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Larry Smith & Jenny Paxson at Malabar Farm where Bogart and Bacall were also wed.
Dayton Daily News
By Dale Huffman
May 24, 2005
Larry Smith and Jennifer "Jenny" Paxson Smith of Dayton planned to bring wedding cupcakes with them to work this morning, along with the surprise story of their weekend nuptials.
"It was just like Bogey and Bacall," Jennifer said. "Our co-workers had no idea we were planning this and we can't wait to fill them in on our own personal movie-star-like marriage at Malabar Farm."
Larry, 47, former manager of the Neon Movies downtown and president of the Cinerama Preservation Society, is also a nitrate film specialist at the Library of Congress Motion Picture Conservation Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Jenny also works at the film preservation center, and, like Larry, is a film buff, interested in motion picture history and movie star lore.
"Movies brought us together and we have attended many film festivals together," Jenny said. "So after 10 years together we decided this was the right time to be married and we knew we wanted some kind of a Hollywood tie-in."
They did some research and found out that movie legends Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart had eloped to Malabar Farm near Mansfield, and were married in a large mansion owned by Bogart's friend, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Louis Bromfield.
The farm and the mansion are now operated as one of Ohio's state parks.
"When we realized that Bogey and Bacall, in an effort to escape the press, were married exactly 60 years ago, on May 21, 1945, at the Malabar mansion it sealed the deal," Larry said. "Jenny and I began making our plans for eloping, and didn't tell a soul here at home, not even my mother or our closest relatives."
When the two exchanged vows Saturday in the same place where Bogey and Bacall were wed, the folks at Malabar tipped off the Mansfield News Journal and the story wound up in their Sunday edition.
"It was good since now we have photographs of our wedding," Larry said. "We are sending photos to our friends now letting them know we had a private ceremony in a special place."
Larry met Lauren Bacall in 1989 when she came to Dayton as part of the Town Hall lecture series. "I went backstage and she was very gracious and signed a still photo from her movie To Have and Have Not."
Several weeks ago Larry sent a note to Bacall in New York, along with a photo of Bogey and Bacall's wedding at Malabar that he purchased on eBay.
"We invited her to our wedding, but she is out of the country promoting her new book," Larry said. "But she sent us a letter and signed her photo "To Larry and Jenny, Best Wishes, Lauren Bacall."
Saturday night, just at dusk, Larry said he and his new bride enjoyed a special event as they started their honeymoon.
"We were staying in a cabin, and I had brought along our 16 millimeter projector and a print of my favorite movie Love Me Tonight, a 1932 romantic film starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald," Larry said. "I secured a white sheet to a tree outdoors to use as a screen, and sitting on the slope, as the sun went down, and all alone, Jenny and I watched the movie."
The two are home now and will share the good news with friends and co-workers today and say they will continue the honeymoon next weekend in Columbus when they attend a festival called Cinevent in Columbus.
"We wanted to do something unique, and yet fun," Larry said. "Now we plan to spend a long, happy and loving life together, along way sharing the joy of movies and the stars that make them."
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