How did Humping Humphrey even keep track of all his conquests, asks Nadine Dreyer
One thousand women. That adds up to one helluva bunch of red roses.
You may have heard about a new book alleging Casablanca star Humphrey Bogart had sex with an estimated 1000 women during his lifetime.
Based on unpublished memoirs and interviews, the book was written by Darwin Porter, a journalist in Hollywood in the 1960s.
According to Humphrey Bogart, the Making of a Legend, the film star's long list of good-looking scalps included Bette Davis, Jean Harlow, Marlene Dietrich and fellow Casablanca star Ingrid Bergman. (Gosh. Hope all these divas always kept a good bottle of Dettol and clean wipes handy.)
All this before he met love of his life, Lauren Bacall, and she became his fourth wife.
The conquest of 1000 different sets of pulchritudinous assets adds up to one big Everest of flower bouquets. Was the smart money in 1940s Hollywood in the florist business?
And we are not even going into the Toblerone or the Lindts required for each assignation.
Personally, I am always slightly bemused by the veracity of lists of this nature. I mean, who's counting?
Do the Bogies of this world employ a Miss Moneypenny (or is it Miss Honeypenny?) to document names and identity documents each time they haul out the hairy lobster? How else do you keep an audit lest the mates question the latest figures over the Friday night pint?
Even if Bogie's predatory instincts were such that he could flatten his prey with one paw, this babe tally requires a healthy dose of scrutiny.
For starters, simple mathematics suggests each of his encounters would be - as they say - nasty, brutish and short.
A total of 1000 women equals a different Sheila every night for three years. Or a different one every week for almost two decades. That's one relentless quest for variety. In comparison, Tiger Woods (count: 130) seems more like a Cistercian monk.
Of course, Bogie is just one famous character notorious for his relentless womanising.
Tony Curtis, who has just traded in his film script for the big movie in the sky, was another film star who apparently had a legendary tally (also 1000).
According to the London Mirror, other legendary loverboys include Rod Stewart and Bill Wyman (also 1000 apiece), Julio Iglesias (3000), Warren Beatty (12000) and - wait for it - Fidel Castro with 35000.
Fidel Castro? The Cuban dictator? Is there something about decades of defying the citadels of capitalism that supersizes the libido? According to a former official who worked for Castro, identified only as "Ramon", Uncle Fidel "slept with at least two women a day for more than four decades - one for lunch and one for supper". Ramon was quoted in the New York Post. Yes, the New York Post owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Historically, those whose real estate included a well-stocked harem had a whole posse of pubescent nymphs to choose from. But it does not follow that because a sultan owns a whole box of Turkish delights he necessarily eats them all. It just means they are there for when he feels hungry. I suspect that after getting the keys to the shack, most sultans spent more time worrying about which younger brother was plotting to push an asp up his bottom than tasting the latest plucked, shaved, oiled and scented lovely.
Of course, it's not only famous men who try and make the beast with two backs with as many females as possible.
An acquaintance once told me, without a shred of irony, that one of his school buddies had a lifer list - and we were not talking ornithology here. If I remember correctly, his mate's ticks were in the mid-400s and rising.
As a life goal, this seems rather pathetic. Sure, climb Mount Everest, become a billionaire, conquer Broadway, smack Robert Mugabe. These are life goals. But what kind of a loser is going to sit around the fire and tell his grandchildren how many girls' blouses he unbuttoned before he reached the age where he was forced to slurp soup with a bib on?
Let's go back to Humphrey Bogart as our test case. I'm not saying I have scientific proof of this, but the thing about these men, is that they are almost never good-looking. Even his granny would have to admit that if you compared Bogart to a Basset hound, Bogie would come off second best.
Nor was it all plain sailing for the guy. He even contemplated suicide. Bogart's pain was said to stem from physical abuse suffered at the hands of his father when he was a child.
During a disastrous second marriage he became temporarily impotent, which made him fear he was gay.
Enter Sigmund Freud.
