Humphrey Bogart (1899–1957)[1][2] was an American actor and producer whose 36-year career began with live stage productions in New York in 1920. He had been born into an affluent family in New York's Upper West Side,[3] the first-born child and only son of illustrator Maud Humphrey and physician Belmont DeForest Bogart.[1] The family eventually came to include his sisters Patricia and Catherine.[4] His parents believed he would excel academically, possibly matriculate at Yale University and become a surgeon.[5] They enrolled him in the private schools of Delancey, Trinity, and Phillips Academy, but Bogart was not inclined as a scholar and never completed his studies at Phillips, joining the United States Navy in 1918.[5]
On the completion of his military service, Bogart began working in theatrical productions. He was initially employed as a manager behind the scenes for the plays Experience and The Ruined Lady, before trying his talents on stage in the 1922 play Drifting. A recurring legend about Bogart is that his dialog in the 1925 play Hell's Bells was "Tennis anyone?", but Bogart denied it, saying his line was, "It's forty-love outside. Anyone care to watch?"[6] His body of stage work included more than a dozen plays, and lasted a little over a decade. He began to pursue a career in film by 1928, first appearing in the short film The Dancing Town, and then in the 1930 short film Broadway's Like That. Bogart appeared in 75 feature films, and initially believed he was on the road to stardom when he secured a 1929 contract with Fox Film. The resulting productions of A Devil with Women, Up the River, A Holy Terror, Body and Soul and Women of All Nations for Fox, as well as Bad Sister for Universal Pictures, were collectively a disappointment to him, and he returned to stage work in New York.
Bogart's break-out role was that of escaped murderer Duke Mantee whom he played in 197 performances of the 1935 Broadway theatre production of The Petrified Forest, with actor Leslie Howard in the lead. The play, and his subsequent casting in the movie version, propelled him to stardom, and secured him a movie contract with Warner Bros. He made 48 films for them, including The Maltese Falcon, To Have and Have Not, Key Largo, and Casablanca, the last of which earned Bogart his first nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Bogart won the award on his second nomination, for his 1951 performance in the United Artists production The African Queen. His third Oscar nomination was for his performance in the 1954 Columbia Pictures production The Caine Mutiny. In addition to his film work, Bogart guest-starred in numerous radio and television programs, primarily reprising his film roles. He formed Santana Productions in 1948; the company's 1950 production of In a Lonely Place was chosen by the National Film Registry in 2007 for permanent preservation as "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant. Santana Productions also created the 1951–1952 Bold Venture half-hour radio series as a vehicle for Bogart and his wife Lauren Bacall.
Broadway theatre (1920–1935)
After Bogart completed his World War I service with the United States Navy, he found theatrical employment in New York. He stage-managed the 1920 play Experience, and later became a road manager for The Ruined Lady.[1] When he began to pursue an acting career, his debut role was in the 1922 play Drifting.[7]
He appeared in 18 productions on Broadway, including the role that would propel him to fame and success in the movie industry; from January through June 1935, he appeared in 197 performances of The Petrified Forest as Duke Mantee, a murderer fleeing across the Arizona-Mexico border to evade capture by law enforcement.[8] Leslie Howard appeared in the lead role as intellectual idealist Alan Squier.[9] With the exception of The Petrified Forest, the sources do not indicate whether or not Bogart was in the entire run of any production.
