Back When movies were movies and men didn't talk about clothes--they just wore 'em--you could tell a man by his duds: There was the trench coat that Bogey made famous in Casablanca, the sheepskin jacket Kirk Douglas wore in Gunfight at the OK Corral, the baggy overcoat worn by Harpo Marx in his films and even the executive suit worn by Jack Lemmon in The Apartment. Well, great fashions, like great movies, always have revivals, and the distinctively masculine clothes of the Forties are back. We asked the sons of Bogey. Douglas, Harpo and Lemmon to pose for famous Hollywood photographer George Hurrell, decked out in our selection of the year's best retrofashions. They also shared with us their own fashion preferences.
Stephen Bogart, a general-assignment editor for NBC Network News, likes to dress casually: "Jeans, T-shirts, polo shirts. I hate ties. They're sexist." When told that he was fairly impressive in the Casablanca look, Bogart replied diplomatically, "I like the hat." He's presently working on a remake of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, one of his father's most memorable films.
Bill Marx, currently on the talk-show circuit, promoting his father's reissued autobiography, Harpo Speaks!, says, "Some days, I like to dress up, because that's the feeling I need for that day. The best thing is to wear custom-made dress shirts. Somehow, they feel better to me." Marx, a jazz pianist, composer and arranger, is also a funny man: "The difference between Harpo and me is that he chased blondes--I chase anything."
Eric Douglas, one of Kirk's four sons, says, "I feel comfortable wearing as little as possible." However, he says he loves the Western look. "It's very much like me. I like to pretend that I'm a cowboy back in the 1800s." Douglas, who has followed his father and older brother Michael into an acting career, has had roles in the movies The Flamingo Kid and Tomboy and in a made-for-TV movie, Remembrance of Love, in which he played his father's character as a young man.
Chris Lemmon, whom we dressed in the kind of threads his dad wore in the film The Apartment, recalls, "Dad always said simple was best, so I try to wear nothing whenever I can. However, when I do dress up. I like to make an occasion out of it." Lemmon, an actor who has just completed two films (Hollywood Air Force Base and Yellow Pages), sums up our sentiments about the current retrospective trend in men's clothing: "It's nice to see nifty clothing like this come back in style." Here's lookin' at you, kids.
