Bogie

A really good read. This biography is filled to the brim with Bogie wise-cracks and witticisms, making him an endearingly warm, if flawed, protagonist. His marriage with Mayo is fascinating, filled with passion, melodrama, danger and heartbreak. Sadly, all Mayo's dramatics do not gain her eternal love-she is instead dumped for a 19 year old Bacall. Though the author goes on to describe Bacall's ingenuity at taming her wild husband, he doesn't go a good job of showing if anything besides youth and beauty attracted Bogie in the first place. Since Bogie didn't meet Bacall until he was 45, and had had several amazing adventures in his youth, Bacall's entrance seems to come in after all the good times have rolled. His life with her was still filled with pranks and drinks and glamour, but it was a more sober, reflective time for him, particularly with the onset of fatherhood and cancer. Though Bogie is a larger than life character-funny, sexy, dangerous, romantic and timeless-- his most exciting years were with a woman who wasn't the love of his life.