Title | Year | Role | Theatre | Notes | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Drifting | 1922 | Multiple roles | Playhouse Theatre | [7] | |
Swifty | 1922 | Tom Proctor | Playhouse Theatre | [11] | |
Meet the Wife | 1923 | Gregory Brown | Klaw Theatre | [12] | |
Nerves | 1924 | Bob Thatch | Comedy Theatre | [13] | |
Hell's Bells | 1925 | Jimmy Todhunter | Wallack's Theatre | [14] | |
Cradle Snatchers | 1925 | Jose Vallejo | Music Box Theatre | [15] | |
Baby Mine | 1927 | Alfred Hardy | Chanin's 46th Street Theatre | [16][17] | |
Saturday's Children | 1927 | Rims O'Neil | Booth Theatre | [18] | |
Saturday's Children | 1928 | Rims O'Neil | Forrest Theatre | [19] | |
Skyrocket | 1929 | Vic. Ewing | Lyceum Theatre | [20] | |
It's a Wise Child | 1929–1930 | Roger Baldwin | Belasco Theatre | [21] | |
After All | 1931 | Duff Wilson | Booth Theatre | [22] | |
I Loved You Wednesday | 1932 | Randall Williams | Sam H. Harris Theatre | [23] | |
Chrysalis | 1932 | Don Ellis | Martin Beck Theatre | [24] | |
Our Wife | 1933 | Jerry Marvin | Booth Theatre | [25] | |
The Mask and the Face | 1933 | Luciano Spina | Guild Theatre | [26] | |
Invitation to a Murder | 1934 | Horatio Channing | Theatre Masque | [27] | |
The Petrified Forest | 1935 | Duke Mantee | Broadhurst Theatre | 197 performances, with Leslie Howard in the lead role of Alan Squier | [9] |
Short films (1928–1930)
Bogart always believed that the future of his profession was ultimately in the burgeoning film industry. After signing with Charles Frohman Productions, he was cast as the male lead opposite stage actress Helen Hayes in a two-reel silent The Dancing Town (1928) for Paramount Pictures.[28] He appeared in a Vitaphone short musical Broadway's Like That (1930), which also featured Joan Blondell and Ruth Etting.[29]
Title | Year | Role | Notes | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
The Dancing Town | 1928 | Man in Doorway at Dance | Paramount Pictures | [30] |
Broadway's Like That | 1930 | Ruth's Fiancé | Soundtrack lost Vitaphone | [31] |
Feature-length films (1930–1956)
He made 75 feature-length films during his career. Two serendipitous events helped pave a path for his career ambitions. During the last half of the 1920s, the film industry's transition from the silent era to sound shifted focus towards stage actors whose vocal talents had been honed in front of live audiences.[32] When the 1929 stock market crash triggered the Great Depression in the United States, funding for stage shows became precarious.[32] Bogart's brother-in-law, Stuart Rose,[33] had become an employee of Fox Film, and was able to arrange a screen test for him with Fox executive Al Lewis. After viewing the test, the Hollywood home office of Fox sent Lewis a directive that Bogart was to be signed to a $750 per week contract, with an option of raising it to $1,000 per week if he performed as expected:[32]
I'm going to become the biggest movie star Hollywood's ever seen.
— Humphrey Bogart after signing his Fox contract in 1929[34]
The films made in Hollywood under his Fox contract were Up the River (1930), A Devil with Women (1930), A Holy Terror (1931), Body and Soul (1931), and Women of All Nations (1931; all Bogart's scenes were cut). While still in California, he also made Bad Sister (1931) for Universal Pictures. Bogart was less than impressed with the end products, and returned to his stage career in New York.[16]
When Warner Bros. purchased the film rights for The Petrified Forest, the studio retained Leslie Howard in the lead role he had performed on Broadway, but replaced Bogart with Edward G. Robinson in the role of Mantee. Howard intervened on Bogart's behalf to reclaim the role for him.[35][8] Following the success of Bogart's performance in the 1936 film, Jack L. Warner put him under contract for $550 a week, with a morals clause, and financial options which could potentially more than triple Bogart's weekly salary.[36]
He continued to appear in feature films for the rest of his life, and claimed that "at Warner Bros. in the 30s, I became a one-man film factory."[37] He made 48 films for Warner Bros. (including First National Pictures, which Warner Bros. owned at that time), more than any other studio he was affiliated with. His body of work there included some of his most acclaimed films: Dark Victory (1939), High Sierra (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and Key Largo (1948).[38] By comparison, he only made seven films with Fox, five films each with Columbia Pictures and his own Santana Productions, three films for Paramount Pictures, two for United Artists, and one each for United States Pictures, Universal Pictures, Samuel Goldwyn Productions, MGM and Walter Wanger Productions.
