Humphrey Bogart

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Humphrey Bogart
Photographed by Yousuf Karsh, 1946
Born	Humphrey DeForest Bogart December 25, 1899 (1899-12-25) New York City, New York, USA
Died	January 14, 1957 (aged 57) Los Angeles, California, USA
Other name(s)	Bogie
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1920-1956
Spouse(s)	Lauren Bacall (1945-1957) Mayo Methot (1938-1945) Mary Philips (1928-1937) Helen Menken (1926-1927)
Official website
Awards won Academy Awards Best Actor 1952 The African Queen - Charlie Allnut Other Awards Sour Apple - Least Cooperative Actor 1949 Star on the Walk of Fame

Humphrey DeForest Bogart (December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957)^[1][2] was an Academy Award-winning American actor and film star.

He is recognised for playing typically smart, playful, courageous, tough, occasionally reckless characters who lived in a corrupt world, anchored by a hidden moral code.

In 1999, the American Film Institute named Bogart the Greatest Male Star of All Time. Bogart's most notable films include The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Key Largo (1948), The African Queen (1951) (for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor), The Caine Mutiny (1954), We're No Angels (1955) 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. 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.

Contents 1 Early life 1.1 Childhood 1.2 Education 1.3 Navy 2 Early career in the theatre 2.1 The Petrified Forest 2.2 Early film career 3 Rise to stardom 3.1 High Sierra 3.2 The Maltese Falcon 3.3 Casablanca 4 Bogart and Bacall 4.1 The panda case 4.2 The Rat Pack and Romanoff's 5 Later career 5.1 The African Queen 6 The House Un-American Activities Committee 7 Final roles 7.1 Television work 8 Death 9 Quotes 9.1 Attributed 9.2 Famous movie quotes 9.2.1 Casablanca 9.2.2 The Maltese Falcon 9.2.3 The Big Sleep 10 Filmography 11 Popular culture 12 See also 13 References 13.1 Notes 13.2 Bibliography 14 External links

[edit] Early life

Bogart was born in New York City, the oldest child of Belmont DeForest Bogart (b. July 1867 in Watkins Glen, New York - d. September 8, 1934 in Tudor City apartments, New York, New York) and Maud A. Humphrey (1867–1941). Belmont and Maud were married in June 1898. His father's ancestors were of Dutch, English, French, and Norwegian origin.^[3] Bogart is a Dutch name meaning “orchard”.^[4] His mother's were largely of English descent and to a lesser extent Welsh.^[5] Bogart's father was a Presbyterian, while his mother was an Episcopalian. Bogart was raised in his mother's Episcopal church.^[6]

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, as do other sources.^[7]

[edit] Childhood

Bogart's father, Belmont, was a successful surgeon, a heart and lung specialist. His mother, Maud Humphrey, was a very successful commercial illustrator, who received her art training in New York and France, including study with James McNeill Whistler, and who later became artistic director of the fashion magazine Delineator. She was also a militant suffragette.^[8] She used a drawing of baby Humphrey in a well-known ad campaign for Mellins Baby Food.^[9] In her prime, she made over $50,000 a year as an illustrator, then a vast sum, far more than her surgeon husband who made $20,000 per year from his excellent practice.^[10] The Bogarts lived in a fashionable Upper West Side apartment, and had an elegant cottage on a fifty-five acre estate in upstate New York on Canandaigua Lake. As a youngster, Humphrey's gang of friends at the lake would put on theatricals.^[11]

Humphrey was the oldest of three children, his two younger sisters were Frances and Catherine Elizabeth (Kay).^[9] When Lauren Bacall introduced him to her large family, he said, "Christ, you've got more goddamn relatives than I've ever seen." His parents were very formal, busy in their careers, and frequently fought—resulting in little emotion directed at the children, “I was brought up very unsentimentally but very straightforwardly. A kiss, in our family, was an event. Our mother and father didn’t glug over my two sisters and me”.^[12] 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."^[13] From his father, Bogart inherited a tendency for needling people, a fondness for fishing, a life-long love of sailing, and an attraction to strong-willed women.^[14]

[edit] Education

Typical of New York society parents, the Bogarts sent their son to private schools. Humphrey began school at the Delancy school until fifth grade when he was enrolled in Trinity School.^[15] He was an indifferent, sullen student who showed no interest in after-school activities either.^[16] Later he went to the prestigious preparatory school Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts, the oldest prep school in America, where he was admitted based on family connections.^[17] They hoped he would go on to Yale, but in 1918, Bogart was expelled from Phillips Academy.^[18]

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. In any case, his parents were deeply dismayed by the events and their failed plans for his future.^[19]

[edit] Navy

In spring 1918, coming up with no other career options, Bogart followed his love for the sea and enlisted in the U.S. Navy. As he recalled later, “At eighteen war was great stuff. Paris! French girls! Hot damn!”^[20] Bogart is recorded as a model sailor who spent most of his months in the navy after the Armistice was signed, ferrying troops back from Europe.^[21]

It was during his naval stint that Bogart may have gotten his trademark scar and developed his characteristic lisp, though the actual circumstances are hazy at best and somewhat contradictory. One account is that his lip was cut by a piece of shrapnel during a shelling of his ship, 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.^[22]

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. His post-service physical makes no mention of the lip scar even though it mentions many smaller scars, so the actual cause may have come later.^[21]When actress Louise Brooks met Bogart in 1924, he had some scarred tissue on his upper lip, which Belmont Bogart may have partially repaired before Bogart went into films in 1930.^[19] She believes his scar had nothing to do with his distinctive speech pattern, his “lip wound gave him no speech impediment, either before or after it was mended...Over the years, Bogey practiced all kinds of lip gymnastics, accompanied by nasal tones, snarls, lisps, and slurs. His painful wince, his leer, his fiendish grin were the most accomplished ever seen on film”.^[23]

[edit] Early career in the theatre

Bogart returned home to find that the family fortunes had diminished considerably. Belmont was suffering from poor health (perhaps aggravated by morphine addiction), his medical practice was faltering, and he had lost much of the family's money on bad investments in timber.^[24] During his naval days, Bogart's character and values developed independent of family influence, and he began to rebel somewhat from their values. He came to be a liberal who hated pretensions, phonies, and snobs, and at times he defied conventional behavior and authority, traits he displayed in life and in his movies. On the other hand, he retained their traits of good manners, articulateness, punctuality, modesty, and a dislike of being touched.^[25]

