Humphrey DeForest Bogart (December 25, 1899[1][2] – January 14, 1957) was an
Academy Award-winning American actor. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Bogart the
Greatest Male Star of All Time. Playing primarily smart, playful and
reckless characters anchored by an inner moral code while surrounded by a corrupt world, Bogart's most notable films include
The Maltese Falcon (1941),
Casablanca (1942), To Have and Have Not (1944), Key Largo (1948), The
African Queen (1951) (for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor), The Caine
Mutiny (1954), and The Left Hand of
God (1955). Altogether, he appeared in 75 feature motion pictures.
Though he started his career as Broadway stage
player and B-movie actor during the 1920s and 1930s, Bogart's later accomplishments have made
him a worldwide icon. French actors, such as Jean-Paul
Belmondo, were deeply influenced by his work and image. India’s great national
movie star, Ashok Kumar, listed Bogart as a major
influence on his "natural" acting style. In the United States, Bogart is remembered in one of Woody
Allen’s comic movies, Play It Again, Sam, which relates the story of a
young man obsessed by his persona. In 1997, the United States Postal
Service featured Bogart in its "Legends of Hollywood" series, and Entertainment Weekly magazine has named Bogart
the number one movie legend of all time.
Birth and early life
He was born Humphrey DeForest Bogart in New York City, the oldest child of Belmont
DeForest Bogart and Maud Humphrey; he had English and Dutch ancestry.[3] His father
was a Republican and a Presbyterian, while his mother was a Tory and an Episcopalian; Bogart was raised in his mother's Episcopal
church.[4] He is one of the descendants of King Edward III of England.[citation needed] Through Thomas Dudley, Bogart was related to playwrights Tennessee
Williams and Robert E. Sherwood, as well as John
Brown. He was also descended from the Pilgrim John Howland.
Bogart's birthday has been a subject of controversy. It was long believed that his birthday on Christmas Day, 1899, was a
Warner Bros. fiction created to romanticize his background, and that he was really born on
January 23, 1899, a date that appears in many references.
However, this story is now considered baseless: although no birth certificate has ever been found, his birth notice did appear in
a Boston newspaper in early January 1900, which supports the December 1899 date.
In addition, the 1900 census for the household of Belmont Bogart lists his son Humphrey as having a birth date in December of
1899. There are also three different censuses attesting to his birth date in December, 1899. In addition, his last wife, actress
Lauren Bacall, always maintained that December 25 was
his true birth date.[5]
Childhood
Bogart's father, Belmont, was a successful surgeon. His mother, Maud Humphrey, was a very successful commercial illustrator.
Indeed, she used a drawing of baby Humphrey in a well-known ad campaign for Mellins Baby Food. In her prime, she made over
$50,000 a year as an illustrator, then a vast sum. The Bogarts lived in a fashionable Upper
West Side apartment, and had a cottage in upstate New York.
From his father, Bogart inherited a tendency for needling people, a fondness for fishing and a life-long love of sailing.
Humphrey was the oldest of three children. When Lauren Bacall introduced him to her large
family, he said, "Christ, you've got more goddamn relatives than I've ever seen."
As a boy, Bogart was teased for his curls, his tidiness, the "cute" pictures his mother had him pose for, the Little Lord Fauntleroy clothes she dressed him in—and the name "Humphrey."
School
The Bogarts sent their son to the Trinity School in New York and then
to the prestigious preparatory school Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts. They hoped
he would go on to Yale, but in 1918, Bogart was expelled from Phillips Academy.[6]
The details of his expulsion are disputed: one story claims that he was expelled for throwing the headmaster (alternatively, a
groundskeeper) into Rabbit Pond, a man-made lake on campus. Another cites smoking and drinking, combined with poor academic
performance and possibly some intemperate comments to the staff. It has also been said that he was actually withdrawn from the
school by his father for failing to improve his academics, as opposed to expulsion.
