A Brit a Day [#650]

Sometimes I'd like to write about someone in ABAD who is not known to be British, and then I find that they are.  I've immersed myself in noir fiction this holiday--Raymond Chandler [raised in England, btw] and Dashiell Hammett--and where Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe tread, images of Humphrey Bogart aren't far behind.

I've always been fascinated by the marriage of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.  She was 25 years younger than him, and I'm usually kind of judgmental if the age gap exceeds 17, the age difference between my maternal grandmother and grandfather. [My grandmother was widowed fairly young, and her second husband was also 17 years older than she was.]  Anyway, age gap notwithstanding, the Bogarts seemed to have had a very loving marriage, and they stayed married until he died.

It turns out, lucky for me, that Humphrey Bogart had English relatives on both his parents' sides, and in fact, he was Episcopalian like his mother.  The picture below caught my eye this morning for a number of reasons, but mostly, who could pass up such an adorable shot of boxers on Boxing Day, right?

If you are interested in reading about the Bogart/Bacall wedding as Lauren Bacall wrote about it in her memoir, grab a hanky and go here:

http://oldhollywood.tumblr.com/post/134183086/lauren-bacall-humphrey-bogart-on-their-wedding