After his naval service, Bogart took odd jobs, including shipper and then bond salesman.^[26] He also joined the Naval Reserve. More importantly, he resumed his friendship with boyhood mate Bill Brady, Jr. whose father had show business connections, and eventually Bogart got an office job working for William A. Brady Sr.'s new company World Films.^[27] Bogart got to try his hand at screen writing, directing, and production, but excelled at none of them. For a while, he was stage manager for Brady's daughter's play A Ruined Lady. A few months later in 1921, Bogart made his stage debut in Drifting as a Japanese butler in another Alice Brady play, nervously speaking one line of dialogue. Several more appearances followed in her subsequent plays.^[28] Bogart was hooked on acting. He liked the late hours that actors kept, and enjoyed the attention that an actor got on stage. He spent a lot of his free time in speakeasys and became a heavy drinker. A bar room brawl during this time might have been the actual cause of Bogart's lip damage, as this coincides better with the Louise Brooks account.^[29] As he stated, “I was born to be indolent and this was the softest of rackets”.^[26]

Bogart never took acting lessons, and had no formal training, but he was persistent and worked steadily at his craft. He appeared in at least seventeen Broadway productions between 1922 and 1935.^[30] 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.^[31] Critic Alexander Woollcott wrote of Bogart's early work that he "is what is usually and mercifully described as inadequate."^[32] Some reviews were kinder. Heywood Broun reviewing Nerves wrote, “Humphrey Bogart gives the most effective performance…both dry and fresh, if that be possible”.^[33] Bogart loathed the trivial, effeminate parts he had to play early in his career, calling them "White Pants Willie" roles.

Early in his career, while playing double roles in the play Drifting at the Playhouse Theatre in 1922, Bogart met Helen Menken. They were married on May 20, 1926 at the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York City, divorced on November 18, 1927, and remained friends.^[34] Later on April 3, 1928, he married Mary Philips at her mother's apartment in Hartford, Connecticut. She, like Menken, had a fiery temper. He met Mary when they appeared in the play Nerves that had a very brief run at the Comedy Theatre in September 1924.

After the stock market crash of 1929, stage production dropped off sharply, and many of the more photogenic actors headed for Hollywood. Bogart's earliest film role is with Helen Hayes in the 1928 two-reeler The Dancing Town, of which a complete copy has never been found. He also appeared with Joan Blondell in a Vitaphone short in 1930 which was re-discovered in 1963.^[35] Bogart then signed a contract with Fox Film Corporation for $750 a week. Spencer Tracy was a serious Broadway actor whom Bogart liked and admired, and they became good friends and drinking buddies. It was Tracy, in 1930, who first called him "Bogie". (Spelled variously in many sources, Bogart himself spelled his nickname "Bogie".)^[36] Tracy and Bogart appeared in their only film together in John Ford's early sound film Up the River (1930), with both playing inmates. It was Tracy's film debut.^[37] Bogart then performed in The Bad Sister with Bette Davis in 1931, in a minor part.^[38]

During 1930-1935 period, Bogart had hard times. He shuttled back and forth between Hollywood and the New York stage, suffering long periods without work. His parents were living separately and Belmont died in 1934 in debt, which Bogart eventually paid off. (Bogart inherited his father's gold ring which he always wore, even in his films. At his father's deathbed, Bogart finally told Belmont how much he loved him.)^[39] Bogart's second marriage was on the rocks, and he was less than happy with his acting career to date; he became depressed, irritable, and drank heavily.^[40]

[edit] The Petrified Forest

In 1934, Bogart starred in the Broadway play Invitation to a Murder at the Theatre Masque, now the John Golden Theatre. The producer Arthur Hopkins heard the play from off stage and sent for Bogart to play escaped killer Duke Mantee in Robert E. Sherwood's new play, The Petrified Forest.^[40]Hopkins recalled, “When I saw the actor I was somewhat taken aback, for he was the one I never much admired. He was an antiquated juvenile who spent most of his stage life in white pants swinging a tennis racquet. He seemed as far from a cold-blooded killer as one could get, but the voice (dry and tired) persisted, and the voice was Mantee's”.^[41]

The Petrified Forest had 197 performances at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York in 1935.^[42] Bogart played escaped killer Duke Mantee opposite Leslie Howard who played the lead, a youthful romantic. Bogart was so convincing that audiences even gasped when he made his entrance, menacingly shuffling in, sporting a natural two-day beard, cropped hair, shabby clothes, and his “prison” pallor. Brooks Atkinson, critic for the New York Times, said, “a peach… a roaring Western melodrama… Humphrey Bogart does the best work of his career as a motorized gorilla”.^[43] At last, he was given a part that would let him project his inner turmoil. Even though Bogart's success, as he described, “marked my deliverance from the ranks of the sleek, sybaritic, stiff-shirted, swallow-tailed ‘smoothies’ to which I seemed condemned to life”, only later did it become apparent that he had actually broken through. He was still feeling insecure.^[42]

Warner Bros. bought the screen rights to The Petrified Forest. The studio was famous for its gritty, urban, low-budget action pictures so the script seemed a perfect vehicle, especially when the public was presently entranced by real life criminals like John Dillinger and Dutch Schultz.^[44] Bette Davis and Leslie Howard were signed up, and Howard, who held production rights, made it clear he wanted Bogart to star with him. The studio then tested several Hollywood veterans for the Duke Mantee role, and chose Edward G. Robinson, who had greater star appeal and was due to make a film to fulfill his expensive contract. Bogart cabled news of this to Howard, who was in Scotland. Leslie Howard cabled reply was, “Att: Jack Warner Insist Bogart Play Mantee No Bogart No Deal L.H.”. When Warner Bros. saw that Howard would not budge, they gave in and cast Bogart.^[45] Jack Warner, famous for butting heads with his stars, tried to get Bogart to adopt a stage name, but Bogart stubbornly refused.^[46] Bogart never forgot Howard's favor, and in 1952 he named his only daughter, Leslie, after Howard, who had died in World War II. Robert E. Sherwood remained a close friend of Bogart's.

[edit] Early film career

In 1936, the film version of The Petrified Forest came out. Bogart garnered excellent reviews. His performance was called “brilliant”, “compelling”, and “superb”. His movie portrait of the killer Mantee was even better than in the play, due to the tightened screenplay and the effective use of close-ups. Despite his success in an “A movie”, Bogart received only a tepid twenty-six week contract at $550 per week and soon was typecast as a gangster in a series of "B movie" crime dramas.^[47] 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."

Bogart's roles were not only repetitive but physically demanding and draining (studios were not yet air-conditioned), and his regimented, tight-scheduled job at Warners was not exactly the “peachy” actor's life he had hoped for.^[48] In spite of that, he was always professional and generally respected other actors. In those “B movie” years, Bogart started developing his lasting film persona — the wounded, stoical, cynical, charming, vulnerable, self-mocking loner with a core of honor.

