Named by the American Film Institute as the greatest male star in American cinema, Humphrey Bogart appeared in more than 80 films over his career. A true professional, Bogart was never late to the set, always knew his lines, and held a deep respect for actors serious about their craft.
Born Christmas Day 1899 in New York City, Bogart was the son of a respected doctor and a classically trained portrait artist. He and his two sisters grew up in a comfortable but notably unsentimental life.
After a short stint at Andover Academy in Massachusetts (some say he was expelled), Bogart signed with the Navy in 1918. It was then that he got the famous scar on the lip — not, as rumor has it, from shrapnel, but from a sucker-punch of a prisoner he was transporting who had asked him for a cigarette.
Bogart’s entertainment career got a slow start, beginning with an office job at a film company that he got through his father’s connections. His stage debut was in the role of a Japanese butler. He had one line of dialogue.
Over the next few years, Bogart began appearing in Broadway plays. His breakthrough role was as the gangster Duke Mantee in the 1935 play The Petrified Forest. A year later, he reprised the role in Warner Bros.’ film version of the play.
The success of that film led to Bogart getting typecast in a nearly decade-long series of crime dramas. Though he was often displeased with these roles, he developed the reputable work ethic that he upheld for the remainder of his career.
Bogart’s career took a turn in 1940, when he accepted the “hero” role of private eye Sam Spade in the screenplay The Maltese Falcon. A few years later, he was cast in the romantic war drama Casablanca, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
In 1944, Bogart was paired with 20- year-old Betty Perske — who went by the stage name Lauren Bacall — for the screen adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not. The two lit up onscreen and off, and they soon married for what would be a lifelong romance. Bogie and Bacall became the hottest screen pairing in Hollywood, appearing together in The Big Sleep, Key Largo and Dark Passage.
Bogart’s pairing with Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen earned him his only Academy Award for Best Actor. Reflecting on his win, Bogart was said to have stated humbly, “The best way to survive an Oscar is to never try to win another one.”
Bogart passed away in 1957 when he lost a battle to cancer. At his memorial, Bacall displayed a model of his beloved yacht, the Santana, in place of a casket.
Early in his career, Bogart had explained his love for sailing: “An actor needs something to stabilize his personality, something to nail down what he really is, not what he is currently pretending to be.”