Navy
In spring 1918, Bogart enlisted in the U.S. Navy. It was during his naval stint that he got his trademark scar and developed
his characteristic lips, though the actual circumstances are hazy at best. One account is that his lip was cut by a piece of
shrapnel during a shelling of his ship, the USS Leviathan, although some claim that
Bogart didn’t make it to sea until after the Armistice was signed. Another version, which
Bogart's long time friend, author Nathaniel Benchley, claims is the truth, is that
Bogart was injured while on assignment to take a naval prisoner to Portsmouth Naval
Prison in New Hampshire. Supposedly, while changing trains in Boston, the handcuffed prisoner asked Bogart for a cigarette and while Bogart looked for a match, the
prisoner raised his hands, smashed Bogart across the mouth with his cuffs, cutting Bogart's lip, and fled. The prisoner was
eventually taken to Portsmouth. An alternate explanation is that while in the process of uncuffing an inmate, Bogart was struck
in the mouth when the inmate wielded one open, uncuffed bracelet while the other side was still on his wrist.[7] This incident reportedly resulted in his trademark snarl and unique
speaking voice.[8] Nevertheless, by the time Bogart was
treated by a doctor, the scar had already formed. "Goddamn doctor," Bogart later told David
Niven, "instead of stitching it up, he screwed it up." In fact, Niven says that when he asked Bogart about his scar he
said it was caused by a childhood accident, which seems to contradict the above stories; Niven claims the stories that Bogie got
the scar during wartime were made up by the studios to inject glamour.
Early career in the theatre
Bogart took odd jobs, joined the Naval Reserve, and eventually drifted
into acting. He liked the late hours that actors kept, and enjoyed the attention that an actor got on stage. Most of all, he
enjoyed the challenge of putting on a difficult scene, making the audience believe it. He dug deeply into the characters he
portrayed, and found them a welcome escape from his own self.[citation needed]
Bogart began his acting career on the Brooklyn stage in 1921, playing a Japanese butler. He never took acting lessons, and had no formal training. An early reviewer wrote of Bogart's
work: "To be as kind as possible, we will only say that this actor was inadequate." Bogart loathed the trivial parts he had to
play early in his career, calling them "White Pants Willie" roles.
Bogart appeared in 21 Broadway productions between 1922 and 1935. He played
juveniles or romantic second-leads in drawing room comedies. He is said to have been the first actor to ask "Tennis, anyone?" on
stage.
Early in his career, Bogart met Helen Menken. They married in 1926, divorced in 1927,
and remained friends. In 1928, he married Mary Philips. Philips, like Menken, had a fiery temper,
and once bit the finger off a police officer who tried to arrest her for drunkenness.
Spencer Tracy was a serious Broadway actor whom Bogart liked and admired, and they
became good friends. It was Tracy, in 1930, who first called him "Bogie". (Spelled variously in many sources, Bogart himself
spelled his nickname "Bogie.")[9]
The Petrified Forest
In 1934, Bogart starred in the play Invitation to a Murder. The producer Arthur Hopkins saw the play and sent for Bogart when he chose to produce Robert E. Sherwood's new play, The Petrified
Forest. Bogart arrived in Hopkins' office while Sherwood was there; Hopkins told him: "I've got a good role for you. A
gangster role." Robert Sherwood was sure Hopkins was wrong; Bogart should play the football player. Bogart said later: "They
argued back and forth, and I thought Sherwood was right. I couldn't picture myself playing a gangster. So what happened? I made a
hit as the gangster."
The Petrified Forest had 197 performances in New York; Bogart played escaped killer Duke Mantee. Leslie Howard, who played the lead, knew how crucial Bogart was to the success of the play. He and
Bogart became friends, and he promised to help Bogart reprise his role if Hollywood made the play into a film.
Bogart was proud of his success as an actor, but the fact that it came from playing a gangster weighed on him. He once said,
"I can't get in a mild discussion without turning it into an argument. There must be something in my tone of voice, or this
arrogant face—something that antagonizes everybody. Nobody likes me on sight. I suppose that's why I'm cast as the heavy."
Warner Bros. bought the screen rights to The Petrified Forest, signed up Leslie
Howard, then tested several Hollywood veterans for the Duke Mantee role, and chose Edward G.
Robinson. Bogart cabled news of this to Howard, who was in Scotland. Leslie Howard
insisted that Bogart play Duke Mantee. When Warner Bros. saw that Howard would not budge, they gave in and cast him. Bogart never
forgot this favor, and in 1952 he named his only daughter, Leslie, after Leslie Howard, who had
died in World War II.
Early film career
Robert E. Sherwood remained a close friend of Bogart's. In 1936, the film version of The Petrified Forest came out. Bogart got excellent reviews, but he was
then typecast as a gangster in a series of crime dramas for Warner Bros. All told,
Bogart went to the electric chair 12 times, and was sentenced to over 800 years of hard labor. Jack
Warner saw nothing wrong with that; as long as the movies made money, and the actors got paid, he saw no reason for anyone
to complain.
Mary Philips refused to give up her Broadway career to come to Hollywood with Bogart, and soon they were divorced.
