Verita Thompson: Humphrey Bogart's secret mistress
Hyfler/Rosner
The Independent
Tom Vallance
Saturday, 12 April 2008
In 1982, when the starlet turned wig-maker Verita Thompson
revealed that for 13 years she was Humphrey Bogart's lover,
it surprised many in the film industry as well as admirers
of the actor, one of the most iconic in cinema history.
Along with his reputation as a hard-drinking, no-nonsense
personality who gave indelible performances in such films as
The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca and The African Queen, Bogart
was also famous for his outwardly ideal marriage to sultry
Lauren Bacall, his fourth wife, who gave him two children
and remained with him from their marriage in 1945 until his
death in 1957.
According to Thompson, her association with Bogart had
started in 1942, when he was still married to his third
wife, Mayo Methot, in a union noted for its stormy,
sometimes physically violent arguments that had gained them
the title "the battling Bogarts". It was an era when general
knowledge of infidelity could ruin a career, and both stars
and studios worked hard to keep such stories away from press
or public scrutiny. Thompson had a valid reason to be around
Bogart - he wore a toupee and she was a wig-maker - and he
eventually put her on his permanent staff so that her
continued presence could be accounted for.
Thompson had originally arrived in Hollywood as an actress
after winning a beauty contest, though as she put it, "I
didn't know a damn thing about acting and still don't." She
was born Verita Bouvaire in Arizona to an Irish father and
Mexican mother; both her parents died when she was a child
and she was raised by paternal grandparents. After
graduation, she entered the Miss Arizona contest and came
second.
A talent scout for Republic Studios gave her a contract, but
her career was short-lived - on the first day of acting in a
Western, she fell off her horse and broke an arm.
Recuperating in Mexico City, she met an expatriate
Frenchman, a former wig-maker who had fled Europe with large
quantities of French lace and hair, but could not gain an
entry visa into the United States. Bouvaire formed a
partnership with him, went to beauty school in Hollywood and
became a licensed hairdresser. "The quality of our product
opened doors in Hollywood that would otherwise have been
closed to me, and so I began working with many female stars
and such leading men as Charles Boyer, Ray Milland and Gary
Cooper long before I came to Bogart's attention."
One of her closest friends was the actress Ann Sheridan,
also a good friend of Bogart. When Bouvaire was visiting her
at the Warner studio one day, Sheridan asked her to the
"wrap" party for Casablanca. According to Bouvaire, Bogart
could not take his eyes off her from the moment they met,
and after an evening of drinking and dancing they made a
date, though both were married - Bogart to Methot, Bouvaire
to a film technician, Robert Peterson.
When Verita Peterson's husband was away on war service, her
house in Burbank became the prime location for liaisons
between the lovers, who would drink "loudmouth", Bogart's
term for Scotch and soda (since it loosened the tongue)
through most of the night. Peterson was later described as
someone who could match Bogart drink for drink and cuss for
cuss. "He always said we'd make a perfect couple because we
were so much alike, and I naturally agreed with him, but
later I began having misgivings."
Bogart's three wives had all been actresses, and Peterson
concluded, "Bogey loved characters. The woman he first saw
in Mayo Methot was exactly what he was looking for. She was
a two-fisted drinker who could hold her liquor; a gregarious
party-goer; a fun-loving, sharp-tongued wit who liked
nothing better than stimulating conversation; and, like
Bogie, she hated pretentiousness and phonies." Though
Peterson refused to have contact with Bogart while their
respective divorces were going through, she was shocked when
she read that, 12 days after his divorce from Methot became
final, Bogart had married Lauren Bacall.
When Peterson and Bogart resumed their relationship, much of
their time was spent on Bogart's beloved boat, the Santana.
She wrote, "It's just my opinion, but Betty [Bacall] always
struck me as being too chameleon-like; it seems to me that
before marriage she flashed all the colours that Bogart
found attractive . . . For example, her interest in the
Santana and sailing delighted Bogie, for he spent - and
wanted to spend - every spare moment sailing. But Betty's
interest in going to sea with Bogie declined after he
slipped a ring on the third finger of her left hand. Her
dwindling interest in the Santana left clear sailing for me
. . ."
In 1949, when Bogart left Warners to form his own production
company, he had Verita Peterson written into his personal
agency contract: "From that time on, I worked on all but
four of Bogie's last 18 pictures." While making movies, she
revealed, he would call Bacall every day during lunch break
to tell her of the day's events and to ask her about the
children.
Peterson also found herself invited regularly to dine at the
Bogart home:
"It seemed hypocritical as hell for me to have anything to
do with Bogie's home life, and while Bogie agreed with me in
principle, he pointed out that it would raise suspicions if
I didn't act as an employee of Humphrey Bogart normally
would. And so I became more familiar with Betty and the two
children than I wanted to under the circumstances."
The affair finally ended when Peterson (with Bogart's full
approval) married the producer Walter Thompson in 1955, but
she remained a friend of both Bogart and Bacall until
Bogart's death. Thompson's husband died in 1975, after which
she opened a restaurant, Verita's La Cantina, on Sunset
Boulevard in Hollywood.
In 1982 she wrote her memoir, Bogie and Me, and in the 1990s
she opened a piano bar of the same name in New Orleans. When
Hurricane Katrina was about to hit the city, she is alleged
to have refused the offer of a private jet, stating, "Lauren
Bacall failed to chase me out of Hollywood. Katrina won't
force me out of New Orleans."
Tom Vallance
Verita Bouvaire, actress and hairdresser: born Nogales,
Arizona 1918; married first Robert Peterson (marriage
dissolved), secondly Walter Thompson (died 1975); died New
Orleans 1 February 2008.