Of all the states in all the unions, he had to walk into mine.
I was researching our House of the Month, a rustic Victorian bungalow on the shores of Lake Wesserunsett in Madison, when Humphrey Bogart walked out of a dream and mugged me. Four Olive Street, a probable Bogart hangout, is just across a tiny (but defining—see page 97) stream from Lakewood Theater Company, established in 1898.
I knew Humphrey Bogart had graced the stage of Maine theaters in the 1920s and 1930s, particularly Lakewood. He was one of the Lakewood Players in 1931, appearing in The Royal Family and Just to Remind You. He returned to Lakewood in 1934 after shooting The Petrified Forest to visit his wife, Mary Philips, who was one of the actresses here. Was there a chance he’d stayed in, or partied at, 4 Olive Street? Following this hunch, I started to dig.
Many moviegoers know and love the late Bogart in films like Casablanca, Sabrina, and The Caine Mutiny. The Urban Dictionary defines ‘Bogarting’ as keeping a cigarette (or mind-enhancing substitute) in your mouth perpetually, without smoking or sharing it. But what ignited me was the early Bogie, the Mayflower descendant (through John Howland—take note, fellow descendant Victoria Rowell) who was kicked out of Phillips Andover Academy. Not the Hollywood denizen, but the undifferentiated young guy who was up here in Maine for so many summers. Maybe he never visited 4 Olive Street. Maybe he did, one of the usual suspects.
My inquiry jumped off a moving train when I ran into something I truly didn’t expect. Bogart didn’t just cut his acting teeth in Maine summer-stock theaters. According to Nathaniel Benchley, he got his famous lip scar, along with his accidental mouth flinch, while en route specifically to Maine, after joining the Navy during World War I in 1918.
According to Bogart’s son, Stephen, in In Search of My Father, “Dad was assigned to take a Navy prisoner up to the Portsmouth Naval Prison. The prisoner was handcuffed. When they changed trains in Boston the prisoner asked my father for a cigarette. Bogie…gave the guy a Lucky Strike, and, while he was fishing around in his pea jacket for a match, the guy raised his manacled hands, smashed Dad across the mouth, and split…” In many accounts Bogart caught up with his quarry and delivered him to prison in Maine. Blame a Navy doctor for his million-dollar lisp. So funny that Humphrey was tricked while giving his prisoner a cigarette. Bogart himself didn’t Bogart! More deeply, the disfigurement transfigured his acting career. Humphrey was scarred for fame and fortune.
If you’re thinking, “I’ve seen this movie,” I agree. Except it wasn’t Humphrey Bogart with a sailor prisoner coming up to Maine, it was Jack Nicholson and Randy Quaid in The Last Detail. The destination is the same: Portsmouth Naval Prison in Kittery. (Even our Navy doesn’t realize Kittery’s in Maine! But that’s another war.) Talk about getting a water view the hard way.
Unintended consequences beget unintended consequences. The young Humphrey Bogart discovered himself in Maine from 1918 to the early 1930s. He actually became himself. What brings you here?
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