On August 21, 1938, Bogart entered into a disastrous third
marriage, with Mayo Methot, a lively, friendly woman when sober, but a paranoid when drunk.
She was convinced that her husband was cheating on her. The more she and Bogart drifted apart, the more she drank, got furious
and threw things at him: plants, crockery, anything close at hand. Bogart sometimes returned fire, and the press dubbed them "the
Battling Bogarts." "The Bogart-Methot marriage was the sequel to the Civil War," said
their friend Julius Epstein. A wag observed that there was madness in his Methot.
During this time, Bogart bought a sailboat, which he named "Sluggy" after his hot-tempered wife.
In 1938, Warner Bros. put him in a "hillbilly
musical" called Swing Your Lady as a wrestling promoter; he later apparently considered this his worst film
performance.[citation needed] In 1939, Bogart played a mad
scientist in The Return of Doctor X. He cracked: "If it'd been Jack Warner's blood…I
wouldn't have minded so much. The trouble was they were drinking mine and I was making this stinking movie."
The studio system, then in its heyday, largely restricted actors to one studio, and Warner Bros. had no interest in making
Bogart a star. Shooting on a new movie might begin days or only hours after shooting on the previous one was completed. Any actor
who refused a role could be suspended without pay. Bogart didn't like the roles chosen for him, but he worked steadily: between
1936 and 1940, Bogart averaged a movie every two
months. He thought that Warner Bros.' wardrobe department was cheap, and often wore his own suits in his movies. In High
Sierra, Bogart used his own mutt to play his character's dog "Pard."
The leading men ahead of Bogart at Warner Bros. included not just such classic stars as James
Cagney and Edward G. Robinson, but also actors far less well-known today, such
as Victor McLaglen, George Raft and
Paul Muni. Most of the studio's better movie scripts went to these men, and Bogart had to take
what was left. He made films like Racket Busters, San Quentin, and You Can't Get Away With Murder. The only
substantial leading role he got during this period was in Samuel Goldwyn's
Dead End (1937), but he played a variety of interesting supporting roles, such as
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) (in which he got shot by James Cagney).
Bogart was gunned down on film repeatedly, by Cagney and Edward G. Robinson, among others; he rarely saw his own films and didn't
attend the premieres.
Dark Victory (1939) was one of the last films in which he played a supporting
role.
Bogart had been raised to believe that acting was beneath a gentleman. Acting in movies was even worse than on the stage, and
playing depraved gunmen in "B" pictures for Warner Bros. was not something to be mentioned in polite company.
In California in the 1930s, Bogart bought a 55-foot sailing yacht from Dick Powell. The
sea was his sanctuary.[10] He was a serious sailor,
respected by other sailors who had seen too many Hollywood actors and their boats. About 30 weekends a year, he went out on his
boat. He once said: "An actor needs something to stabilize his personality, something to nail down what he really is, not what he
is currently pretending to be."
He had a lifelong disgust for the pretentious, fake or phony, as his son Stephen told Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne in 1999. Sensitive yet caustic, and disgusted by the
inferior movies he was churning out, Bogart cultivated the persona of a soured idealist, a man exiled from better things in New
York, living by his wits, drinking too much, cursed to live out his life among second-rate people and projects.
When he thought an actor, director or a movie studio had done something shoddy, he spoke up about it and was willing to be
quoted. The Hollywood press, unaccustomed to candor, was delighted. Bogart once said, "All over Hollywood, they are continually
advising me 'Oh, you mustn't say that. That will get you in a lot of trouble' when I remark that some picture or writer or
director or producer is no good. I don't get it. If he isn't any good, why can't you say so? If more people would mention it,
pretty soon it might start having some effect."
Rise to stardom
High Sierra
High Sierra, a 1941 movie directed by
Raoul Walsh, had a screenplay written by Bogart's friend and drinking partner,
John Huston, adapted from the novel by W.R.
Burnett (Little Caesar, etc.). The film was a step forward for Bogart. He still played the villain, "Mad Dog" Roy
Earle, and he still died at the end, but at least he got to kiss Ida Lupino and play a
character with some depth. In a climactic scene, Bogart's character slid 90 feet down a mountainside to his just reward. His
stunt double, Buster Wiles, bounced a few times going down the mountain and wanted another take
to do better. "Forget it," said Raoul Walsh. "It's good enough for the 25-cent customers."
Bogart and Huston enjoyed each other's company, and drew on each other's gifts. Bogart had always been self-conscious about
his height (5'8"); Huston was 6'2" (and his rail-thin build made him appear to be even taller). Bogart had never been close to
his father, while Huston was very close to his, actor Walter Huston.