Jack Warner, however, saw no reason for anyone to complain as long as the movies made money, and the actors got paid. Jack Warner's studio was nearly as tough as Bogart's screen persona. During the 1930s, it survived law suits, actor disputes, heavy losses, a stockholder revolt, and the defection of Darryl F. Zanuck to Twentieth Century-Fox.^[49] Bogart's disputes with Warner Brothers over roles and money were similar to those the studio had with other less-than-obedient stars, including James Cagney, Errol Flynn, and Olivia de Havilland.^[50]

The studio system, then in its heyday, largely restricted actors to one studio, with occasional loan-outs, and Warner Bros. had no interest in making Bogart a top 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, sometimes even working on two simultaneously, as movies were shot scene-by-scene and rarely in order of the entire script. Amenities at Warners were few compared to those for their fellow actors at MGM. Bogart thought that Warner wardrobe department was cheap, and often wore his own suits in his movies. In High Sierra, Bogart used his own pet dog called Zero 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), where he portrayed a gangster modeled after Baby Face Nelson.^[51] He did play 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. In Black Legion (1937), for a change, he plays a good man caught up and destroyed by a racist organization, a movie Graham Greene called “intelligent and exciting, if rather earnest”.^[52]

Bogart had been raised to believe that acting was beneath a gentleman, but by and large, he had enjoyed stage acting, which gave a performer time to develop a role. Acting in movies was more mechanical, and playing depraved gunmen in "B" pictures for Warner Bros. was not something to be mentioned in polite company.

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.^[53] 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."

Mary Philips, in her own sizzling stage hit A Touch of Brimstone (1935) refused to give up her Broadway career to come to Hollywood with Bogart. After the play closed, however, she went to Hollywood but insisted on continuing her career (she was still a bigger star than he was) and they decided to divorce in 1937.^[54] On August 21, 1938, Bogart entered into a disastrous third marriage, with actress 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. She even set the house on fire, stabbed him with a knife, and slashed her wrists on several occasions. Bogart for his part needled her mercilessly and seemed to enjoy confrontation. Sometimes he turned violent. The press accurately dubbed them "the Battling Bogarts".^[55] "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 motor launch, which he named "Sluggy" after his nickname for his hot-tempered wife. Despite his proclamations that "I like a jealous wife", "we get on so well together (because) we don’t have illusions about each other", and "I wouldn't give you two cents for a dame without a temper", it became a highly destructive relationship.^[56]

In California in the 1930s, Bogart bought a 55-foot sailing yacht, the "Santana", from actor Dick Powell. The sea was his sanctuary^[57] and he loved to sail around Catalina Island. 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.

Bogart rarely saw his own films and didn't attend the premieres. He didn't play the Hollywood gossip game or cozy up to the newspaper columnists. He didn’t engage in phony politeness and admiration of his peers nor in behind the scenes back-stabbing. He even protected his privacy with phony press releases about his private life to satisfy the curiosity of the press and the public.^[58] 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. He advised Robert Mitchum that the only way to stay alive in Hollywood was to be an “againster”. As a result, he was not the most popular of actors and some in the Hollywood community shunned him privately to avoid trouble with the studios.^[59] But 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."

[edit] Rise to stardom

[edit] 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.).^[60] The film was a step forward for Bogart, and proved to be his last major film in which he played a gangster (his final gangster role was in The Big Shot in 1942). As "Mad Dog" Roy Earle, he still died at the end, but at least he got to kiss Ida Lupino (he was an uncomfortable kisser in movies) and play a character with some depth. Bogart worked well with Lupino, and her relationship with him was a close one, provoking jealousy from Bogart's wife Mayo.^[61]

Many key shots of the movie were made on location in the Sierras. 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."^[62]

The film cemented a strong personal and professional connection between Bogart and 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 subscribed to the Harvard Law Review.^[62]He admired writers, and some of his best friends were screenwriters, including Louis Bromfield, Nathaniel Benchley and Nunnally Johnson. Bogart enjoyed intense, provocative conversation and stiff drinks, as did Huston. Both were rebellious and liked to play childish pranks. John Huston reported being easily bored during production, and admired Bogart (who also got bored easily off camera) not just for his acting talent but for his intense concentration on the set.^[63]

[edit] 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 its 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. The original novel, written by Dashiell Hammett, was first published in the pulp magazine Black Mask in 1929. It was also the basis for another movie version, Satan Met a Lady (1936).^[64] The film was shot in only 34 days and right on budget. For this third version, Jack Warner or Hal Wallis wanted the title to be The Gent from Frisco, but it was changed back the morning after the preview. Aiding Bogart were excellent co-players: Sydney Greenstreet as the fat, urbane ringleader; Peter Lorre and Elisha Cook, Jr. as the stooges; and Mary Astor as the treacherous female foil.^[65]

Bogart grabbed the part and audiences saw him play a leading role with real complexity. His character, private detective Sam Spade, was still capable of duplicity and violence, but he was a leading man: handsome, smart, and fated to survive against a dedicated gang of criminals. Bogart's sharp timing was praised by the cast and director, as vital to the quick action and rapid fire dialogue.^[62] The tricky plot, filmed in sequence with many meticulously prepared takes, centers on the pursuit of a fabled statue and the machinations employed in trying to acquire it.

Among Bogart's memorable lines: (cynically responding to Astor's calculated amorous advances) “You're good. You're very good!”; (to whining Lorre) “When you’re slapped you'll take it and like it”, and (to Cook's empty threats) “The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.” The ending speech Bogart made to Astor is 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 I'll be waiting for you. If they hang you, I'll always remember you." And the last line, from Shakespeare, (when the police detective asks Bogart what the statue is, Bogart cryptically replies, “The stuff that dreams are made of”.^[66] The film was a huge hit and for Huston, a triumphant directorial debut. Bogart was unusually happy with it, “it is practically a masterpiece. I don’t have many things I’m proud of… but that's one”.^[67]

[edit] Casablanca

Bogart got his first real romantic lead in 1943's Casablanca, playing Rick Blaine, the hard-pressed ex-pat nightclub owner, hiding from the past and walking the fine line between Nazis, the French underground, the Vichy prefect, and his ex-girlfriend. The movie was based on the unsuccessful play Everybody Comes to Rick's and the script was fashioned by three independent teams of screenwriters, with the Epstein brothers, identical twins Julius J. and Philip G, and Howard Koch providing much of it^[68] The film was directed by Michael Curtiz, produced by Hal Wallis, and playing key roles in the excellent cast were: Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Sidney Greenstreet, Paul Henreid, Conrad Veidt, Peter Lorre, and Dooley Wilson.