Bogart created Santana Productions in 1948. The company produced Knock on Any Door (1949), Tokyo Joe (1949), And Baby Makes Three (1949) starring Robert Young and Barbara Hale, Sirocco (1951), The Family Secret (1951) starring John Derek and Lee J. Cobb, and Beat the Devil (1951), Bogart's spoof of The Maltese Falcon. The company's production of In a Lonely Place (1950) was added to the National Film Registry in 2007, "to be preserved for all time". Inclusion of films in the registry are based on their "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant quality.[39]
List of feature films
Title | Year | Director | Role | Notes | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
A Devil with Women | 1930 | Irving Cummings | Tom Standish | Fox Film | [41] |
Up the River | 1930 | John Ford | Steve Jordan | Fox Film | [42] |
Bad Sister | 1931 | Hobart Henley | Valentine Corliss | Universal Pictures distributed through Warner Bros. | [43] |
A Holy Terror | 1931 | Irving Cummings | Steve Nash | Fox Film | [44] |
Body and Soul | 1931 | Alfred Santell | Jim Watson | Fox Film | [45] |
Women of All Nations | 1931 | Raoul Walsh | Stone (Deleted scenes)[46] | Fox Film | [47] |
Big City Blues | 1932 | Mervyn LeRoy | Shep Adkins | Warner Bros. | [48] |
Three on a Match | 1932 | Mervyn LeRoy | Harve | Warner Bros. | [49] |
Love Affair | 1932 | Thornton Freeland | Jim Leonard | Columbia Pictures | [50] |
Midnight | 1934 | Chester Erskine | Gar Boni | aka Call It Murder Universal Pictures | [51] |
The Petrified Forest | 1936 | Archie Mayo | Duke Mantee | Warner Bros. | [52] |
Bullets or Ballots | 1936 | William Keighley | Nick "Bugs" Fenner | Warner Bros. | [53] |
Two Against the World | 1936 | William C. McGann | Sherry Scott | aka One Fatal Hour Warner Bros. | [54] |
China Clipper | 1936 | Ray Enright | Hap Stuart | Warner Bros. | [55] |
Isle of Fury | 1936 | Frank McDonald | Valentine "Val" Stevens | Warner Bros. | [56] |
Black Legion | 1937 | Archie Mayo Michael Curtiz (uncredited) | Frank Taylor | Warner Bros. | [57] |
The Great O'Malley | 1937 | William Dieterle | John Phillips | Warner Bros. | [58] |
Marked Woman | 1937 | Lloyd Bacon Michael Curtiz (uncredited) | District Attorney David Graham | Warner Bros. | [59] |
San Quentin | 1937 | Lloyd Bacon | Joe "Red" Kennedy | Warner Bros. | [60] |
Kid Galahad | 1937 | Michael Curtiz | Turkey Morgan | Warner Bros. | [61] |
Dead End | 1937 | William Wyler | Hugh "Baby Face" Martin | Samuel Goldwyn Productions | [62] |
Stand-In | 1937 | Tay Garnett | Doug Quintain | Walter Wanger Productions | [63] |
Swing Your Lady | 1938 | Ray Enright | Ed Hatch | Warner Bros. | [64] |
Crime School | 1938 | Lewis Seiler | Deputy Commissioner Mark Braden | Warner Bros. | [65] |
Men Are Such Fools | 1938 | Busby Berkeley | Harry Galleon | Warner Bros. | [66] |
Racket Busters | 1938 | Lloyd Bacon | Pete "Czar" Martin | Warner Bros. | [67] |
The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse | 1938 | Anatole Litvak | "Rocks" Valentine | Warner Bros. | [68] |
Angels with Dirty Faces | 1938 | Michael Curtiz | James Frazier | Warner Bros. | [69] |
King of the Underworld | 1939 | Lewis Seiler | Joe Gurney | Warner Bros. | [70] |
The Oklahoma Kid | 1939 | Lloyd Bacon | Whip McCord | Warner Bros. | [71] |
You Can't Get Away with Murder | 1939 | Lewis Seiler | Frank Wilson | Warner Bros. | [72] |
Dark Victory | 1939 | Edmund Goulding | Michael O'Leary | Warner Bros. | [73] |
The Roaring Twenties | 1939 | Raoul Walsh | George Hally | Warner Bros. | [74] |
The Return of Doctor X | 1939 | Vincent Sherman | Dr. Maurice Xavier, aka Marshall Quesne | Warner Bros. | [75] |
Invisible Stripes | 1939 | Lloyd Bacon | Chuck Martin | Warner Bros. | [76] |
They Drive by Night | 1940 | Raoul Walsh | Paul Fabrini | Warner Bros. | [77] |
Virginia City | 1940 | Michael Curtiz | John Murrell | Warner Bros. | [78] |
