Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey DeForest Bogart (December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957) was an iconic American actor who retains legendary status decades after his death. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Bogart the Greatest Male Star of All Time.

Related Topics:
December 25 - 1899 - January 14 - 1957 - American - Actor - American Film Institute - Greatest Male Star of All Time

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Bogart typically played smart, playful, courageous, tough, occasionally reckless characters, living in a corrupt world, yet anchored by an inner moral code. He was also able to play characters with flaws and weaknesses that led to their destruction. His most notable films include Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942),

Related Topics:
Angels With Dirty Faces - 1938 - The Maltese Falcon - 1941 - Casablanca - 1942

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To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Key Largo (1948), In a Lonely Place (1950), The African Queen (1951) (for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role), and The Caine Mutiny (1954). In all, he appeared in 75 feature motion pictures.

Related Topics:
To Have and Have Not - 1944 - The Big Sleep - 1946 - The Treasure of the Sierra Madre - 1948 - Key Largo - In a Lonely Place - 1950 - The African Queen - 1951 - Academy Award - Best Actor in a Leading Role - The Caine Mutiny - 1954

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Even outside of America, Bogart is seen as a cult figure. French actors such as Jean-Paul Belmondo were deeply influenced by his work and image. In À bout de souffle (known in English as Breathless), perhaps the best-known work of French director Jean-Luc Godard, the protagonist Michel worships the persona of Humphrey Bogart and mimes some of Bogart’s best-known gestures in a way that is both absurd and touching. François Truffaut, another French director of the “New Wave,” directed Shoot the Piano Player, another homage to Bogart.

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French - Jean-Paul Belmondo - Breathless - Jean-Luc Godard - François Truffaut - New Wave - Shoot the Piano Player

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India’s great national movie star Ashok Kumar listed Bogart as a major influence on his “natural” acting style. When Bogart reached Leopoldville to film the movie The African Queen, his plane was met by the U.S. consul and the Congolese press.

Related Topics:
India - Movie star - Ashok Kumar - Leopoldville - U.S. - Congolese

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Bogart is no less an icon in the country of his birth. One of Woody Allen’s most popular comic movies, Play It Again, Sam, is about a young man in love with Bogart’s aura and intimidated by it. The title refers to a frequent misquote from Casablanca; Rick Blaine (Bogart’s character) actually says “Play it, Sam.” 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.

Related Topics:
Woody Allen - 1997 - United States Postal Service

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Bogart’s exalted standing in the Hollywood pantheon would have astonished most of the agents, casting directors and studio bosses who knew him in the 1920s and 1930s as a good but hardly great Broadway stage actor and B-movie player in Hollywood.

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Hollywood - Studio - 1920s - 1930s - Broadway - Stage - B-movie

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He was born Humphrey DeForest Bogart on 25 December 1899 in New York City, New York, the oldest child of Belmont DeForest Bogart and Maud Humphrey, both of whom were of English descent.

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25 December - 1899 - New York City - New York - English

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It was long believed that his birthday on Christmas Day was a Warner Bros. fiction created to romanticise his background, and that he was really born on 23 January 1899, a date that appeared in many references. This story is now considered baseless. Although no birth certificate has ever been found to settle the issue conclusively, his birth notice did appear in a Boston newspaper in early January 1900, which would support the December 1899 date. Lauren Bacall always maintained this was his true birth date.

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Warner Bros. - 23 January - 1899 - Lauren Bacall

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Bogart's father was a successful surgeon. His mother, Maud Humphrey, was a very successful commercial illustrator. Indeed, she used a drawing of her baby Humphrey Bogart in a well-known ad campaign for Mellins Baby Food. In her prime, she made over $50,000 a year as an illustrator, then a vast sum for a woman to earn (or a man for that matter). The Bogarts lived in a fashionable Upper West Side apartment, and had a cottage in upstate New York.

Related Topics:
Maud Humphrey - Mellins Baby Food - Upper West Side

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Maud Humphrey was a distant woman and the Bogarts' marriage was troubled. Both parents were alcoholics and/or morphine addicts at various times. Maud also suffered intense migraine headaches. "I can't say I ever loved my mother," Bogart once said. "I admired her." He was raised mostly by an Irish nurse. "My parents fought," he said another time. "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."

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Alcoholic - Morphine - Migraine

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From his father, Bogart inherited a tendency for needling people, and a love of fishing and especially sailing. Humphrey was the oldest child of three. Both of Bogart's younger sisters were troubled adults; Kay ("Catty") died at 34 of peritonitis complicated by alcoholism. Frances "Pat" Bogart Rose was tall, shy and sweet, but mentally unstable. Bogart was gentle with her and paid for her care. Other relatives were few and rarely saw the Bogarts. (When Bogart fell in love with Lauren Bacall and she introduced him to her large extended family, he said "Christ, you've got more goddamn relatives than I've ever seen.")

Related Topics:
Peritonitis - Alcoholism - Lauren Bacall

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As a boy, Bogart was teased for his curls, his tidiness, his lisp, for the "cute" pictures his mother posed him for, the Little Lord Fauntleroy clothes she dressed him in—and for the name "Humphrey." In a childhood accident, Bogart got a splinter of wood embedded in his lower lip. "Goddamn doctor," Bogart later told David Niven, "instead of stitching it up, he screwed it up." The accident left Bogart with a slight lisp.

Related Topics:
Little Lord Fauntleroy - David Niven

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The Bogarts sent their son to the Trinity School in New York and then to the prestigious prep school Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts. They hoped he would go on to Yale, but in 1918, Bogart was expelled from Phillips Academy. The details of his expulsion are disputed. One story says that he was expelled for throwing a janitor into the local pond, while others say that he was expelled for smoking and drinking. His study habits were erratic and his grades low, and he may have hastened his departure by some intemperate comments to those in authority. He had a lifelong dislike of authority figures.

Related Topics:
Trinity School - Phillips Academy - Andover, Massachusetts - Yale - 1918

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