatra's famous circle of friends The Rat Pack actually began as Humphrey Bogart's Drinking Buddies Bogart adopted the name when Lauren ball in a failed attempt to scold the crew called called them a darn Rat Pack the mood on the set of to have and have not had been fraught to say the least the set of the big sleep was a different story Hawks ball and Bogart had all put aside their differences and were determined to make a film that would blow their first collaboration out of the water the big sleep was a Smash Hit and remains one of the most critically lauded examples of film Noir to this day ball and Bogart had a winning formula and they stuck with it completing a total of four films together during the first few years of her marriage ball only appeared with Bogart at the time she was more interested in her husband than her fledgling career and unless a script really piqued her interest she turned it down many began to whisper that she was difficult or too picky in 194 5 the Hollywood women's Press Club gave her the runner-up award for least Cooperative actress ball had the Golden Touch and the films that she did choose to appear in were critically acclaimed but in her six years with Warner Brothers they gave ball six different suspensions each one given for refusing roles finally after a long dispute the studio released B from her contract in 1951 few directors took ball seriously and she said that they only saw her as Mrs Bogart despite having three marriages under his belt Bogart had never had any children but to Beall they were a necessity when she didn't immediately get pregnant Bogart began taking hormones to hurry the process but they had an unexpected side effect the star rapidly began losing his hair and by the time that he showed up to make his next film he was completely bald luckily it wasn't all for nothing and ball soon became pregnant with her first child in 1949 she gave birth to Steven Humphrey Bogart named after his father's character and To Have and Have Not the film that had brought the couple together soon after Leslie Howard Bogart came along ball finally had her happy family but sadly nothing good can last [Music] forever she was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood but there was one thing about Ball's life that she struggled to keep hidden she personally identified as Jewish her whole life but unfortunately she had to downplay her religion to succeed in Hollywood Bogart even convinced her to baptize their two children as Christians for the sake of making life easier for them in a less than taller American public if Jack Warner thought that ball would flop after leaving his Studio he had another thing coming Beall's first film after having kids was how to Marry a Millionaire with a star studied cast including Marilyn Monroe and Betty gel the film was a smash hit in the early 50s the owners of Gran's Chinese Theater extended an invitation to ball to have her hands and feet Mark the cement in front of their iconic building but to everyone's surprise she refused she said that she didn't yet think of herself as a major star with ball set to star in a string of films at Fox Bogart had also made a quick exit from Warner Brothers preferring to start his own film company in 1955 he was planning his next big project when he began to experience throat pain and difficulty eating theall pressed him to go to a doctor and when he finally gave in the prognosis was devastating Bogart had esophageal cancer with tensions high at home acting became something of a release for ball during Bogart's illness she made the critically acclaimed film Designing Women at the same time doctors performed surgery to remove Bogart's esophagus two lymph nose and a rib even with such a dramatic procedure it wasn't enough and he began chemotherapy after multiple surgeries and months of chemo Bogart could barely walk up and down the stairs anymore about one year after his diagnosis he fell into a coma and the next day the inevitable happened Humphrey Bogart died at the age of 57 the disease had so ravaged his body that only weighed £80 ball was devastated she had spent a year caring for him and hoping he'd recover now she was a widow alone with two children at the age of 32 and without the only support system she'd ever known for ball it seemed like the world had stopped but outside everything kept spinning leaving her in a days in this state of vulnerability someone one saw an opportunity and leapt for it none other than Bogart's old friend Frank Sinatra he stepped in inviting her to dinners and parties filled with her old group of friends ball afraid to stop for a second and Ponder her loss reluctantly accepted over time this friendship turned into something more she later revealed that even though she knew she was going through the motions she couldn't deny the chemistry between herself and Frank Sinatra they dated for a few months before Sinatra proposed and then within days he coldly broke things off the reason they wanted to keep things quiet but ball had told a friend about the engagement who then turned around and told notorious gossip columnist Luella Parsons the next day the ball and Sinatra engagement was front page news so was Furious he thought ball had been the one to tell the press and he immediately dumped [Music] her after losing Bogart ball had left Hollywood to return to her hometown of New York where she bought an apartment in the infamous Dakota building it was there that she met actor Jason Robards who was appearing on Broadway and who was awaiting a divorce from his second wife [Music] soon after they began seeing each other they got engaged their engagement was a whirlwind but it took three tries for Lauren mall to legally wed her second husband in 1961 the Austrian government refused to give them a marriage license for their planned nuptuals in Vienna shockingly they were also turned down by Las Vegas in the end the couple drove down all the way to Mexico to finally tie the knot a full month after they had originally planned why were they in such a hurry well ball was pregnant and she gave birth to their son Sam Robards just a few months after their hurried marriage she was ecstatic to once again be surrounded by Family she was in her element on stage in New York and slowly plotted a return to film but she couldn't ignore her problems forever by 1968 ball could no longer Overlook what was happening under her roof Robards was a heavy drinker and by this point it was completely out of control so the woman who hadn't been alone since she was 19 years old made a shocking decision she divorced Robards after 7 years of marriage it was a liberating decision and ball was ready to soar beyond their son Sam there was one good thing that ball got from her time with Robards he was an accomplished theater actor and she rediscovered her love for the stage it was there that she finally gained a sense of accomplishment and a new confidence in 1970 she won a Tony for her performance in Applause playing a character originated by Betty Davis on screen and it led to an unforgettable encounter when ball was young Betty Davis had been her Idol and ball had once even tracked her down to the hotel she was staying at in New York well Davis came to see Applause one night and turned the tables by making her way backstage to meet ball where she congratulated her on her [Music] performance ball continued to work steadily over the next few decades being as choosy with her roles in the ' 80s and '90s as she'd once been in the 50s and then after a 50-year career she got the surprise of a lifetime ball appeared in a supporting role in the romantic comedy The Mirror Has Two Faces in 1996 which earned her her first and only Academy Award nomination she won the Golden Globe and everyone expected her to win the Oscar only for her to lose in an upset to Julie jet benos I thought Lauren was going to get it and I think she deserves it the academy would eventually award her an honorary Oscar in 2010 just a month before her 90th birthday ball suffered a stroke and passed away at her longtime Manhattan [Music] home she'd been a mysterious figure throughout her life but in her final years she'd started to Spill the secrets that had never come out before when ball spurned Howard Hawks the director who discovered her on the set of her first film he was Furious and he was even madder when he discovered that she'd been having an affair with Humphrey [Laughter] Bogart years later when asked about the love triangle he said bogie fell in love with the character she played so she had to keep playing it the rest of her life years after Humphrey Bogart's death ball confessed that she was completely lost without him and would regularly wake up screaming tormented by nightmares about him during his funeral ball made a final heartbreaking tribute she placed a whistle on his coffin he'd given it to her years earlier in reference to to have and have not the film that had brought them together it included an iconic moment where Ball's character says to Barts you know how to whistle don't you Steve you just put your lips together and blow Bart had it engraved with the words if you need me just [Music] whistle if you enjoyed this video please give it a like and sub subscribe for more videos

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Length: 20min 4sec (1204 seconds)

Published: Thu May 09 2024