It All Came True | 1940 | Lewis Seiler | Grasselli aka Chips Maguire | Warner Bros. | [79] |
Brother Orchid | 1940 | Lloyd Bacon | Jack Buck | Warner Bros. | [80] |
High Sierra | 1941 | Raoul Walsh | Roy Earle | Warner Bros. | [81] |
The Wagons Roll at Night | 1941 | Ray Enright | Nick Coster | Warner Bros. | [82] |
The Maltese Falcon | 1941 | John Huston | Sam Spade | First film appearance of Sydney Greenstreet Warner Bros. | [83] |
All Through the Night | 1942 | Vincent Sherman | Alfred 'Gloves' Donahue | Warner Bros. | [84] |
The Big Shot | 1942 | Lewis Seiler | Joseph "Duke" Berne | Warner Bros. | [85] |
Across the Pacific | 1942 | John Huston | Rick Leland | Warner Bros. | [86] |
Casablanca | 1942 | Michael Curtiz | Rick Blaine | Nominated for Best Actor Oscar Warner Bros. | [87] |
Action in the North Atlantic | 1943 | Lloyd Bacon Raoul Walsh (uncredited) Byron Haskin (uncredited) | Lt. Joe Rossi | Warner Bros. | [88] |
Sahara | 1943 | Zoltan Korda | Sgt. Joe Gunn | Columbia Pictures | [89] |
Thank Your Lucky Stars | 1943 | David Butler | Himself | Warner Bros. | [90] |
Passage to Marseille | 1944 | Michael Curtiz | Jean Matrac | Warner Bros. | [91] |
To Have and Have Not | 1944 | Howard Hawks | Harry "Steve" Morgan | Lauren Bacall's debut film Warner Bros. | [92] |
Conflict | 1945 | Curtis Bernhardt | Richard Mason | Warner Bros. | [93] |
The Big Sleep | 1946 | Howard Hawks | Philip Marlowe | Warner Bros. | [94] |
Dead Reckoning | 1947 | John Cromwell | Capt. Warren "Rip" Murdock | Columbia Pictures | [95] |
The Two Mrs. Carrolls | 1947 | Peter Godfrey | Geoffrey Carroll | Warner Bros. | [96] |
Dark Passage | 1947 | Delmer Daves | Vincent Parry | Warner Bros. | [97] |
Always Together | 1947 | Frederick de Cordova | Himself | Warner Bros. | [98] |
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre | 1948 | John Huston | Fred C. Dobbs | Warner Bros. | [99] |
Key Largo | 1948 | John Huston | Frank McCloud | Warner Bros. | [100] |
Knock on Any Door | 1949 | Nicholas Ray | Andrew Morton | Santana Productions, Bogart's company founded in 1948 | [101] |
Tokyo Joe | 1949 | Stuart Heisler | Joseph "Joe" Barrett | Santana Productions | [101] |
Chain Lightning | 1950 | Stuart Heisler | Lt. Col. Matthew "Matt" Brennan | Warner Bros. | [102] |
In a Lonely Place | 1950 | Nicholas Ray | Dixon Steele | Santana Productions;added to the National Film Registry in 2007, as "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant. | [103][39] |
The Enforcer | 1951 | Bretaigne Windust Raoul Walsh (uncredited) | Dist. Atty. Martin Ferguson | United States Pictures | [101] |
Sirocco | 1951 | Curtis Bernhardt | Harry Smith | Santana Productions | [104] |
The African Queen | 1951 | John Huston | Charlie Allnut | Won the Best Actor Oscar United Artists | [105] |
Deadline – U.S.A. | 1952 | Richard Brooks | Ed Hutcheson | Fox Film | [106] |
Battle Circus | 1953 | Richard Brooks | Maj. Jed Webbe | MGM | [107] |
Beat the Devil | 1953 | John Huston | Billy Dannreuther | Romulus Films Santana Pictures Corporation | [108] |
The Caine Mutiny | 1954 | Edward Dmytryk | Lt. Cmdr. Philip Francis Queeg | Nominated for Best Actor Oscar Columbia Pictures | [109] |
Sabrina | 1954 | Billy Wilder | Linus Larrabee | Paramount Pictures | [110] |
The Barefoot Contessa | 1954 | Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Harry Dawes | Figaro United Artists | [111] |
We're No Angels | 1955 | Michael Curtiz | Joseph | Paramount Pictures | [112] |
The Left Hand of God | 1955 | Edward Dmytryk | James "Jim" Carmody | Fox Film | [113] |
The Desperate Hours | 1955 | William Wyler | Glenn Griffin | Paramount Pictures | [114] |
The Harder They Fall | 1956 | Mark Robson | Eddie Willis | Columbia Pictures | [115] |
Miscellaneous and uncredited film appearances (1944–1954)
Occasionally Bogart made public fund-raising or patriotic appearances on film. He also appeared in cameos, some uncredited, in a small handful of other films.