In real life, Bogart himself played tournament chess, one level below master level and often played with crew members and cast off the set. It was reportedly his idea that Rick Blaine be portrayed as a chess player, which also served as a metaphor for the sparring relationship of Bogart and Rains in the movie. Off camera, however, Paul Henreid proved to be the best player.^[69]

The on-screen magic of Bogart and Bergman was the result of two actors doing their very best work, not any real-life sparks, though Bogart's perennially jealous wife assumed otherwise. Off the set, the co-stars hardly spoke during the filming, where normally she had a reputation for affairs with her leading men.^[70] Because Bergman was taller than her leading man, Bogart had 3-inch blocks attached to his shoes in certain scenes.^[70]She reportedly said later, "I kissed him but I never knew him."^[71] 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.

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. Still, for Bogart, it was a huge triumph. The film vaulted him from fourth place to first in the studio's roster, finally exceeding James Cagney, and more than doubling his salary to over $460,000 per year by 1946, making him the highest paid actor in the world.^[72]

The movie has become an all-time classic adventure-romance. Thoroughly studied by film critics and repeatedly enjoyed by millions of movie fans, it has gathered appeal over time. The film earned stellar reviews and made over $3.5 million in 1943, an excellent result.^[72] The movie's signature tune, As Time Goes By, effectively summarizes Bogart and Bergman's lost romance while Bogart's famous line “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all over the world, she walks into mine” aptly distills the angst of his character. The final scenes at the airport are especially memorable, and famously written at the last moment. Bogart finally takes charge of the situation and tells Bergman, “You belong to Victor…If that plane leaves the ground and you’re not on it, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life…I’m not good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world…Here's looking at you, kid”.^[73] And lastly, after Rains helps Bergman escape, Bogart ends, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”.

Among the many classic lines from the movie, the phrases “We’ll always have Paris”, “the usual suspects” and “I’m shocked; Shocked!” are still in popular use. Though deemed by some critics as implausible, sometimes corny and sentimental, often overly melodramatic, the movie's hodge-podge of moral dilemmas and patriotic motifs comes together most effectively. The British Film Institute has called it “the best film ever made”.^[72] As Umberto Eco states, “Casablanca has succeeded in becoming a cult movie because it is not one movie. It is ‘the movies’.^[74] The film's production and back story is well-documented, particularly in Aljean Harmetz's book ‘’Round Up the Usual Suspects’’.^[68]

During World War II Bogart and wife Mayo Methot entertained troops as part of a USO show in Casablanca in October 1943.

[edit] Bogart and Bacall

Only Bogart's fourth marriage, to Lauren Bacall, was a happy one. They met while filming To Have and Have Not (1945), a very loose adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway novel. The rights were first bought by Howard Hughes and sold to independent director Howard Hawks, and then purchased by Warner Bros. William Faulkner, “out of print and broke”, was on the payroll, helping with the script.^[75] The movie has many similarities with Casablanca — same enemies, same type of hero, even a piano player sidekick (this time Hoagy Carmichael).

Bacall was 19 and Bogart was 45 when they met. His nickname for her was "Baby". Born Betty Perske, she took her mother's name (originally Weinstein-Bacal, then Bacal) when her parents divorced.^[76] She had been a model since 16 and had acted in two failed plays. After her appearance on the cover of Harper's Bazaar (March 1943), Hawk's wife Nancy (nicknamed “Slim” and also a former model) urged Hawks to have her take a screen test. He signed her up to a seven-year personal contract, brought her to Hollywood, gave her $100 a week, and began to manage her career. Hawks changed her name to Lauren Bacall. Nancy Hawks took Bacall under her wing.^[77] She dressed Bacall stylishly, and guided the newcomer in matters of elegance, manners, and taste. At her husband's insistence Bacall's voice was trained to be lower, more masculine, and sexier, which resulted in one of the most distinctive voices in Hollywood.^[78] In the movie, Bacall even takes on Nancy's nickname “Slim”.

When the newly glamorized (but still virginal) Bacall met Bogart, he found her instantly appealing and was drawn to her high cheekbones, green eyes, tawny blond hair, and lean body, as well as her poise and earthy, outspoken honesty.^[79] Reportedly he said, “I just saw your test. We’ll have a lot of fun together”.^[80] Their physical and emotional rapport was very strong from the start, and the age difference and different acting experience also created the additional dimension of a mentor-student relationship. Quite contrary to the Hollywood norm, it was his first affair with a leading lady.^[81] Bogart was still miserably married and his early meetings with Bacall were discreet and brief, their separations bridged by ardent love letters.^[82] The relationship made it much easier for the newcomer to make her first film, and Bogart did his best to put her at ease by joking with her and quietly coaching her. He let her steal scenes and even encouraged it. Hawks, for his part, also did his best to boost her performance and her role, and found Bogart easy to direct^[83]

In contrast to the Bergman role in Casablanca, Bacall's Slim is tough, independent, a bit bruised but straight thinking. She controls Bogart and gets the better of him in their sexy verbal exchanges, and usually the last word, “nobody calls me Slim. I’m too skinny to take it kindly.” Her brassy, quiet aggressiveness puts Bogart's character back on his heels. In their famous first kissing scene, he impassively kisses her and she responds, "It's even better when you help” …You don’t have to say anything and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe, just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you Steve? You just put your lips together and blow." He whistles when she leaves the room.^[84]

Hawks at some point began to disapprove of the pair. Hawks considered himself her protector and mentor, and Bogart was usurping that role. Hawks fell for Bacall as well (normally he avoided his starlets), and wanted her to feel the same way (even though he was married). Hawks told her that she meant nothing to Bogart and even threatened to send her to Monogram, the worst studio in Hollywood. Bogart calmed her down and then went after Hawks. Jack Warner settled the dispute and filming resumed.^[85] Out of jealousy, Hawks said of Bacall: "Bogie fell in love with the character she played, so she had to keep playing it the rest of her life."^[86]

Just months after wrapping the film, Bogart and Bacall were re-united for their second movie together, the film noir masterpiece The Big Sleep, based on the novel by Raymond Chandler, again with script help from William Faulkner. 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."^[87]

Bogart was still torn between his new love and his sense of duty to his marriage. The mood on the set was tense, the actors both emotionally exhausted as Bogart tried to find a way out of his dilemma. Bogart and Bacall acted admirably, especially given the off-camera circumstances. Once again, the dialogue was full of sexual innuendos supplied by Hawks, and Bogart is convincing and enduring as private detective Philip Marlowe. In the end, the film was very successful, though some critics point out that the plot is confusing and overly complicated.^[88]

