Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey DeForest Bogart was born on Christmas Day 1899 in New York City, the eldest child of Belmont DeForest Bogart (1867–1934) and Maud Humphrey (1868–1940). Belmont was the only child of the unhappy marriage of Adam Welty Bogart (a Canandaigua, New York, innkeeper) and Julia Augusta Stiles, a wealthy heiress. The name "Bogart" derives from the Dutch surname, "Bogaert". Belmont and Maud married in June 1898. He was a Presbyterian, of English and Dutch descent, and a descendant of Sarah Rapelje (the first European child born in New Netherland). Maud was an Episcopalian of English heritage, and a descendant of Mayflower passenger John Howland. Humphrey was raised Episcopalian, but was non-practicing for most of his adult life.

Bogart attended the private Delancey School until the fifth grade, and then attended the prestigious Trinity School. He was an indifferent, sullen student who showed no interest in after-school activities. Bogart later attended Phillips Academy, a boarding school to which he was admitted based on family connections. Although his parents hoped that he would go on to Yale University, in 1918 Bogart left Phillips. Several reasons have been given; according to one, he was expelled for throwing the headmaster (or a groundskeeper) into Rabbit Pond on campus. Another cited smoking, drinking, poor academic performance, and (possibly) inappropriate comments made to the staff. In a third scenario, Bogart was withdrawn by his father for failing to improve his grades. His parents were deeply disappointed in their failed plans for his future.

Bogart resumed his friendship with Bill Brady Jr. (whose father had show-business connections), and obtained an office job with William A. Brady's new World Films company. Although he wanted to try his hand at screenwriting, directing, and production, he excelled at none. Bogart was stage manager for Brady's daughter Alice's play A Ruined Lady. He made his stage debut a few months later as a Japanese butler in Alice's 1921 play Drifting (nervously delivering one line of dialogue), and appeared in several of her subsequent plays.

While playing a double role in Drifting at the Playhouse Theatre in 1922, he met actress Helen Menken; they were married on May 20, 1926, at the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York City. Divorced on November 18, 1927, they remained friends. Menken said in her divorce filing that Bogart valued his career more than marriage, citing neglect and abuse. He married Mary Philips, with whom he had worked in the play Nerves during its brief run at the Comedy Theatre in September 1924, on April 3, 1928 at her mother's apartment in Hartford, Connecticut.

He may have received his trademark scar and developed his characteristic lisp during his naval stint. There are several conflicting stories. In one, his lip was cut by shrapnel when his ship (the USS Leviathan) was shelled. The ship was never shelled, however, and it is believed that Bogart was not at sea before the armistice. Another story, held by longtime friend Nathaniel Benchley, was that Bogart was injured while taking a prisoner to Portsmouth Naval Prison in Kittery, Maine. While changing trains in Boston, the handcuffed prisoner reportedly asked Bogart for a cigarette. When Bogart looked for a match, the prisoner smashed him across the mouth with the cuffs (cutting Bogart's lip) and fled before he was recaptured and imprisoned. In an alternative version, Bogart was struck in the mouth by a handcuff loosened while freeing his charge; the other handcuff was still around the prisoner's wrist. By the time Bogart was treated by a doctor, a scar had formed. David Niven said that when he first asked Bogart about his scar, however, he said that it was caused by a childhood accident. "Goddamn doctor", Bogart later told Niven. "Instead of stitching it up, he screwed it up." According to Niven, the stories that Bogart got the scar during wartime were made up by the studios. His post-service physical did not mention the lip scar, although it noted many smaller scars. When actress Louise Brooks met Bogart in 1924, he had scar tissue on his upper lip which Brooks said Bogart may have had partially repaired before entering the film industry in 1930. Brooks said that his "lip wound gave him no speech impediment, either before or after it was mended."

Theatrical production dropped off sharply after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and many of the more-photogenic actors headed for Hollywood. Bogart debuted on film with Helen Hayes in the 1928 two-reeler, The Dancing Town, a complete copy of which has not been found. He also appeared with Joan Blondell and Ruth Etting in a Vitaphone short, Broadway's Like That (1930), which was rediscovered in 1963.

