Humphrey+Bogart

Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart was an American stage and film [|actor] of the early to mid-1900s. He is most well-known for his leading roles in //Casablanca// and //The African Queen.// Dubbed “Bogie” by both critics and fans alike, Humphrey Bogart is considered to be a classic American icon.



Early Life
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was born on December 25, 1899 in New York. His father, Belmont DeForest Bogart, was a distinguished physician. His mother, Maud Humphrey, was a famous art prodigy. Bogart was the only son in the family and the eldest sibling of two sisters, Frances “Pat” and Catherine “Kay”. Bogart and his family resided in luxury in New York City, and the family spent summer vacations at upscale Canandaigua Lake.

In his youth, Bogart was sent to numerous private schools with the expectation that he’d follow his father’s footsteps in the medical field. Unfortunately, Bogart had difficulty concentrating in class and frequently got into disputes with peers and teachers. After being expelled for poor grades, eighteen-year-old Bogart promptly enlisted in the navy.

After WWI ended just six months after his enlistment, Bogart worked odd jobs before a friend offered him a position as an office boy boy at World Film Corporation. While at the company, the twenty-year-old botched careers as both a director and a writer. William Brady Sr., the founder of World Film Corporation, then made Bogart a stage manager. During Bogart’s managing stint, he was forced to take the place of a principle lead who had feigned illness. The rehearsal was a failure as Bogart froze up and forgot his lines. Despite the poor rehearsal, Bogart decided to pursue an acting career with Brady Sr.’s suggestion.

Career Beginning
Bogart’s first stage debut came in 1923 in the play //Drifting//. In it, Bogart poorly played the trivial role of a Japanese butler. A year later, Bogart received his first leading role in //Meet the Wife//, which earned him his first positive reviews. Throughout the 1920’s, Bogart continued taking minor roles on Broadway, often playing the role of gangsters. He married Helen Menken, a burgeoning Broadway starlet, in 1926, but just two years later the pair divorced due to marital neglect. A few weeks after the divorce, Bogart got hitched again to Mary Phillips, a twenty-five-year-old actress. The couple starred opposite each other in //The Skyrocket//, which garnered good reviews. Following the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Bogart began trying his hand at films, his first being the unexceptional //Up the River//.

After several more inconsequential film roles, Bogart returned to New York and starred in the play //Invitation to a Murder//, which caught the attention of playwright Robert E. Sherwood. Bogart was cast in Sherwood’s play, //The Petrified Forest//, in 1932 as Duke Mantee, an escaped convict. The play was such a success that Warner Bros. bought the rights to make a film version, and Bogart reprised his role in the 1936 film. Bogart’s on-screen performance impressed Warner Bros., who set up a film contract with him. In 1937, Mary Phillips and Bogart, who had both seen other people during the marriage, divorced.

Cinematic Success
A year later, thirty-nine-year-old Bogart married actress Mayo Methot, who proved to be an abusive spouse, in one incident even stabbing her husband. Bogart spent the rest of the ‘30’s stuck in forgettable roles. In 1941, however, Bogart’s professional status improved as he was cast as the lead in two successful Warner Bros. films: //High Sierra// and //The Maltese Falcon//.

At age 43, Bogart finally won his first romantic lead inthe WWII film //Casablanca//. The film revolved around Bogart’s war-neutral character, Rick Blaine, reuniting with his former love, Ilsa (played by Ingrid Bergman), who had since married a Czech resistance hero. The film was a success both financially and critically and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Bogart also received his first Best Actor Oscar nomination.

In 1945, Bogart divorced Mayo Methot and married his //To Have and Have Not// costar, twenty-year-old Lauren Bacall. Two years later, Bogart and Bacall, along with a group of A-list celebrities, including Gene Kelly and Danny Kaye, flew to Washington D.C. to protest the House Un-American Activities Committee, whose accusations and hearings caused the blacklisting of many individuals in the entertainment industry. Ultimately, the protests failed to produce any results. In 1949, the Bogarts’ first child, Stephen Humphrey Bogart, was born.

Upon entering the ‘50’s, Bogart was cast as Charlie Allnut in //The African Queen//, the post-WWI love story between a gruff, aging boatman (Bogart’s character) and a stubborn missionary named Rose, played by Bogart’s good friend Katharine Hepburn. //The African Queen// was Bogart’s first film in color, and his role as Charlie Allnut won him his first and only Oscar win for Best Actor. A few weeks after the Oscars, Bacall gave birth to their second child, Leslie Howard Bogart. //The Caine Mutiny//, a 1954 film starring Bogart as a paranoid and dangerous naval captain, became his third and final film in which he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination.

Bogart starred in five final films and a television special before his oesophagus cancer, due to years of excessive alcohol and smoking, completely overwhelmed him. On January 14, 1957, fifty-seven-year-old Humphrey Bogart died in his sleep.