By February 1945, divorce proceedings were initiated. Finally, Bogart and Bacall were married in a simple ceremony 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. Jack Warner gave the couple the Buick from The Big Sleep. They spent their one-week honeymoon on his boat "Sluggy" but in the future, Bacall allowed Bogart lots of weekend time on his boat as she got seasick.^[89]

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.^[90] The marriage proved to be a happy one, though there were the normal tensions due to their differences. He was a homebody and she liked nightlife. He was thrifty and liked a simply decorated house. She a free-spender and extravagant shopper, who loved fancy furniture. He loved the sea; it made her sick. Bogart's drinking sometimes inflamed tensions. Her conflicting roles of wife and actress also caused problems but she managed to balance both. As she matured, she became more assertive, dominant, and controlling but on the whole, Bogart gained from her energy and her expansive personality. She was usually flexible about his ways but when she was insistent, he often gave in to achieve peace.^[91]

On January 6, 1949, Lauren Bacall gave birth to a son, Stephen Humphrey Bogart, named after Bogart's character's nickname in To Have and Have Not, making Bogart a father at 49.^[92] They had their second child, Leslie Howard Bogart on August 23, 1952, a girl named after British actor Leslie Howard, who had been killed in World War II.^[93]

[edit] The panda case

In 1950, Bogart and his friend Bill Seeman arrived at the El Morocco Club in New York City after midnight. Bogart and Seeman sent someone to buy two 22-pound stuffed pandas because, in a drunken state, they thought the pandas would be good company.^[94] They propped up the bears in separate chairs, and began to drink.

Two young women at the club saw the stuffed animals, and one of the women picked up one of the pandas. She quickly ended up on the floor. The other woman tried to do the same and wound up in the same position.^[94] Club spokesperson Leonard MacBain later stated, "No blows were exchanged, it was just one of those things."^[94] The next morning Bogart was awakened by a city official who served him an assault summons. Knowing a media frenzy was imminent, he met the media still unshaved and in his pajamas. He told the press that he remembered grabbing the panda and "this screaming, squawking young lady. Nobody got hurt, I didn't sock anybody; if girls were falling on the floor, I guess it was because they couldn't stand up."^[95] At the same time Time reported that the alleged victim had three marks from the alleged assault and "she explained that they were swelling and contusions."^[94]

That following Friday, Bogart went to court to face the charges. After the woman admitted to touching the panda, "Magistrate John R. Starkey ruled that Bogart had been defending his property, said he suspected the actor had been mousetrapped in the cause of club publicity, and dismissed the case."^[96]

[edit] The Rat Pack and Romanoff's

Bogart was a founding member of the Rat Pack. During the spring of 1955, after a long party in Las Vegas with Frank Sinatra, Mike Romanoff and wife Gloria, Angie Dickinson and others, "Lauren Bacall surveyed the wreckage of the party" and declared, "You look like a god damn rat pack."^[97]

Romanoff's in Beverly Hills was where the Rat Pack became "official". "Sinatra was named Pack Leader. Betty [Bacall] was named Den Mother, Bogie was Director of Public Relations, and Sid Luft was Acting Cage Manager."^[96] When asked by columnist Earl Wilson what the purpose of the group was, Bacall responded "to drink a lot of bourbon and stay up late."^[97]

Even so, the Rat Pack under Bogart's presidency was pretty civilized compared to what it became later. Bogart actually got away with telling Sinatra that he had an immature attitude towards women.

[edit] Later career

The enormous success of Casablanca redefined Bogart's career. For the first time, Bogart could be cast successfully as a tough, strong man and, at the same time, as a vulnerable love interest. But at Warners, nothing of the caliber of Casablanca followed that film. Despite Bogart's elevated standing, he did not yet have a contractual right of script refusal, so when he got weak scripts he dug in his heels, and locked horns again with the front office, as he did on the film Conflict (1943).^[98] Though he submitted to Jack Warner on that picture, he successfully turned down God is My Co-Pilot (1945).^[76] During part of 1943 and 1944, Bogart fulfilled his patriotic duty, with Mayo in tow, through USO and War Bond tours, with arduous travels to Italy and North Africa, including Casablanca.^[72]

From 1945 to 1955, Bogart starred in many other films that reflected his talent as an actor. His two memorable movies with Lauren Bacall cemented his new image with the public. Riding high in 1947 with a new contract which provided some script refusal rights and the right to form his own separate production company, Bogart was handed an intriguing script and a chance to work with John Huston again. In The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a stark tale of greed among three prospectors played out in the dusty back country of Mexico, Bogart is Dobbs, a rough character slowly consumed by avarice. Absent any love story or a happy ending, it was deemed a risky project.^[99] Walter Huston, John's father, is excellent as the eldest and wisest of the threesome. Bogart later said of Walter Huston, “He's probably the only performer in Hollywood to whom I’d gladly lost a scene”.^[100]

The film was grueling to make, and was done in summer for greater realism and atmosphere.^[101] James Agee wrote, “Bogart does a wonderful job with this character…miles ahead of the very good work he has done before” John Huston won the Academy Award for direction and screenplay and his father won Best Supporting Actor, but the film had mediocre box office results. Bogart complained, “An intelligent script, beautifully directed—something different—and the public turned a cold shoulder on it”.^[102]

In addition to being offered better, more diverse roles, he started his own production company in 1948 called Santana Productions, named after his private sailing yacht. (Santana was also the name of the yacht featured in the 1948 film Key Largo).^[103] Jack Warner was reportedly furious at this, even though it was in Bogart's contract, fearing that other stars would do the same and major studios would lose their power. The studios, however, were already under a lot of pressure, not just from free-lancing actors like Bogart, James Stewart, Henry Fonda and others (who also saved taxes as independents), but also from the eroding impact of television and from anti-trust laws which were breaking up theater chains.^[104]

Under Bogart's Santana Productions, which released through Columbia Pictures, Bogart starred in:

• Knock on Any Door (1949)
• Tokyo Joe (1949)
• In a Lonely Place (1950)
• Sirocco (1951)
• Beat the Devil (1954)

