Humphrey Bogart Biography Although he only lived to the age of fifty-seven, and died in 1957, Humphrey Bogart, known affectionately as Bogie, continues to influence popular culture, including having an impact on a Woody Allen movie and the 1980s pop song Key Largo. Delving into his life, it becomes clear that he was both a man of conviction and a man of mystery, probably helping him to be thought of as the greatest male star of all time, even fifty years after this death. Even Bogie's birth date remains a mystery. He was known as "the last century man," for his known birthday on Christmas Day of 1899. However, in 2000 this was disputed, and it was said that it was a Hollywood falsehood meant to strengthen his image, and that he was actually born on January 23, 1899. No evidence exists for the January date, while a birth notice and 1900 census support the December date. Bogie was born into a privileged family, as the child of a surgeon and commercial illustrator. His mother used a drawing of him in a campaign for Mellins Baby Food. The Bogart ancestry is well-stacked, including George Washington, King Edward III of England, and Tennessee Williams. The oldest of three children, Bogie once said that while he admired his mother, he never loved her, based on the fact he was raised by an Irish nurse, and his parents spent much of their time fighting.
After spending his childhood years being teased for his name, clothes, and curly hair, he was expelled from the Philips Academy. Many rumors exist to the reasons he was expelled, among them throwing the headmaster into a lake, and very low grades. Bogie's parents had wanted him to go on to Yale, but after his expulsion from the preparatory school, he instead enrolled in the Naval Reserve. There are several different theories as to how Bogart got his famous lisp. One is that a doctor didn't stitch him up correctly after he'd gotten a splinter in his lip as a child, and another is that it happened at sometime during his Naval career. Bogie found his way into acting, appearing on Broadway in twenty-two different productions, always playing the heavy or second male lead. He married Helen Menken in 1926, although the union lasted just one year. Mary Philips became his second wife in 1928, and she was known for her temper, and was once arrested for biting the finger of a police officer. Bogie became friends with another actor on Broadway, Spencer Tracy, and it was him that first coined the nickname "Bogie." Seeking a role in the play The Petrified Forest, Bogie was given the role of the gangster, which he thought didn't fit him too well. The lead in the play, Leslie Howard, felt Bogie was the reason for the play's success, and promised him that if the play ever made the transition to a movie, that he would do whatever he could to see that Bogie played the gangster role again. Petrified Forest was indeed turned into a movie, and although Edward G Robinson was first tapped to play Bogie's role, Leslie Howard stepped in, and it became Bogie's tenth movie role.
After his success with Petrified Forest, Bogie found himself stuck with gangster type roles, as Warner Brothers preferred putting other actors in its lead roles, leaving Bogie with the leftover roles. It was continuous work out in Hollywood, and Mary Philips divorced him, not wanting to give up her own Broadway career. In 1938, he married Mayo Methot, and while she was a wonderful person when sober, when she was drinking, she grew quite paranoid. She accused Bogie of cheating, and would get quite violent with him. Because he was known in his films as a gangster, it was assumed he was violent like his wife, and they became known as "The Battling Bogarts." Bogie found the wardrobe department cheap, and he often wore his own suits in his films. He was raised to not hold respect for the acting profession, and playing gangster certainly didn't better that image for him. He bought a yacht and named it "Sluggy" after Mayo, and became more respected as a sailor than he was as an actor. Things began to change some with his role in High Sierra, written by John Huston, who became a lifelong friend of his. While it was still a villainous role, it was a much deeper role, and had a love scene for him and Ida Lupino. He also used his own dog in the movie. After George Raft turned down the lead in the John Huston-directed The Maltese Falcon, Bogie landed his first lead role. This led to his most famous role, as Rick in Casablanca, uttering the famous phrase, "Play it, Sam." Contrary to popular belief, there never was an "again" in the phrase. He brought much of himself into the role, including having Rick be a chess player, as Bogie was known to play tournament chess, and be near master level. Casablanca won an Academy Award for Best Picture that year, but Bogie lost out to Paul Lukas for Best Actor. Toward the end of Bogie's marriage to Mayo, he met Lauren Bacall on the set of To Have and Have Not, and they married in 1945. They carried their relationship into other movies, such as The Big Sleep. Bacall would get seasick, but gave her new husband free reign to spend as much time on his boat as he wished. At the age of forty-nine, Bogie became a father for the first time to Stephen, and later a daughter was born. Remembering how his old friend, Leslie Howard, had helped him out, the daughter was named Leslie, in remembrance of Howard who had passed away during WWII. In 1951, Bogie starred in another Huston-directed film, The African Queen, with Katharine Hepburn. It was a difficult shoot on location in Africa, and Huston and Bogie were the only two to not come down with dysentery, which Bogie attributed to the amount he drank. This movie, Bogie's first in color, won him an Academy Award for Best Actor. He followed this film with The Caine Mutiny and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Bogie's last film was The Harder They Fall. He had been stricken with cancer of the esophagus, and had initially refused treatment. His esophagus was removed, along with a rib and two lymph nodes, yet his health only grew worse. Bogie died on January 14, 1957, weighing only eighty pounds. He was buried along with a whistle he have given Bacall in remembrance of the line from To Have and Have Not, "You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and... blow." YUDDY |