Analysis
<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Although Humphrey Bogart has been gone for half a century, he still remains a significant symbol in modern times. To actors, he is a symbol of the true actor, a man who experienced both failures and successes in his performing career. To the adult populations of the ‘40’s, the ‘50’s, andb eyond, Bogart remains the man that women want and the man that men want to be. And in the United States, of course, Humphrey Bogart will forever stay an American icon because he fully represents the changing times that took place in American culture and life, from his birth all the way to his death.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Foremost, Humphrey Bogart, despite such successes as //Casablanca// and //The African Queen//, was never a naturally gifted actor. As his future brother-in-law remarked after viewing Bogart’s acting debut, “He said his line and it embarrassed me it was so bad.” Although his early acting career was riddled with sharp criticism and constant rejection from roles, Bogart stayed in the entertainment business, honed his skills, and learned the most important trick of the trade-- how to grow thicker skin. Especially in the acting world, where reviews, criticism, and rejection were constant sources of aggravation to actors, Bogart learned to privately deal with the negative reviews and gradually developed apathy towards the critics, both good and bad. As one of the biggest stars in the business, Bogart’s nonchalance became the definitive industry standard for actors and directors. Similarly, today, when we hear prominent celebrities angrily make retorts against their critics or express how highly they think of themselves, we tend to view them as highly unprofessional. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">During the 1940’s, Bogart’s popularity among adultd emographics soared to new heights as audiences witnessed Rick Blaine in //Casablanca//. As writer and movie reviewer Frank S. Nugent perfectly explained, “He [Bogart] is the Tough Guy (without his joy in living), the Great Lover, the Sophisticate (but post-depression and enjoying a hangover) and the Dashing virile type.” Most of Bogart’s later romantic roles all represented the quintessential bad boy; he was gruff, moody, stubborn, and always had a dark aura about him. He was also a terrible womanizer. But underneath the rough façade, however, lay a gentleman with good intentions and a heart that would ultimately be inhabited by only one, truly special woman. Women everywhere, many of whom had husbands and beaus gone in the war effort, swooned over Bogart’s version of the refined bad boy. Men were also affected by Rick Blaine. Without looking like a muscled, square-jawed brick-head, Bogart had presented his own form of masculinity. He was intelligent, sly, and unwavering in his mannerisms and voice. He gave the aura of subtle toughness. He made violence look classy and almost noble. With many American men fighting in battle overseas with death precariously near all the time, Rick Blaine reminded them of what it meant to be masculine and unwaveringly strong.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Subsequently, in the 1950’s, Bogart’s reformed bad boy image also promoted the basic male archetype that had since changed from the 1940’s. While appearing on Edward R. Murrow’s celebrity interview show //Person to Person//, Bogart seemed at ease and light-hearted. The interview also included Bogart’s wife, Lauren Bacall, and their two young children, Stephen and Leslie. He smoked with Murrow and even cracked a few jokes. He gave a brief tour of his house, which included paintings and a backyard pool. To the American public watching from their homes, Bogart seemed to have replaced his bad boy image with the image of the perfect American man; he had a beautiful family, owned a lovely home, took good financial care of his family, and appeared happy. It was no surprise that many Americans in the 1950’s wanted to appear as perfect as the Bogart family.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Perhaps what makes Humphrey Bogart so heralded in the United States as compared to anywhere else is the fact that he represents the burgeoning of modern American culture. From his birth, he had witnessed the rise of feminism and the suffragist movement. His mother had been a fervent feminist. She had also been a woman ahead of her time; her income as an illustrator was sometimes twice as much as her husband’s, making her the family breadwinner. Belmont Bogart, Bogart’s father, however, believed in more traditional family values, where the father was the sole breadwinner of the family. Their differences led to many bitter arguments and strained their marriage, a forewarning to the animosity that women would face when they would one day demand their voting rights. Bogart had also witnessed both World Wars. In the first, he had aided in the war effort. In the second, his acting career had been a reflection of the war. //Casablanca// had been based on the real-life German occupation of Casablanca, Morocco. The U.S. victories of both wars would lead to the economic prosperity that the U.S.would briefly enjoy throughout the next few decades and past Bogart’s death.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">In summary, Humphrey Bogart remains one of the be﻿st and one of the most interesting actors in American history. He became one of our biggest Hollywood stars and a role model to future generations of actors. He affected romantic and cultural trends of the ‘40’s and ‘50’s. Bogart also experienced the most defining moments in our country. With a life as fully-lived as his, it’s definitely not an exaggeration to call him a true American icon.

<span style="display: block; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: center;">Works Cited <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Bacall, Lauren. //By Myself and Then Some//. London: Headline,2005. Print. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">// Decade of Triumph:the 40s //. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life, 1999. Print. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Kanfer, Stefan. //Tough Without a Gun: the Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart//. New York: A.A. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Knopf, 2011. Print.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Schickel, Richard, and George C. Perry. //Bogie: a Celebration of the Life and Films of Humphrey// // Bogart //. New York: <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Thomas Dunne /St. Martin's, 2006. Print.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> "The New Pictures, Sep. 22, 1947 - TIME." //BreakingNews, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News// // Photos, Video, // <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">// TechReviews - T //// IME.com //. TIME, 22 Sept. 1947. Web. 18 May 2011. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"><[].>

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Uschan, Michael V. //ACultural History of the United States: The 1940's//. San Diego, CA: <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Lucent, 1999. Print.