Title | Year | Notes | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
I Am an American | 1944 | Produced for Constitution Day | [note 1] |
Report from the Front | 1944 | American Red Cross fund-raising short | [29] |
Hollywood Victory Caravan | 1944 | Victory Bond tour | [29] |
Two Guys From Milwaukee | 1946 | A Warner Bros. film, with Bogart and Bacall cameo uncredited sitting at a table | [29] |
Always Together | 1948 | Bit part spoof of Stella Dallas, Bogart cameo crying against a window pane. | [29] |
Road to Bali | 1952 | A clip from The African Queen | [29] |
US Savings Bond trailer | 1952 | Bogart urging Americans to buy savings bonds | [29] |
The Love Lottery | 1954 | Uncredited cameo David Niven film for Ealing Studios | [29] |
Radio and television (1939–1955)
He made numerous radio and television appearances throughout his career. The Lux Radio Theatre was an anthology series featuring adaptations of Broadway plays and film scripts. It aired on the National Broadcasting Company's Blue Network (the forerunner of the American Broadcasting Company) (1934–35);[117] CBS Radio network (1935–54), and NBC Radio (1954–55). The Screen Guild Theater (aka Gulf Screen Guild Theater aka Stars in the Air) was a radio anthology series broadcast from 1939 until 1952.[118] Academy Award Theatre was a 1946 radio anthology series featuring adaptations of film scripts.[119] Kraft Music Hall was a radio musical variety show on NBC radio from 1933 to 1949.[120] The Bold Venture half-hour radio series ran for 78 episodes during 1951–1952, and was developed by Bogart's Santana Productions, as a starring vehicle for Bogart and his wife Lauren Bacall.[121]
Program | Episode | Air date | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
Lux Radio Theatre | Bullets or Ballots | April 17, 1939 | [122] |
The Gulf Screen Guild Theater | The Petrified Forest | January 7, 1940 | [123] |
The Gulf Screen Guild Theater | If You Could Only Cook | November 23, 1941 | [123] |
The Gulf Screen Guild Theater | The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse | November 2, 1941 | [124] |
The Screen Guild Theater | High Sierra | January 4, 1942 | [125] |
Jack Benny Radio Program | The Frightwig Murder Case | February 2, 1942 | [126] |
The Screen Guild Theater | Casablanca | April 26, 1943 | [127] |
The Screen Guild Theater | The Maltese Falcon | September 20, 1943 | [128] |
Screen Guild Players | High Sierra | April 17, 1944 | [129] |
Lux Radio Theatre | Moontide | April 30, 1945 | [130] |
Academy Award Theatre | The Maltese Falcon | July 3, 1946 | [128] |
Lux Radio Theatre | To Have and Have Not | October 14, 1946 | [131] |
Jack Benny Radio Program | January 5, 1947 | [132] | |
Kraft Music Hall | November 6, 1947 | [133] | |
Lux Radio Theatre | Treasure of the Sierra Madre | April 18, 1949 | [134] |
Bold Venture | 78-episode series | March 26, 1951 | [135] |
Stars in the Air (Screen Guild Theater) | The House on 92nd Street | May 3, 1952 | [136] |
Lux Radio Theatre | The African Queen | December 15, 1952 | [137] |
Jack Benny television program (CBS -TV) | October 25, 1953 | [138] | |
Producers' Showcase (NBC -TV) | The Petrified Forest | May 30, 1955 | [52] |
Awards and honors
Bogart's first nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor was for Casablanca (1942),[139] a film that he and co-stars Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid initially believed was of little significance.[note 2][139] Bogart won the award on his second nomination, for his 1951 performance in the United Artists production The African Queen. He was nominated a third time for The Caine Mutiny (1954).[141] He posthumously received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.[142] The United States Postal Service honored Bogart in 1997, at a ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theatre unveiling Bogart's stamp as part of the postal service's "Legends of Hollywood" series.[143] In 2006, the street in front of his boyhood home was renamed Humphrey Bogart Place.[144]
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
- Barbour, Alan G. (1973). Humphrey Bogart. New York : Galahad Books. ISBN 978-0-88365-163-6.
- Chandler, Charlotte (2007). Ingrid : Ingrid Bergman, a personal biography. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-9421-8.
- Dunning, John (1998). On the Air : The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio. New York : Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-507678-3.
- Koszarski, Richard (2008). Hollywood on the Hudson: Film and Television in New York from Griffith to Sarnoff. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-4552-3.
- Porter, Darwin (2010). Humphrey Bogart : the Making of a Legend. New York : Blood Moon Productions, Ltd. ISBN 978-1-936003-14-3.
- Terrace, Vincent (2015). Radio Programs, 1924-1984: A Catalog of More Than 1800 Shows. McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-0528-9.
External links
- "Humphrey Bogart Filmography". IMDb. Retrieved June 1, 2010.