Bogart admired and somewhat envied Huston for his skill as a writer. Though a poor student, Bogart was a lifelong reader. He
could quote Plato, Pope, Ralph Waldo Emerson and over a thousand lines of Shakespeare. He admired writers, and some of his best friends were screenwriters, including
Louis Bromfield, Nathaniel Benchley and
Nunnally Johnson.
John Huston reported being easily bored, and admired Bogart not just for his acting talent but for his intense
concentration.
The Maltese Falcon
Paul Muni and George Raft had both turned down
Bogart's part in High Sierra. Raft then turned down the male lead in John Huston's directorial debut The Maltese Falcon (1941), due to it being a cleaned up version of the
pre-Production Code The Maltese
Falcon (1931), his contract stipulating that he did not have to appear in remakes.
Bogart grabbed the part and audiences saw him play a leading role with real complexity. His character, Sam Spade, was still capable of duplicity and violence, but he was a leading man: handsome, smart, fated to
survive. When he discovered his sexy client was a murderess, he turned her in, with a speech he made famous: "I don't care who
loves who. I won't play the sap for you! You killed Miles and you're going over for it. I hope they don't hang you by your sweet
neck. If you're a good girl, you'll be out in 20 years and you'll come back to me. If they hang you, I'll always remember
you."
Humphrey Bogart in
Casablanca.
Casablanca
Bogart got his first real romantic lead in Casablanca, playing Rick Blaine,
the nightclub owner.
In real life, Bogart himself played tournament chess, one level below master level. It was reportedly his idea that Rick
Blaine be portrayed as a chess player.
Off the set, Ingrid Bergman and Bogart hardly spoke during the filming of
Casablanca. She said later, "I kissed him but I never knew him." Years later, after Bergman had taken up with Italian
director Roberto Rossellini, and bore him a child, Bogart confronted her. "You used
to be a great star," he said. "What are you now?" "A happy woman," she replied.
Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine in Casablanca 1942. Photo: Howard Frank Archives
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Casablanca won the 1943 Academy
Award for Best Picture. Bogart was nominated for the Best Actor in a
Leading Role, but lost out to Paul Lukas for his performance in Watch on the
Rhine.
Bogart and Bacall
Bogart and Bacall interviewed during World War II.
Only Bogart's fourth marriage, to Lauren Bacall ("Baby"), was a happy one. They met
while filming To Have and Have Not. The director, Howard Hawks, once commented: "When two people are falling in love with each other, they're not tough to
get along with, I can tell you that. Bogie was marvelous. I said, 'You've got to help,' and of course after a few days he really
began to get interested in the girl. That made him help more." Hawks at some point began to disapprove of the pair. He fell for
Bacall as well, and wanted her to feel the same way (although he was married). Out of jealousy, he said of Bacall: "She had to
keep practicing for six to eight months to keep that low voice. Now, it's perfectly natural. And the funny thing is that Bogie
fell in love with the character she played, so she had to keep playing it the rest of her life." They were married on
May 21, 1945 in Lucas, Ohio,
at Malabar Farm, the country home of Pulitzer
Prize-winning author Louis Bromfield, who was a close friend of Bogart's. The
wedding was held in the Big House.
Bogart and Bacall's relationship is at the heart of the film noir masterpiece The Big Sleep. Chandler thoroughly admired Bogart's performance: "Bogart can be tough
without a gun. Also, he has a sense of humor that contains that grating undertone of contempt."
Bacall allowed Bogart lots of weekend time on his boat. She got seasick, and Bogart said, "The trouble with having dames on
board is you can't pee over the side." Bogart would frequently sail to Catalina with friends or set some lobster traps.
Bacall wrote of Bogart: "You had to stay awake married to him. Every time I thought I could relax and do everything I wanted,
he'd buck. There was no way to predict his reactions, no matter how well I knew him."
Bogart and Bacall moved into a $160,000 white brick mansion in Holmby
Hills, an exclusive neighborhood between Beverly Hills and
Bel-Air. Bogart and Bacall had two Jaguar cars, and three blooded Boxer dogs. Bogart said "We moved where
all the creeps live." But he liked some of his neighbors, especially Judy Garland.
On January 6, 1949, Lauren Bacall gave birth to a son,
Stephen Humphrey Bogart, making Bogart a father at 49. He had had months to absorb the news and even had his own baby shower.
(Frank Sinatra brought him baby rattles.) On
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