By Myself and Then Some by Lauren Bacall

Author:Lauren Bacall [Bacall, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-06-201659-1
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1978-08-12T03:00:00+00:00

Bogie came home one day and told me he’d run into Greer Garson at lunch. Greer had said she didn’t like his cough and that he must go to see Dr Maynard Brandsma, her doctor, an internist at the Beverly Hills Clinic. She’d actually dragged him there for an examination. I was so used to Bogie’s cough that I hadn’t been aware of any change. He’d been off his food a little, but that wasn’t unusual – he said that sometimes his throat burned when he drank orange juice. Not enough to do anything about it. I should have realized at once that the mere fact that he’d consented to go with Greer to a doctor was indicative of something serious. But any time I ever mentioned a doctor to him, Bogie bristled, so he wouldn’t have listened to me in any case. The doctor found his esophagus a bit inflamed and wanted him to come in for a sputum test in a few days. Bogie had his sputum test and Dr Brandsma said he’d call in a few days with the results. The whole medical scene was foreign territory to both Bogie and myself, so we didn’t pay too much attention.

The Desperate Hours opened and we went to the big premiere, which also honored Willie Wyler. Bogie had loved working with Willie again – Willie always made you try harder, go beyond yourself. His and Huston’s methods were different, but they both stretched real actors.

And we were having great fun shooting our wardrobe tests together for our new picture – mine was to be very chic, mostly designed by Norman Norell. I couldn’t believe Bogie and I would be working together again after so much time. The crew were all familiar to us – Warners was another home in a sense, we knew it so well. Our sense of play, of bouncing off each other, was so great that the test was almost like playing a scene – we were Slim and Steve all over again. The picture would begin at the end of February, and then in the spring Bogie was going to make The Good Shepherd at Columbia for his own company. It was a sea story by C.S. Forester and Bogie was excited about it.

The doctor called Bogie in for another test – a bronchoscopy. The sputum test had produced some irregularities, and the bronchoscope would reach down into the esophagus and take a sample of tissue. After that, Dr Brandsma suggested we go down to Palm Springs for a week of rest and see how Bogie’s throat felt. It still didn’t seem ominous to us – like an infection of some kind. Yet Bogie’s appetite had definitely decreased. It bothered him to swallow. He was so thin to begin with – 155 pounds soaking wet, as he said – that he could ill afford not to eat. Frank generously offered us his house, so down to the Springs we went. After the week was up, Brandsma wanted to make another sputum test but we were still not too worried.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.