|
A baby son was born to Doctor Belmont DeForest Bogart and his wife Maude on Christmas Day in 1899, in New York. They named the baby Humphrey DeForest Bogart, and he was frequently the subject of his mother's work as an illustrator.
Humphrey grew up to be a bright young man, and his parents dreamed of their sons entering the halls of Yale University one day. So they sent him to academies in order to prepare him for medical school. The result? Humphrey was kicked out of the last school, so he joined the Navy instead, and fought in World War I in 1917. During his naval stint, shrapnel hit Bogart and that's when he got his trademark scar and his lisp.
When he got out of the Navy, Humphrey Bogart got a job as an office boy working for his friend William Brady. Brady was a theatrical producer, and he owned World Film Corporation. Bogart later became a stage manager, and he did that until Brady's daughter, Alice, gave him a small part in a play in which she was starring in, called "Drifting" in 1922.
In 1926, Bogart married a stage actress named Helen Menken. Her reason for marrying him was out of love, but his reasons were more career-oriented, and the marriage ended in 1927. In 1928, he married again, this time to actress Mary Philips, who he had known for a long time. Bogart went on to become a supporting actor in Broadway plays until 1929, when he headed for Hollywood. Mary refused to give up her career and join Bogart in Hollywood, so she remained in New York and continued her stage career. Bogart hoped that he would be able to find his success in films, but he ended up back in Broadway after the films he had made in Hollywood turned out to be clunkers.
Finally, his big break came in 1935, when Bogart played the role of Duke Mantee in "Petrified Forest." He headed back to Hollywood once again and successfully recreated this role for a movie there. A contract was signed with Warner Brothers, and Humphrey Bogart was on his way. Not to medical school as his parents dreamed he would one day be, but, rather, he was on his way to being a movie star.
Two years later, in 1937, his personal life took a turn when he and his wife Mary Philips divorced. The following year, though, in 1938, he headed down the aisle for a third time. This time, the bride was actress Mayo Methot. Bogart and Methot had met when they worked on "Marked Women" together the year before. Methot was known for her drinking and her violent temper, and it was said that Bogart did not want to marry her, but she pushed him down the aisle. Mayo and Bogart soon were nicknamed the "Battling Bogarts," as they were often seen fighting in public places. It was also said that Bogart increased his alcoholic intake during their marriage too.
Bogart went on to star in such films as "Casablanca" in 1943, with leading lady Ingrid Bergman, and it earned him his first Oscar nomination. The next year, in 1944, he starred in the movie, "To Have and Have Not" with a young fashion model named Lauren Bacall. Bogart and Bacall's chemistry not only made the film a box office smash, but it also ignited flames off-screen as well. Bogart ended up divorcing Mayo Methot on May 10, 1945, and he married Bacall eleven days later on May 21, 1945. The couple had two children during their marriage, a son named Stephen Humphrey, who was born in 1949, and a daughter named Leslie Howard, who was born in 1952.
Warner Brothers offered Humphrey Bogart a contract which would pocket him a million dollars a year for the next fifteen years, and the studio didn't even wait for the ink to dry before they starred Bogart in three more films with Lauren Bacall: "The Big Sleep", in 1946, "Dark Passage", in 1947, and "Key Largo" in 1948.
In 1951, "Bogie", as he was affectionately nicknamed, starred in "The African Queen" with Katherine Hepburn, and he won the Academy Award for Best Actor as a result.
Humphrey Bogart had started his own production company a few years before, and he named it after his second best love, his boat. Santana Productions was born and Bogart became the first actor in history to form his own production company. Even though, he finished his contract with Warner Brothers in the 1950's.
"The Harder They Fall" was "Bogie's" final film in 1956. The famous film star who was known for his tough-guy parts then underwent a nine-and-a-half-hour surgery in order to remove a malignant growth from his throat. But the cancer got the best of him, and he lost his battle on January 14, 1957, at the age of fifty-seven years old. He died in the bedroom of his and Lauren Bacall's Hollywood home. His body was cremated.
|
| |
