Humphrey Bogart

His mother drew him. Maud Humphrey had trained in New York and France, studied under Whistler, ran the art department of a fashion magazine and marched for the vote, and at her peak earned more than 50,000 dollars a year, considerably more than her husband, a cardiopulmonary surgeon. One of her drawings of her infant son sold Mellins Baby Food. She was not otherwise demonstrative: a kiss in that family, Bogart said, was an event. Other boys went after him for the curls, the Little Lord Fauntleroy clothes and the first name. Andover admitted him in 1918 on family connections and he failed four subjects of six in a single semester. Accounts of why he left differ. He enlisted in the Navy instead.

He did at least 18 Broadway shows between 1922 and 1935, 11 of them comedies, and is supposed to be the first actor to say tennis, anyone. Hollywood cast him as a heavy and left him there. The break came from Leslie Howard, who had played opposite him on Broadway in The Petrified Forest and cabled Jack Warner INSIST BOGART PLAY MANTEE NO BOGART NO DEAL when the studio wanted a bigger name for the 1936 film. Bogart named his daughter Leslie in 1952. Then High Sierra and John Huston's first picture, The Maltese Falcon, both in 1941, then Rick Blaine in Casablanca. He was nominated three times and won once, for The African Queen, which he thought his best work. In 1948 he set up his own company, Santana, and sold it to Columbia in 1955.

His father died in 1934 owing money, and Bogart, who was then shuttling between the New York stage and Hollywood and out of work for long stretches, paid it off. He wore his father's gold ring in film after film. His third marriage, to the actress Mayo Methot, gave the columnists the Battling Bogarts: she threw crockery, set fire to their house and put a knife in him, and he drank through eight years of it. In October 1947 he flew to Washington with the Committee for the First Amendment to protest the House hearings on Hollywood. Five months later he published a piece in Photoplay headed I'm No Communist, in which he wrote that the ten men cited for contempt had not been defended by the delegation.

He smoked and drank hard and did not talk about his health. Surgeons took out his esophagus, some lymph nodes and a rib on March 1, 1956, and it did not work. He weighed 80 pounds at the end. Spencer Tracy came the night before with Katharine Hepburn, said goodnight, Bogie, and Bogart said goodbye, Spence. He died on January 14, 1957, and was cremated at Forest Lawn with a small gold whistle from a charm bracelet he had given Lauren Bacall before they married, engraved with a line from the picture where they met. In 1999 the American Film Institute put him first on its list of the greatest male stars of classic Hollywood, ahead of Cary Grant.

Humphrey Bogart's life against the full span of the corpus.

• The Petrified Forest film
  Duke Mantee. Leslie Howard forced the studio to take him. 1936
• High Sierra film
  Roy Earle, the part several bigger stars turned down first 1941
• The Maltese Falcon film
  Sam Spade, in John Huston's first film as a director 1941
• Casablanca film
  Rick Blaine, and his first romantic lead 1942
• The African Queen film
  Charlie Allnut, and his only Academy Award 1951
• Santana Productions company
  Named for his yacht. He sold it to Columbia in 1955 for over a million dollars. 1948

• 1918 aged ~19 Leaves Phillips Academy after one semester and enlists in the Navy He failed four of six subjects. The accounts of his departure do not agree.
• June 18, 1919 aged 19 Discharged as a petty officer second class
• 1934 aged ~35 His father dies in debt, and Bogart pays it He kept the gold ring and wore it on screen for the rest of his career.
• 1936 aged ~37 Plays Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest and becomes a star at 36
• May 21, 1945 aged 45 Marries Lauren Bacall at Malabar Farm in Ohio She was 20, he was 45, and they had met on To Have and Have Not.
• October 1947 aged 47 Flies to Washington with the Committee for the First Amendment
• March 1948 aged 48 Publishes I'm No Communist in Photoplay and steps back from the Ten
• March 1, 1956 aged 56 Surgeons remove his esophagus, lymph nodes and a rib The operation did not stop the cancer.
• January 14, 1957 aged 57 Dies at 57, weighing 80 pounds

• Katharine Hepburn 1907–2003
  Four-time Oscar-winning actress whose independent spirit and wit made her a screen legend. co-star
• Bette Davis 1908–1989
  Studio-era actress who won two Academy Awards and fought Warner Bros. over contract terms. co-star
• Frank Sinatra 1915–1998
  Crooner and actor whose voice and charisma made him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Rat Pack
• Ronald Reagan 1911–2004
  40th president whose conservative domestic program and assertive Cold War strategy reshaped American politics. opposed him over the Hollywood hearings
• Marlon Brando 1924–2004
  Actor whose method acting revolutionized film performance and influenced generations of actors. the acting that replaced his