The Rise And Fall Of Lauren Bacall & Humphrey Bogart's 'Great Hollywood' Marriage

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Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart were one of the most admired power couples of the Golden Age of Hollywood. After three failed, short-lived marriages, the "Casablanca" star found true love in another legend. Like his previous ones, Bogie's marriage to Bacall also didn't last long, but that was because the Old Hollywood star tragically died from cancer at the age of 57. Humphrey and Bacall's marriage, cut much too short, has been mythologized ever since. While their relationship was genuinely loving, it wasn't perfect, with affairs and a massive age gap putting a dent in its picture-perfect status. For starters, Bacall was just 19 when she costarred and fell in love with a 44-year-old Bogart while shooting the 1944 film "To Have and Have Not." They married a year later in 1945. 

Even if celebrity couples with big age gaps aren't shocking in Hollywood, a 25-year difference involving a teenager made the pairing controversial even by 1940s standards. Bacall didn't see it that way, though. "I fairly often have thought how lucky I was. I knew everybody because I was married to Bogie, and that 25-year difference was the most fantastic thing for me to have in my life," she told Vanity Fair in 2011, just three years before her death at 89. But the age gap wasn't the only issue. Complicating matters further, Humphrey was then still in a tumultuous marriage with his third wife, fellow actor Mayo Methot. And he didn't split from her before getting together with Bacall, sparking a scandalous love affair that was the talk of the town. As it turns out, their romance wasn't the only one he was involved in — and Bacall may have had extramarital affairs of her own too.

In 1982, Verita Bouvaire-Thompson published a memoir, "Bogie and Me," in which she exposed her 13-year long affair with Hollywood icon Humphrey Bogart. Thompson, who had been Bogart's hairdresser and was sometimes referred to her as his personal secretary, claimed they originally met in 1942, when he was still married to Mayo Methot, and two years before he met Lauren Bacall. "Bogie didn't like to dance, but, honey, we danced the night away and from that day on we were lovers," she remarked in 1998 (via The Guardian). The "Maltese Falcon" star's affair with Thompson ended in 1955, when she got married, and two years before his death. 

At that point, Bogart had been married to Bacall for a decade. The "Mirror Has Two Faces" star never addressed the affair, having always upheld the public image of her marriage. Bacall's reasons are her own, but she was reportedly not entirely innocent, either. After Bogart's death, the legendary starlet had a much-publicized relationship with fellow icon Frank Sinatra. But according to some, their relationship actually started during her marriage. "It was no secret to any of us. Everybody knew about Betty and Frank," playwright Ketti Frings confirmed, using Bacall's real name, Betty Perske (via the Daily Mail). "We just hoped Bogie wouldn't find out." 

Besides, she was also reportedly in an emotional affair with Adlai Stevenson, then a Democratic presidential candidate for whom Bacall campaigned. As biographer William J. Mann, who wrote "Bogie & Bacall: The Surprising True Story of Hollywood's Greatest Love Affair," explained to Fox News in 2023, "The relationship was romantic. It was loving, it was committed. But it was not always emotionally faithful." Despite all this, Bacall and Bogart remained a united front.