Now regarded as a classic film noir, The Maltese Falcon (1941) was John Huston's directorial debut. Based on the Dashiell Hammett novel, it was first serialized in the pulp magazine Black Mask in 1929 and was the basis of two earlier film versions; the second was Satan Met a Lady (1936), starring Bette Davis. Producer Hal B. Wallis initially offered to cast George Raft as the leading man, but Raft (more established than Bogart) had a contract stipulating he was not required to appear in remakes. Fearing that it would be nothing more than a sanitized version of the pre-Production Code The Maltese Falcon (1931), Raft turned down the role to make Manpower with director Raoul Walsh. Huston then eagerly accepted Bogart as his Sam Spade.

Bogart signed a contract with the Fox Film Corporation for $750 a week. There he met Spencer Tracy, a Broadway actor whom Bogart liked and admired, and they became close friends and drinking companions. In 1930, Tracy first called him "Bogie". He made his film debut in his only film with Bogart, John Ford's early sound film Up the River (1930), in which they had major roles as inmates. Tracy received top billing, but Bogart appeared on the film's posters. He was billed fourth behind Tracy, Claire Luce and Warren Hymer.

Bogart then had a supporting role in Bad Sister (1931) with Bette Davis. Decades later, Tracy and Bogart planned to make The Desperate Hours together. Both wanted top billing, however; Tracy dropped out, and was replaced by Fredric March. Bogart shuttled back and forth between Hollywood and the New York stage from 1930 to 1935, out of work for long periods. His parents had separated; his father died in 1934 in debt, which Bogart eventually paid off. He inherited his father's gold ring, which he wore in many of his films. At his father's deathbed, Bogart finally told him how much he loved him. Bogart's second marriage was rocky; dissatisfied with his acting career, depressed and irritable, he drank heavily.

In 1934, Bogart starred in the Broadway play Invitation to a Murder at the Theatre Masque (renamed the John Golden Theatre in 1937). Its producer, Arthur Hopkins, heard the play from offstage; he sent for Bogart and offered him the role of escaped murderer Duke Mantee in Robert E. Sherwood's forthcoming play, The Petrified Forest. Hopkins later recalled:

The play had 197 performances at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York in 1935. Although Leslie Howard was the star, The New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson said that the play was "a peach ... a roaring Western melodrama ... Humphrey Bogart does the best work of his career as an actor." Bogart said that the play "marked my deliverance from the ranks of the sleek, sybaritic, stiff-shirted, swallow-tailed 'smoothies' to which I seemed condemned to life." However, he still felt insecure. Warner Bros. bought the screen rights to The Petrified Forest in 1935. The play seemed ideal for the studio, which was known for its socially-realistic pictures for a public entranced by real-life criminals such as John Dillinger and Dutch Schultz. Bette Davis and Leslie Howard were cast. Howard, who held the production rights, made it clear that he wanted Bogart to star with him.

The studio tested several Hollywood veterans for the Duke Mantee role and chose Edward G. Robinson, who had star appeal and was due to make a film to fulfill his contract. Bogart cabled news of this development to Howard in Scotland, who replied: "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. Jack Warner wanted Bogart to use a stage name, but Bogart declined having built a reputation with his name in Broadway theater. The film version of The Petrified Forest was released in 1936. According to Variety, "Bogart's menace leaves nothing wanting". Frank S. Nugent wrote for The New York Times that the actor "can be a psychopathic gangster more like Dillinger than the outlaw himself." The film was successful at the box office, earning $500,000 in rentals, and made Bogart a star. He never forgot Howard's favor and named his only daughter, Leslie Howard Bogart, after him in 1952.

The studio cast Bogart as a wrestling promoter in Swing Your Lady (1938), a "hillbilly musical" which he reportedly considered his worst film performance. He played a rejuvenated, formerly-dead scientist in The Return of Doctor X (1939), his only horror film: "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." His wife, Mary, had a stage hit in A Touch of Brimstone and refused to abandon her Broadway career for Hollywood. After the play closed, Mary relented; she insisted on continuing her career, however, and they divorced in 1937.