While the majority of his films lost money at the box office (the main reason for Santana's end), at least two of them are still remembered today; In a Lonely Place (1950) is recognized as a masterpiece of film noir and is usually considered the finest of the films Santana produced. Bogart plays embittered writer Dixon Steele who has a history of violence and becomes a suspect in a murder case at the same time that he falls in love with a failed actress (Gloria Grahame). In the end, though his lover temporarily stabilizes him and he is cleared of the crime (in the novel Steele turns out to be a serial killer), Steele loses his lover because he can’t overcome his demons.^[105] Many Bogart biographers and actress/writer Louise Brooks agree that the role of violent screenwriter Dixon Steele is the closest to Bogart's real self, and is considered among Bogart's best performances.^[106] She wrote that the film “gave him a role that he could play with complexity, because the film character's pride in his art, his selfishness, drunkenness, lack of energy stabbed with lightning strokes of violence were shared by the real Bogart”. The character even mimics some of Bogart's personal habits, including twice ordering Bogart's favorite meal of ham and eggs.^[107]

Beat the Devil (1954), his last film with his close friend and favorite director John Huston, also enjoys a cult following. Co-written by Truman Capote, the movie is a parody of The Maltese Falcon, and is a tale of an amoral group of rogues chasing an unattainable treasure (uranium).^[108]

Bogart sold his interest in Santana to Columbia for over a $1 million in 1955.^[109]

[edit] The African Queen

In 1951, Bogart starred in the movie The African Queen, with Katharine Hepburn, again directed by his friend John Huston. The novel had been looked over and left undeveloped for fifteen years until producer Sam Spiegel and Huston bought the rights. Spiegel sent Katharine Hepburn the book and she suggested Bogart for the male lead, firmly believing that “he was the only man who could have played that part”.^[110] Huston's love of adventure, a chance to work with Hepburn, and Bogart's earlier successes with Huston convinced Bogart to leave the comfortable confines of Hollywood for a difficult shoot on location in the Belgian Congo in Africa. Bogart was to get 30 percent of the profits and Hepburn 10 percent, plus a relatively small salary for both. The stars met up in London and announced the happy prospect of working together.

Bacall came for the duration (over four months), leaving their young child behind, but the Bogarts started the trip with a junket through Europe, including a visit with Pope Pius XII.^[111] Later, the glamor would be gone and she would make herself useful as a cook, nurse, and clothes washer, for which Bogart praised her, “I don’t know what we’d have done without her. She Luxed my undies in darkest Africa”.^[112] Just about everyone in the cast came down with dysentery except Bogart and John Huston, who subsisted on canned food and booze. Bogart explained: "All I ate was baked beans, canned asparagus and Scotch whisky. Whenever a fly bit Huston or me, it dropped dead."^[113] The teetotaling Hepburn, in and out of character, fared worse in the difficult conditions, losing weight, and at one time, getting very ill. Bogart resisted Huston's insistence on using real leeches in a key scene where Bogart has to drag the boat through a shallow marsh, until reasonable fakes were employed.^[114] In the end, the crew overcame illness, soldier ant invasions, leaking boats, poor food, attacking hippos, bad water filters, fierce heat, isolation, and a boat fire to complete a memorable film.^[115]

When Hepburn's proper spinster character scolds Bogart's Charlie Alnutt for his bad habits "Nature, Mr. Alnutt, is what we are put in this world to rise above.", Bogart responds with his famous put down, "You crazy, psalm-singing, skinny old maid!"^[116] As the movie progresses, though, the two opposites fall in love while overcoming a series of obstacles and dangers during which they adapt to each other's eccentricities and lower their respective shields. Hepburn effectively lets go of her character's starchy aloofness and takes on a glowing tenderness toward Bogart's character, who in turn treats her gallantly and protectively. In the end, she triumphantly goads and shames him into a rash and patriotic act, the torpedoing of a German war ship, which finally frees them from their river ordeal.

The African Queen was the first Technicolor film in which Bogart appeared. Remarkably, he appeared in relatively few color films during the rest of his career, which continued for another five years. (His other color films included The Caine Mutiny, The Barefoot Contessa, We're No Angels, and The Left Hand of God.)

The role of Charlie Alnutt won Bogart his only Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in 1951. Bogart considered his performance to be the best of his film career.^[117] He had vowed to friends that if he won, his speech would break the convention of thanking everyone in sight. He advised Claire Trevor when she had been nominated for Key Largo to “just say you did all yourself and don’t thank anyone”. But when Bogart won the Academy Award, which he truly coveted despite his well-advertised disdain for Hollywood, he said “It's a long way from the Belgian Congo to the stage of this theatre. It's nicer to be here. Thank you very much…No one does it alone. As in tennis, you need a good opponent or partner to bring out the best in you. John and Katie helped me to be where I am now”. Despite the thrilling win and the recognition, Bogart later commented, “The way to survive an Oscar is never to try to win another one...too many stars…win it and then figure they have to top themselves...they become afraid to take chances. The result: A lot of dull performances in dull pictures”.^[118]

[edit] The House Un-American Activities Committee

Bogart organized a delegation to Washington, D.C., called the Committee for the First Amendment during the height of McCarthyism, against the House Un-American Activities Committee's harassment of Hollywood writers and actors. He subsequently wrote an article "I'm No Communist" in the March 1948 edition of Photoplay magazine in which he distanced himself from The Hollywood Ten in order to counter the negative publicity that resulted from his appearance.^[119]

[edit] Final roles

Bogart dropped his asking price to get the role of Captain Queeg in Edward Dmytryk's The Caine Mutiny, then griped with some of his old bitterness about it.^[120] For all his success, he was still his melancholy old self, grumbling and feuding with the studio, while his health was beginning to deteriorate.

Bogart gave a bravura performance as Captain Queeg, an unstable naval officer, in many ways an extension of the character he had played in The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and The Big Sleep—the wary loner who trusts no one—but with none of the warmth or humor that made those characters so appealing. Like his portrayal of Fred C. Dobbs in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Bogart played a paranoid, self-pitying character whose small-mindedness eventually destroyed him. Three months before the film's release, Bogart as Queeg appeared on the cover of Time magazine, while on Broadway Henry Fonda was starring in the stage version (in a different role), both of which generated strong publicity for the film.^[121]

In Sabrina, Billy Wilder, unable to secure Cary Grant, chose Bogart for the role of the older, conservative brother who competes with his younger playboy sibling William Holden for the affection of the Cinderella-like Sabrina Audrey Hepburn. Bogart was lukewarm about the part but agreed to it on a handshake with Wilder, without a finished script, and with the director's assurances to take good care of Bogart during the filming.^[122] But Bogart got on poorly with his director and co-stars. He also complained about the script which was written on a last-minute, daily basis and that Wilder favored Hepburn and Holden on and off the set. The main problem was that Wilder was the opposite of his ideal director John Huston in both style and personality. Bogart told the press that Wilder was “overbearing” and “is the kind of Prussian German with a riding crop. He is the type of director I don’t like to work with…the picture is a crock of crap. I got sick and tired of who gets Sabrina”.^[123] Wilder said, “We parted as enemies but finally made up”. Despite the acrimony, the film was successful. The New York Times said of Bogart, “he is incredibly adroit...the skill with which this old rock-ribbed actor blend the gags and such duplicities with a manly manner of melting is one of the incalculable joys of the show”.^[124]

