Commentary: Bacall, Bogart and the Daily Pilot columnist

The recent death of Hollywood legend Lauren Bacall triggered for most people memories of her film and Broadway roles, her sultry looks and throaty voice, and her 12-year marriage to film star Humphrey Bogart.

Me? I couldn’t help thinking about good old Al Lockaby, a local legend in Newport Beach sailing circles who wrote a long-running boating column for the Daily Pilot.

I met Al in the early 1990s. By then, he was getting up there in years — I’d guess late 70s or early 80s — but he still stopped by the newsroom on West Bay Street each week to turn in his column. (He died later that decade.)

Al was quite the character — salty as the sailor he was — who had a gift for spinning yarns. He told a lot of tales, but he often came back to his favorite: the one about his single afternoon with Lauren Bacall.

He always told the tale with a big smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. I didn’t blame him.

Here’s how Al told it. One sunny afternoon in Newport Beach in the mid-1940s, he was hanging out at the Newport Harbor Yacht Club, having a drink or two at the bar. A gorgeous, young woman sat on the stool next to him and ordered a drink.

The pair got to talking. She was angry that her boyfriend had abandoned her for the day to go sailing. He wouldn’t even take her with him. With a stunning woman by his side, Al became a good listener and a better consoler.

After a few more drinks, the woman, seeking revenge on her thoughtless boyfriend, invited young Al to her room, though no one can say for certain what — if anything — happened in that room.

Afterward, the woman disappeared and Al returned to the yacht club bar. That’s when he couldn’t believe what he saw: Humphrey Bogart — the biggest movie star in the world — was fresh off a day of sailing and making up with the same woman.

Turned out that the then-unknown actress Lauren Bacall had just finished her first film, which starred Bogart. She was a teenager and Bogart was 44 during the shooting of the wartime drama “To Have and Have Not.” That’s the movie where Bacall uttered the famous line, “You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.”

I’ve always wondered if Al’s story was true. I did a little digging and found out that the known facts about Bogart and Bacall lined up with Al’s tale. Bogart kept his beloved 55-foot yacht, Santana, in Newport Harbor and would sail up to 45 weekends a year. He was well known around the Newport Harbor Yacht Club, and he also didn’t like taking women sailing.

And around the time Lockaby said that he met Bacall, the actress was still unknown. “To Have and Have Not” premiered in 1946.

So it was possible, if improbable, that a Daily Pilot columnist once had an encounter of some kind with Lauren Bacall. I never questioned it too much, though. Al thought we in the newsroom believed it and, with our urging, would eagerly tell the story to each new journalist at the Pilot.

And that was good enough for me.

WILLIAM LOBDELL is the communications director for the city of Costa Mesa and a former Daily Pilot editor.