Humphrey DeForest Bogart ( BOH-gart; December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957), nicknamed Bogie, was an American actor. Often known for his leading roles as both gangsters and detectives in film noirs, his performances in classic Hollywood cinema made him an American cultural icon. He won an Academy Award and was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.
Bogart started his career on stage, and made his Broadway debut in 1922. He acted in 16 plays where he often took in supporting roles, regularly portraying gangsters, and was praised for his work in the play The Petrified Forest (1936). He made his feature film debut the pre-code film A Devil with Women (1930) and took early roles in the dramas Dead End (1937), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and Dark Victory (1939). He rose to stardom in 1941, by taking leading roles in two film noirs, playing a career criminal High Sierra and Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon.
He went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of a rough steamboat captain in the adventure film The African Queen (1951). He was Oscar-nominated for playing a nightclub owner in the romantic drama Casablanca (1942) and as an unstable captain in the military drama The Caine Mutiny (1954). Bogart further established himself as a leading man in films such as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), In a Lonely Place (1950), Sabrina (1954), and The Barefoot Contessa (1954). He also acted opposite Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947) and Key Largo (1948). His final film role was in the boxing drama The Harder They Fall (1956).
Bogart married four times including to actress Bacall from 1945 until his death. A heavy smoker and drinker, Bogart died from esophageal cancer in January 1957. Bogart was also known for his roles on the radio and television. He kept a private life and spoke out rarely except as an opponent of actions of the House Un-American Activities Committee during the 1950s. The American Film Institute selected him as the greatest male star of classic American cinema in 1999. Four of his films were named in the AFI's Top 100 films of all time.
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was born on Christmas Day 1899 in Manhattan, New York City, the eldest child of Belmont DeForest Bogart and Maud Humphrey. Belmont was the only child of the unhappy marriage of Adam Welty Bogart (a Canandaigua, New York, innkeeper) and Julia Augusta Stiles, a wealthy heiress. The name "Bogart" derives from the Dutch surname "Bogaert", meaning "orchard". Belmont and Maud married in June 1898. He was a Presbyterian, of English and Dutch descent, and a descendant of Sarah Rapelje (the first European Christian girl born in New Netherland). Maud was an Episcopalian of English heritage and a descendant of Mayflower passenger John Howland. Humphrey was raised Episcopalian but was non-practicing for most of his adult life.
The date of Bogart's birth has been disputed. Clifford McCarty wrote that Warner Bros.' publicity department had altered it to January 23, 1900, "to foster the view that a man born on Christmas Day couldn't be as villainous as he appeared to be on screen". The "corrected" January birth date subsequently appeared—and in some cases, remains—in many otherwise-authoritative sources. According to biographers Ann M. Sperber and Eric Lax, Bogart always celebrated his birthday on December 25 and listed it on official records (including his marriage license).
Lauren Bacall wrote in her autobiography that Bogart's birthday was always celebrated on Christmas Day, saying that he joked about being cheated out of a present every year. Sperber and Lax noted that a birth announcement in the Ontario County Times of January 10, 1900, rules out the possibility of a January 23 birth date; state and federal census records from 1900 also report a Christmas 1899 birth date. Bogart's birth record confirms he was actually born on December 25, 1899.
Belmont, Bogart's father, was a cardiopulmonary surgeon. Maud was a commercial illustrator who received her art training in New York and France, including study with James Abbott McNeill Whistler. She later became art director of the fashion magazine The Delineator and a militant suffragette. Maud used a drawing of baby Humphrey in an advertising campaign for Mellins Baby Food. She earned over $50,000 a year at the peak of her career – a very large sum of money at the time, and considerably more than her husband's $20,000. The Bogarts lived in an Upper West Side apartment and had a cottage on a 55-acre estate on Canandaigua Lake in upstate New York. When he was young, Bogart's group of friends at the lake would put on plays.
He had two younger sisters: Frances ("Pat") and Catherine Elizabeth ("Kay"). Bogart's parents were busy in their careers and frequently fought. Very formal, they showed little emotion towards their children. Maud told her offspring to call her "Maud" rather than "Mother" and showed little, if any, physical affection for them. When she was pleased, she "[c]lapped you on the shoulder, almost the way a man does", Bogart recalled. "I was brought up very unsentimentally but very straightforwardly. A kiss, in our family, was an event. Our mother and father didn't glug over my two sisters and me."
Bogart was teased as a boy for his curls, tidiness, the "cute" pictures his mother had him pose for, the Little Lord Fauntleroy clothes in which she dressed him, and for his first name. He inherited from his father a tendency to needle, a fondness for fishing, a lifelong love of boating, and an attraction to strong-willed women.
Bogart attended the private Delancey School until the fifth grade and then attended the prestigious Trinity School. He was an indifferent, sullen student who showed no interest in after-school activities. Bogart later attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, a boarding school to which he was admitted based on family connections. Although his parents hoped that he would go on to Yale University, Bogart left Phillips in 1918 after one semester (although the Phillips Academy website claims he was in the graduating class of 1920). He failed four out of six classes. Several reasons have been given; according to one, he was expelled for throwing the headmaster (or a groundskeeper) into Rabbit Pond on campus. Other cited issues were smoking, drinking, poor academic performance, and (possibly) inappropriate comments made to the staff. In a third scenario, Bogart was withdrawn by his father for failing to improve his grades. His parents were deeply disappointed in their failed plans for his future.
With no viable career options, Bogart enlisted in the United States Navy in the spring of 1918, during World War I. He recalled later, "At 18, war was great stuff. Paris! Sexy French girls! Hot damn!" Bogart was recorded as a model sailor, who spent most of his sea time after the armistice ferrying troops back from Europe. Bogart left the service on June 18, 1919, at the rank of Petty Officer 2nd Class. During World War II, Bogart attempted to re-enlist in the Navy but was rejected due to his age. He then volunteered for the Coastal Picket Force in 1944, patrolling the California coastline in his yacht, the Santana.
He may have received his trademark scar and developed his characteristic lisp during his naval stint. There are several conflicting stories. In one, his lip was cut by shrapnel when his ship (the USS Leviathan) was shelled. The ship was never shelled, however, and Bogart may not have been at sea before the armistice. Another story, held by longtime friend Nathaniel Benchley, was that Bogart was injured while taking a prisoner to Portsmouth Naval Prison in Kittery, Maine. While changing trains in Boston, the handcuffed prisoner reportedly asked Bogart for a cigarette. When Bogart looked for a match, the prisoner smashed him across the mouth with the cuffs (cutting Bogart's lip) and fled before being recaptured and imprisoned. In an alternative version, Bogart was struck in the mouth by a handcuff loosened while freeing his charge; the other handcuff was still around the prisoner's wrist. By the time Bogart was treated by a doctor, a scar had formed. David Niven said that when he first asked Bogart about his scar, however, he said that it was caused by a childhood accident. "Goddamn doctor", Bogart later told Niven. "Instead of stitching it up, he screwed it up." According to Niven, the stories that Bogart got the scar during wartime were made up by the studios. His post-service physical did not mention the lip scar, although it noted many smaller scars. When actress Louise Brooks met Bogart in 1924, he had scar tissue on his upper lip, which Brooks said Bogart may have had partially repaired before entering the film industry in 1930. Brooks said that his "lip wound gave him no speech impediment, either before or after it was mended."