The Barefoot Contessa (dir. Joseph Mankiewicz) in 1954 and filmed in Rome, Italy, gave Bogart one of his subtlest roles. In this Hollywood back-story movie, Bogart again is the broken-down man, this time the cynical director-narrator who saves his career by making a star of a flamenco dancer Ava Gardner, modeled on the real life of Rita Hayworth. Bogart was uneasy with Gardner because she had just split from “rat-pack” buddy Frank Sinatra and was carrying on with a bullfighter. Bogart told her, “Half the world's female population would throw themselves at Frank's feet and here you are flouncing around with guys who wear capes and little ballerina slippers”. He was also annoyed by her inexperienced performance and later she did credit him for helping her. Bogart's performance was generally praised as the strongest part of the film.^[125] During the filming, while Bacall was home, Bogart resumed his discreet affair with Verita Peterson, his long-time studio assistant and gal-pal who he took sailing and enjoyed drinking with. But when Bacall suddenly arrived on the scene discovering them together, Bacall took it quite well. She extracted an expensive shopping spree from him and the three traveled together after the shooting.^[126]

Bogart could be generous with actors, particularly those who were black-listed, down on their luck, or were having personal problems. During the filming of The Left Hand of God (1955) he noticed his co-star Gene Tierney was having a hard time remembering her lines and was also behaving oddly. He coached Tierney, feeding her lines. He was familiar with mental illness (his sister had bouts of depression), and Bogart encouraged Tierney to seek treatment, which she did. He also stood behind Joan Bennett and insisted on her as his co-star in We're No Angels when a scandal made her persona non grata with Jack Warner.^[127]

In 1955, he made three films: We're No Angels (dir. Michael Curtiz), The Left Hand of God (dir. Edward Dmytryk) and The Desperate Hours (dir. William Wyler). Mark Robson's The Harder They Fall (released in 1956) was his last film.

[edit] Television work

Bogart rarely appeared on television. However, he and his wife appeared on Edward R. Murrow's Person to Person. Bogart was also featured on The Jack Benny Show. The surviving kinescope of the live Benny telecast features Bogart in his only TV sketch comedy outing. Bogart and Bacall also worked together on a rare color telecast, in 1955, an NBC adaptation of The Petrified Forest for Producers' Showcase. However, only a black and white kinescope of the live telecast has survived.

[edit] Death

By the mid-1950s, Bogart's health was failing. Once, after signing a long-term deal with Warner Bros., Bogart predicted with glee that his teeth and hair would fall out before the contract ended. That sent a fuming Jack Warner to his lawyers. Bogart had formed a new production company and had plans for a new film Melville Goodwin, U.S.A., in which he would play a general and Bacall a press magnate. His persistent cough and difficulty eating became too serious to ignore and he dropped the project. The film was re-named Top Secret Affair and made with Kirk Douglas and Susan Hayward.^[128]

Bogart, a heavy smoker, contracted cancer of the esophagus. He almost never spoke of his failing health and refused to see a doctor until January 1956. A diagnosis was made several weeks later and by then removal of his esophagus, two lymph nodes and a rib was too late to halt the disease, even with chemotherapy.^[129]

Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy came to see him. Frank Sinatra was also a frequent visitor. Bogart was too weak to walk up and down stairs. He valiantly fought the pain and tried to joke about his immobility: "Put me in the dumbwaiter and I'll ride down to the first floor in style." His last words are believed to have been: "I should never have switched from Scotch to martinis."^[130] Hepburn, in an interview, described the last time she and Spencer Tracy saw Bogart (the night before he died):

Spence patted him on the shoulder and said, "Goodnight, Bogie." Bogie turned his eyes to Spence very quietly and with a sweet smile covered Spence's hand with his own and said, "Goodbye, Spence." Spence's heart stood still. He understood.

^[131]

Bogart had just turned 57 and weighed 80 pounds (36 kg) when he died on January 14, 1957 after falling into a coma. He died at 2:25 a.m. at his home at 232 Mapleton Drive in Holmby Hills, California. His simple funeral was held at All Saints Episcopal Church with musical selections played from Bogart's favorite composers, Johann Sebastian Bach and Claude Debussy. It was attended by some of Hollywood's biggest stars including: Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, David Niven, Ronald Reagan, James Mason, Danny Kaye, Joan Fontaine, Marlene Dietrich, Errol Flynn, Gregory Peck, and Gary Cooper, as well as Billy Wilder and Jack Warner. Bacall had asked Spencer Tracy to give the eulogy, but Tracy was too upset, so John Huston gave the eulogy instead, and reminded the gathered mourners that while Bogart's life had ended far too soon, it had been a rich one.

Himself, he never took too seriously—his work most seriously. He regarded the somewhat gaudy figure of Bogart, the star, with an amused cynicism; Bogart, the actor, he held in deep respect…In each of the fountains at Versailles there is a pike which keeps all the carp active; otherwise they would grow overfat and die. Bogie took rare delight in performing a similar duty in the fountains of Hollywood. Yet his victims seldom bore him any malice, and when they did, not for long. His shafts were fashioned only to stick into the outer layer of complacency, and not to penetrate through to the regions of the spirit where real injuries are done...He is quite irreplaceable. There will never be another like him."

^[132]

Katharine Hepburn said:

He was one of the biggest guys I ever met. He walked straight down the center of the road. No maybes. Yes or no. He liked to drink. He drank. He liked to sail a boat. He sailed a boat. He was an actor. He was happy and proud to be an actor. He'd say to me, "Are you comfortable? Everything okay?" He was looking out for me.

His cremated remains are interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale, California. Buried with him is a small gold whistle, which he had given to his future wife, Lauren Bacall, before they married. In reference to their first movie together, it was inscribed: "If you want anything, just whistle."^[133]

Humphrey Bogart's hand and foot prints are immortalized in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater and he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6322 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.

After his death, a "Bogie Cult" formed at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as well as Greenwich Village, New York and in France, which contributed to his spike in popularity in the late 1950s and 1960s. Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960) was the first film to pay tribute to Bogart. Later, in Woody Allen's comic tribute to Bogart Play It Again, Sam (1972), Bogart's ghost comes to the aid of Allen's bumbling character, a movie critic with woman troubles and whose “sex life has turned into the “Petrified Forest”.