Bogart entered a turbulent third marriage to actress Mayo Methot, a lively, friendly woman when sober but paranoid and aggressive when drunk, on August 21, 1938. She became convinced that Bogart was unfaithful to her (which he eventually was, with Lauren Bacall, while filming To Have and Have Not in 1944). They drifted apart; Methot's drinking increased, and she threw plants, crockery and other objects at Bogart. She set their house afire, stabbed him with a knife, and slashed her wrists several times. Bogart needled her; apparently enjoying confrontation, he was sometimes violent as well. The press called them "the Battling Bogarts".

High Sierra (1941, directed by Raoul Walsh) was written by John Huston, Bogart's friend and drinking partner. The film was adapted from a novel by W. R. Burnett, author of the novel on which Little Caesar was based. Paul Muni, George Raft, Cagney and Robinson turned down the lead role, giving Bogart the opportunity to play a character with some depth. Walsh initially opposed Bogart's casting, preferring Raft for the part. It was Bogart's last major film as a gangster; a supporting role followed in The Big Shot, released in 1942. He worked well with Ida Lupino, sparking jealousy from Mayo Methot.

Bogart went on United Service Organizations and War Bond tours with Methot in 1943 and 1944, making arduous trips to Italy and North Africa (including Casablanca). He was still required to perform in films with weak scripts, leading to conflicts with the front office. He starred in Conflict (1945, again with Greenstreet), but turned down God is My Co-Pilot that year.

Months after wrapping To Have and Have Not, Bogart and Bacall were reunited for an encore: the film noir The Big Sleep (1946), based on the novel by Raymond Chandler with script help from William Faulkner. Chandler admired the actor's performance: "Bogart can be tough without a gun. Also, he has a sense of humor that contains that grating undertone of contempt." Although the film was completed and scheduled for release in 1945, it was withdrawn and re-edited to add scenes exploiting Bogart and Bacall's box-office chemistry in To Have and Have Not and the publicity surrounding their offscreen relationship. At director Howard Hawks' urging, production partner Charles K. Feldman agreed to a rewrite of Bacall's scenes to heighten the "insolent" quality which had intrigued critics such as James Agee and audiences of the earlier film, and a memo was sent to studio head Jack Warner.

Bogart filed for divorce from Methot in February 1945. He and Bacall married in a small ceremony at the country home of Bogart's close friend, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louis Bromfield, at Malabar Farm (near Lucas, Ohio) on May 21, 1945.

Bogart bought the Santana, a 55-foot (17 m) sailing yacht, from actor Dick Powell in 1945. He found the sea a sanctuary and spent about thirty weekends a year on the water, with a particular fondness for sailing around Catalina Island: "An actor needs something to stabilize his personality, something to nail down what he really is, not what he is currently pretending to be." Bogart joined the Coast Guard Temporary Reserve, offering the Coast Guard use of the Santana. He reportedly attempted to enlist, but was turned down due to his age.

On August 21, 1946, he recorded his hand- and footprints in cement in a ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. On February 8, 1960, Bogart was posthumously inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame with a motion-picture star at 6322 Hollywood Boulevard.

Riding high in 1947 with a new contract which provided limited script refusal and the right to form his production company, Bogart rejoined with John Huston for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre: a stark tale of greed among three gold prospectors in Mexico. Lacking a love interest or a happy ending, it was considered a risky project. Bogart later said about co-star (and John Huston's father) Walter Huston, "He's probably the only performer in Hollywood to whom I'd gladly lose a scene."

Bogart created his film company, Santana Productions (named after his yacht and the cabin cruiser in Key Largo), in 1948. The right to create his own company had left Jack Warner furious, fearful that other stars would do the same and further erode the major studios' power. In addition to pressure from freelancing actors such as Bogart, James Stewart and Henry Fonda, they were beginning to buckle from the impact of television and the enforcement of antitrust laws which broke up theater chains. Bogart appeared in his final films for Warners, Chain Lightning (1950) and The Enforcer (1951).

Bogart became a father at age 49, when Bacall gave birth to Stephen Humphrey Bogart on January 6, 1949 during the filming of Tokyo Joe. The name was taken from Steve, Bogart's character's nickname in To Have and Have Not. Stephen became an author and biographer, and hosted a television special about his father on Turner Classic Movies. The couple's daughter, Leslie Howard Bogart, was born on August 23, 1952. Her first and middle names honor Leslie Howard, Bogart's friend and co-star in The Petrified Forest.

