#ManCrushMonday #SurvivorStories Humphrey Bogart and "The Battling Bogarts"

It was popular knowledge that there was something going on in Humphrey Bogart's third marriage to fellow actor Mayo Methot. "Casablanca" screenwriter Julius Epstein called the marriage "the sequel to the Civil War." Whether Mayo and "Bogie" met at a mutual friend's home or at a Screen Actor's Guild dinner, Bogart would eventually find himself trapped in a marriage with a raging and violent alcoholic after having been freshly divorced with no plans on getting married again.

But there were proclamations to the contrary. Before the wedding, Bogart explained "one reason why we get on so well together is that we don't have any illusions about each other. We know just what we're getting, so there can't be any complaints on that score after we're married. Illusions are no good in marriage. And I love a good fight. So does Mayo." (Bogart, Stephen Humphrey. Bogart: In Search of my Father) He would come to nickname her, their home, and a dog respectively "Sluggy." 

Bogart also considered Mayo great fun and she was a loving wife, but when drunk she was described as a "combination of Mae West and Edward G. Robinson." While Bogart was known to needle her, even while with rope around his neck yelling "Sluggy, you miserable shrew, I'm going to hang you," he got most of the physical abuse although he was not afraid to defend himself. When Mayo dropped a phone on his face, Bogie was quick to slap her. Where he called her "Sluggy," Methot would often refer to him as "Mr. Bogart, the great Warner Brothers star."

The extent Methot would take on her then-husband would become terrifying from threatening Bogie at a party at gun point and even stabbing him in the shoulder. But everything changed when 5'8" blonde model freshly minted with the name Lauren Bacall came onto the set of "To Have and Have Not"...