Humphrey DeForest Bogart was born on January 23, 1899, to a surgeon and a freelance magazine illustrator. He was sent to Phillips Academy in Massachussetts to prepare for medical school but had trouble with school authorities and was expelled. In the spring of 1918 he enlisted in the navy where he got his characteristic scar and lisp.
After service in the U.S. Navy he contacted a family friend, William A. Brady, who hired him to work in the office of his theater. Bogart advanced to stage manager and then worked his way to Broadway where he received poor reviews. In the early 30’s he went to the west coast where he signed a contract to Fox. He was released after only three films and then played small parts, mostly as playboy, for the other big studios. Unable to see a future for himself in Hollywood he returned to Broadway where he got the opportunity to play Duke Mantee in Robert E.
Sherwood’s play The Petrified Forest opposite Leslie Howard. The play was a hit, Jack Warner aquired the film rights and wanted Leslie Howard to star in it together with Edward G. Robinson but Howard refused unless Bogart was to play the part he knew so well. Howard won out and the film was a big success that assured Bogart’s place in Hollywood. Jack Warner still wasn’t interested in giving Bogart any major roles, he was typecast as gangster in B-movies and sometimes playing second fiddle to James Cagney or George Raft in A-movies.
In 1941 Bogart’s career reached the next level. George Raft turned down an offer to star in HIGH SIERRA and Bogart took the opportunity to star in an A-film. His next role was as Samuel Spade in THE MALTESE FALCON in which his screen persona grew into a more fully developed cynical, streetwise anti-hero. Then he was to make a film that is now generally counted as one of the finest of all time, CASABLANCA. In it Bogart plays Rick Blaine, a café owner who meets his former love Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) and her husband Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) in WW II Casablanca. The script was not more than half-finished when filming began and it was handed out to the cast on a daily basis.
During the filming of CASABLANCA Bogart was married to Mayo Methot who was known for her thirst for alcohol and her nasty right hook. Together they were known as The Battling Bogarts because it didn’t take much to get them going but plenty to stop them. Mayo was a regular visitor to the set during filming because she was very jelous and was sure that something went on between Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. She was wrong, but when Bogie starred opposite Lauren Bacall in TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT her suspiciosness was justified. Bogart and Lauren Bacall married almost immediately after the filming was done and the two of them went on to make three more films together.
Up to this point Bogart had only played variations of himself but in John Huston’s THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE and THE AFRICAN QUEEN Bogie really flexed his acting muscles and was rewarded with an Academy Award for the latter. He was now universally acknowledged as a complete character actor. He was the only actor at the time managing his own studio, Santana Pictures, founded in 1947. Also in 1947, Bogart was one of many who travelled to Washington D.C. to show that they didn’t support the kind of witch hunt for communists that went on at the time.
In 1956 Bogart finished his last film, THE HARDER THEY FALL, he was diagnosed with cancer and died on January 14, 1957. He had brought a depth and complexity to the character’s he played in the Film-noir genre and was one of the most bankable stars of the 1940’s. Humphrey Bogart is the American Film Institute's choice for biggest silver screen legend of all time.