Outside Santana Productions, Bogart starred with Katharine Hepburn in the John Huston-directed The African Queen in 1951. The C. S. Forester novel on which it was based was overlooked and left undeveloped for 15 years, until producer Sam Spiegel and Huston bought the rights. Spiegel sent Katharine Hepburn the book; she suggested Bogart for the male lead, believing that "he was the only man who could have played that part". Huston's love of adventure, his deep, longstanding friendship (and success) with Bogart, and the chance to work with Hepburn convinced the actor to leave Hollywood for a difficult shoot on location in the Belgian Congo. Bogart was to get 30 percent of the profits and Hepburn 10 percent, plus a relatively-small salary for both. The stars met in London, and announced that they would work together.

His performance as cantankerous skipper Charlie Allnutt earned Bogart an Academy Award for Best Actor in 1951 (his only award of three nominations), and he considered it the best of his film career. Promising friends that if he won his speech would break the convention of thanking everyone in sight, Bogart advised Claire Trevor when she was nominated for Key Largo to "just say you did it all yourself and don't thank anyone". When Bogart won, however, 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 award and its accompanying recognition, Bogart later said: "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." The African Queen was Bogart's first starring Technicolor role.

A parody of sorts of The Maltese Falcon, Beat the Devil was the final film for Bogart and John Huston. Co-written by Truman Capote, the eccentrically-filmed story follows an amoral group of rogues chasing an unattainable treasure. Bogart sold his interest in Santana to Columbia for over $1 million in 1955.

Bogart rarely performed on television, but he and Bacall appeared on Edward R. Murrow's Person to Person and disagreed on the answer to every question. He also appeared on The Jack Benny Show, where a surviving kinescope of the live telecast captures him in his only TV sketch-comedy performance (October 25, 1953). Bogart and Bacall worked on an early color telecast in 1955, an NBC adaptation of The Petrified Forest for Producers' Showcase. Bogart received top billing, and Henry Fonda played Leslie Howard's role; a black and white kinescope of the live telecast has survived. Bogart performed radio adaptations of some of his best-known films, such as Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon, and recorded a radio series entitled Bold Venture with Bacall.

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. In 1955, however, his health was failing. In the wake of Santana, Bogart had formed a new company and had plans for a 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, though, and he dropped the project.

A heavy smoker and drinker, Bogart had developed esophageal cancer. He did not talk about his health, and visited a doctor in January 1956 after considerable persuasion from Bacall. The disease worsened several weeks later, and on March 1 Bogart had surgery to remove his esophagus, two lymph nodes and a rib. The surgery was unsuccessful, and chemotherapy followed. He had additional surgery in November 1956, when the cancer had spread. Although Bogart became too weak to walk up and down stairs, he joked despite the pain: "Put me in the dumbwaiter and I'll ride down to the first floor in style." It was then altered to accommodate his wheelchair. Sinatra, Katharine Hepburn, and Spencer Tracy visited Bogart on January 13, 1957. In an interview, Hepburn said:

After his death, a "Bogie cult" formed at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in Greenwich Village, and in France; this contributed to his increased popularity during the late 1950s and 1960s. In 1997, Entertainment Weekly magazine ranked Bogart the number-one movie legend of all time; two years later, the American Film Institute rated him the greatest male screen legend.

The United States Postal Service honored Bogart with a stamp in its "Legends of Hollywood" series in 1997, the third figure recognized. At a ceremony attended by Lauren Bacall and the Bogart children, Stephen and Leslie, USPS governing-board chair Tirso del Junco delivered a tribute:

On June 24, 2006, 103rd Street between Broadway and West End Avenue in New York City was renamed Humphrey Bogart Place. Lauren Bacall and her son, Stephen Bogart, attended the ceremony. "Bogie would never have believed it", she said to the assembled city officials and onlookers.

Happy 116th Birthday Humphrey Bogart

Today is the 116th birthday of the actor Humphrey Bogart. The Maltese Falcon remains one of my all-time favorite films and To Have and To Have Not is not far behind.  But then, there’s Key La…