The rights to use Bogart's image are controlled by the Curtis Management Company.^[134]

[edit] Quotes

[edit] Attributed

• "I can't say I ever loved my mother, I admired her."
• "My parents fought. We kids would pull the covers over our ears to keep out the sound of fighting. Our home was kept together for the sake of the children as well as for the sake of propriety."
• "I don't approve of the John Waynes and the Gary Coopers saying 'Shucks, I ain't no actor—I'm just a bridge builder or a gas station attendant.' If they aren't actors, what the hell are they getting paid for? I have respect for my profession. I worked hard at it."
• "The whole world is three drinks behind."
• "Don't ever name a restaurant after me."

[edit] Famous movie quotes

[edit] Casablanca

• "I stick my neck out for nobody."
• "There are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade." [to Major Strasser]
• "You played it for her, you can play it for me! . . . If she can stand it, I can! Play it!"
• "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."
• "Here's looking at you, kid."
• "Tell me, who was it you left me for? Was it Laszlo, or were there others in between? Or — aren't you the kind to tell?"
• "Don't you sometimes wonder if it's worth all this? I mean what you're fighting for."
• "If that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday soon; and for the rest of your life."
• "I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy mixed up world. Someday you'll understand that."
• "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
• "We'll always have Paris."

[edit] The Maltese Falcon

• "The stuff that dreams are made of." [about the falcon - a misquotation from Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act IV Scene 1 - "We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep."]
• "When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it." [to Peter Lorre]
• "The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter." [to the "Gunsel"] (played by Elisha Cook, Jr.)
• "I don't mind a reasonable amount of trouble." [to Brigid (Mary Astor)]
• "You're good, you're very good."
• "I won't play the sap for you!"

[edit] The Big Sleep

• "Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains!"
• "What's the matter? Haven't you ever seen a gun before? What do you want me to do, count to three like they do in the movies?"
• "Somebody's always giving me guns."

[edit] Filmography

For a list of all Bogart's films see Humphrey Bogart filmography.

[edit] Popular culture

Humphrey Bogart's life has spurred the imaginations of many writers and others:

• The Fedora variation, the "Bogart", was named for Humphrey, who was also the hat's first wearer.
• Two Bugs Bunny cartoons featured Humphrey Bogart:

• Bogart is a customer in a Hollywood restaurant, the "Mocrumbo", who gets hit in the face with a coconut custard pie with whipped cream by Elmer Fudd in Slick Hare (1947).
• Bugs decides to take a baby penguin back to the South Pole in 8 Ball Bunny (1950). At intervals, "Fred C. Dobbs" (Bogart's character in Treasure of the Sierra Madre) appears and asks Bugs to "help a poor American down on his luck."

• In V. S. Naipaul's Miguel Street (1959) there is a character named "Bogart". This Bogart cultivates an American accent and gives chocolates to children.^[135]
• Bogart is featured in one of Woody Allen's comic movies, Play It Again, Sam (1972), which relates the story of a young man obsessed by his persona.
• The Al Stewart song "Year of the Cat" (1976) begins with the line "On a morning from a Bogart movie."
• Issue #70 of the US The Phantom (1977) comic book is known as the "Bogart" issue, as the story stars Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Claude Rains and is a mixture of Casablanca, The African Queen, The Maltese Falcon and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
• The Man With Bogart's Face (1981) starred Bogart lookalike Robert Sacchi.
• The 1980s television show Remington Steele featured the title character, played by Pierce Brosnan, as a fan of Bogart's. In the show's first episode, Steele is shown to have held aliases whose names feature characters played by Humphrey Bogart.
• The Jon and Vangelis song "The Friends of Mr. Cairo" (1981), includes the lines "He slipped to Sam a double gin (Mickey Finn)" and "The chase to find the Maltese Falcon", as well as extended impressions of both Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre.
• The Suzanne Vega song "Freeze Tag" (1985) includes the line "You will be Bogart and I will be Bacall."
• In the comic strip Baby Blues (first published in 1990), a character is named "Bogart" after the famous actor; his name comes from the fact that he was conceived while his parents watched The African Queen.
• During the 1990s parody film Hot Shots, one pilot says "I got a Bogey at 12 o' clock!" (referring to the Brevity code), then Bogart appears smiling inside a cockpit in his hat and trench coat from the film Casablanca.
• Among many marijuana smokers, "bogarting" refers to the act of retaining the marijuana cigarette (or "joint") for an abnormally long time, instead of passing it on to one's successor in the circle. The term is derived from the manner in which Bogart sometimes smoked his cigarettes, leaving the cigarette dangling from his lips for extended periods of time. Two notable songs which employ this use of the term are "Don't Bogart Me" by the Fraternity of Man, featured in the film Easy Rider, and the later live cover by Little Feat, which was released as "Don't Bogart That Joint" on Waiting for Columbus. "Bogart" was often used in this context in the MTV series Beavis and Butt-head.
• The Roxy Music song 2HB, from their eponymous first album, is a tribute to Bogart (one of Bryan Ferry's favourite actors), and includes the line "Here's looking at you, kid" repeatedly.

[edit] See also

• Bogart-Bacall syndrome
• Robert Sacchi — an actor who closely resembles Bogart

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] External links

• Bogie Online: The online resource for Humphrey Bogart fans
• Maltese Falcon (July 3, 1946) Old Time Radio Program in MP3 format from Archive.org
• Humphrey Bogart at ChessGames.com
• Humphrey Bogart at the Internet Broadway Database
• Humphrey Bogart at the Internet Movie Database
• Helen Menken at the Internet Broadway Database
• Helen Menken at the Internet Movie Database
• Mary Philips at the Internet Broadway Database
• Mary Philips at the Internet Movie Database
• Mayo Methot at the Internet Broadway Database
• Mayo Methot at the Internet Movie Database
• Lauren Bacall at the Internet Broadway Database
• Lauren Bacall at the Internet Movie Database
• Humphrey Bogart at TV.com
• Humphrey Bogart at the TCM Movie Database
• Memorial Page for Humphrey Bogart at FindaGrave
• Modern Drunkard: Three Drinks Ahead With Humphrey Bogart
• caricature of Humphrey Bogart
• The Fundamental Rules Apply
• Genealogy of Humphrey Bogart
• Bogart: Behind the Legend (documentary)
• Verita Thompson:Humphrey Bogart's Secret Mistress
• Bibliography

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Persondata
NAME	Bogart, Humphrey DeForest
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	actor
DATE OF BIRTH	December 25, 1899 (1899-12-25)
PLACE OF BIRTH	New York City, New York, United States
DATE OF DEATH	January 14, 1957
PLACE OF DEATH	Hollywood, California, United States