Classic Hollywood Romances: Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall

He was Bogie, she was his Baby, and together they were the golden couple of the ’40s and early ’50s, an unlikely duo who sizzled onscreen and off. The basset-faced Humphrey Bogart mixed disillusion, cynicism and nobility in equal parts. The droll, dazzling Lauren Bacall–25 years Bogie’s junior–was his perfect foil. They met while making the 1944 classic To Have and Have Not, and that film provided their defining moment: Bacall growling at Bogie, “You know how to whistle, don’t you? You just put your lips together and blow.”

Bogart’s third marriage was on the rocks when he fell head over heels for Bacall, aka The Look. They wed in 1945, had two children and enthralled romantics everywhere who wanted to believe in one true love. The marriage was rock-solid until Bogie’s death from cancer at age 57. His last words to Baby: “Goodbye, kid.”

Only 33 when Bogie died, Bacall tried to pick up the pieces via an affair with Frank Sinatra and a marriage to Jason Robards. Her name though is forever linked with Bogart’s in the one-word phrase BogieandBacall.

Love Note: Their son, Steve Bogart, was named for his father’s character in To Have and Have Not–the one Bacall taught to whistle. (Baby buried Bogie with a small gold whistle he’d given her.)