I Choked Humphrey Bogart

Discussion Topic

Return to Forum List

This thread has been locked

Messages 1 - 6 of total 6 in this topic

The Wolf

Trad climber

Martinez, CA

Topic Author's Original Post - Oct 5, 2009 - 01:41am PT

Walking down the stained and cracked sidewalk, the shadow of the factory made it feel colder that it was. A breeze coming off the water wafted up the gentle incline of the street as the smell of raw sugar fully engulfed this side of town. Don’t remember where I was going, probably no where, which was what my high school counselor had told me many years before as she encouraged me to drop out of school and go to work at the reason for the raw sugar smell. C&H Sugar Refinery dominated my small town of 2000 people. Its huge 100-year-old brick structure was not only a behemoth and an eye sore, it had been the employer of generations of my family and of nearly everyone I knew.

The door to the small bar was open and the smell of cigarette smoke was so strong you could see it drifting to the street; low and slow like dry ice. HE was sitting at the bar. Not his usual bar, not the one we had shared drinks at so often, but one across town form his house. HE was on my side of town. If the truth were told this was less than 2000 feet from his house, but still on my side of town. There was not a question or hesitation, I made the quick left and stepped in the bar. I called out “Hey Aldo.” All three patrons looked but lonely one responded, I knew the others but they weren’t named Aldo so they said nothing. He quickly turned and in a deep rasp yelled back “hey, what are you up to?” I know he couldn’t tell was, him in the dark smoky bar, me in the doorway backlit, but that never stopped him from a welcoming “hey.”

I took the stool next to him and called down to Flanagan to bring a couple drinks, I never knew if Flanagan was his first or last name, but he always knew what I liked to drink. I was going nowhere anyway right? I might as well go there a little later, and with a buzz. What the hell.

This town is a “f*#k you, I do what I want” town, everyone knows everyone but no body gets in your business. I didn’t realize it at the time, but over the years, as I’ve looked at people I know, and knew, the opportunities that were seized and success gained was 100% on personal terms. Some crashed hard and failed by conventional societal standards, but I never met anyone with a regret. F*#k you, I do it my way or I don’t do it.

Aldo was a local kid, no better and no worse than anyone else but hit the one in a million shot of becoming a movie star. He never sought it and never asked for it but it came to him in a fluke and he took advantage of it and did it his way through 40 years and 80 movies. They wanted him to change his first name, saying Aldo was too ethnic sounding he told them no, his mother gave him the name Aldo and if Hollywood wanted him to change it he would do without Hollywood.

I was a recent film school grad, and a fledgling filmmaker and Aldo had been kind enough to be my connection to “the big time.” When my brown liquor on rocks arrived I took a sip and said hey Aldo what makes a good director? He quickly took a drink and said, one who takes care of you and leaves you alone at the same time. Like who? I asked. Michael Curtiz was a nice guy and a hellava director. Michael had directed Aldo twice, once in Pat and Mike with Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn and next in We’re No Angels with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Ustinov. What was Bogart like, I asked. He was a son of a bitch, but he could drink. We did a lot of drinking on that picture. But he was a prick. We didn’t get along at first. There was one scene we had to do about 30 times because the lines kept getting screwed up. Bogie finally blew up and started yelling at Curtiz, telling him he didn’t want to act with amateurs. And this kid was f*#king up the whole movie. The son of bitch was talking about me! Hell this was my 3rd or 4th movie and it was his last, but I wasn’t going to take anything from this little piece of sh#t, so I grabbed him by the throat and threw him against the wall and told him it was Ustinov that was f*#king up the scene and he better shut the hell up.

He smiled and told me to meet him in his dressing room. When I got there he poured me a drink and we drank and talked the rest of the day. We were drinking buddies until the day he died. Sweet guy, but a son of a bitch. What was your question again? ……Oh yeah, Curtiz, he was good, he let us work it out…. and have a few drinks.

Aldo Ray - 1926 – 1991

This is a true story. Aldo was a good and kind man and and full of amazing Hollywood stories. He died too you young, I miss him.

Wolf

Coming soon: The Taming of Tina Louis and The John Wayne way sucks.