Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey DeForest Bogart was born on December 25, 1899, in New York City.   His father was a surgeon, and his mother was a commercial illustrator.  He attended several prestigious private prep schools but left before graduating.  He joined the navy in 1918 and served through the end of World War I.  At some point during his early life, he acquired his trademark scar and lisp, but the exact source of the scar is undetermined.  Bogart later referred to it as a childhood injury while other stories suggest he acquired it while serving in the Navy. 

After returning from the war, Bogart landed a job with William A. Brady’s World Films company.  He aspired to screenwriting, directing and producing but made little progress in any of these endeavors.  His first appearance on stage took place in 1921 when he delivered a single line of dialog in the play Drifting.  He never took acting lessons but worked hard at acting and appeared in numerous Broadway productions from 1922 to 1935.  His first film appearance was in the John Ford film Up the River (1930) where he appeared with his lifelong friend, Spencer Tracy.  His big break came when he starred on Broadway as an escaped murder in The Petrified Forest.  Warner Brothers bought the screen rights to the play and wanted Edward G. Robinson for the role.  Leslie Howard, who had starred in the play with Bogart, threatened to leave the project if Bogart did not reprise his role in the film.  Bogart would later name his daughter Leslie to show his gratitude. 

Despite the success of The Petrified Forest (1936), or perhaps because of it, Bogart was typecast as a gangster for the next several years.  Even during this period of early success, he was third on the gangster lead list at Warner Brothers behind Robinson and James Cagney.  It wasn’t until his second breakthrough role, High Sierra (1941), that his career really began to take off.  While he still played a gangster, the part written by his friend and drinking buddy John Huston, had much more depth than his previous roles.  Later that year, The Maltese Falcon (1941) and the following year’s Casablanca (1942), made him a star with Casablanca earning him the first of three best actor nominations. 

Bogart was now the highest paid actor in Hollywood.  Throughout the mid-1940s he starred in a series of films with Lauren Bacall, who he married in 1945, his fourth and final marriage.  These films included the noir classic The Big Sleep (1946) and Key Largo (1948).  In 1947, he starred in a film that many now believe to have been his best performance, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1947).  The film was a commercial flop but did win a Best Director Oscar for his friend John Huston. 

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was the first in a new series of roles for Bogart where he played quirky or disturbed characters.  He earned two more Best Actor nominations, including his only win, playing these types of characters.  In The African Queen (1951)(our review), he won his only Best Actor award when he co-starred with Katharine Hepburn as a sometimes childish, gin-soaked river boat captain who falls in love with a missionary.  In The Caine Mutiny (1954), he earned his third and final nomination playing a paranoid World War II navy captain whose deteriorating mental state causes his crew to relieve him of command. 

Most of us associate the “Rat Pack” with Las Vegas in the 1960s and consisting of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop.  However, Bogart was an original member of the Hollywood Rat Pack.  Many attribute the name Rat Pack to Lauren Bacall, who was said to have observed the mess after a night of Bogart partying with Frank Sinatra, Julie Garland, David Niven, Angie Dickinson and others and said, “You look like a goddamn rat pack.” 

In 1955, Bogart formed his own production company and was looking forward to doing another movie with Bacall.   However, he dropped the project as he began to experience health issues.  His persistent cough and difficulty swallowing was eventually diagnosed as esophageal cancer.  Despite two surgeries and a round of chemotherapy, his condition failed to improve, and he died on January 14, 1957, at the age of 57.  His funeral was attended by a who’s who of classic Hollywood.  Delivering the eulogy, John Huston said, “He is quite irreplaceable.  There will never be another like him.” 

Humphrey Bogart is our July 2021 star of the month, and we invite you to read our review of The African Queen, the movie for which he won his only Best Actor Oscar.