Humphrey Bogart Biography Quotes 13 Report mistakes

Early Life
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was born on December 25, 1899, in New York City, the son of Belmont DeForest Bogart, a surgeon, and Maud Humphrey, a prominent commercial illustrator whose work appeared in national magazines. Raised in a comfortable, upper-middle-class environment, he attended private schools, including Trinity School and Phillips Academy, before leaving academics behind and enlisting in the U.S. Navy during World War I. The discipline and camaraderie of service marked him, but after the war he returned to New York and drifted toward the theater, a world his mother had known well from her illustration commissions and social circle.

Stage Apprenticeship and Early Screen Roles
Bogart's entry into show business was practical rather than glamorous. He worked behind the scenes in theater offices and as a stage manager before stepping into small roles on Broadway. Through the 1920s he built a reputation for reliability in light comedies and drawing-room pieces, often playing amiable juveniles or society men. With the coming of sound, Hollywood sought stage-trained actors, and Bogart took early screen parts, among them Up the River (1930), directed by John Ford and co-starring Spencer Tracy. Yet these films did little to redefine his stage image, and for a time he oscillated between modest movie work and more substantial theater parts, learning pacing and projection from veteran performers.

Breakthrough and Warner Bros. Years
The turning point came with Robert E. Sherwood's play The Petrified Forest. On stage Bogart's portrayal of the haunted outlaw Duke Mantee revealed a hard, wiry intensity that contrasted sharply with his earlier roles. When Warner Bros. adapted the play for film in 1936, Leslie Howard, his co-star and a producer on the project, insisted Bogart reprise Mantee on screen. The performance won attention and secured Bogart a long relationship with Warner Bros., where he often appeared in crime dramas. He shared marquees with stars like James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson and, in loan-outs, played the chilling Baby Face Martin in Dead End (1937) under director William Wyler. Despite being typed as a gangster, he began to show deeper shades of vulnerability and moral ambiguity.

Two films in 1941 crystallized his ascent. In High Sierra, directed by Raoul Walsh from a script by John Huston (adapting W.R. Burnett), Bogart's Roy Earle was both ruthless and poignantly human. Later that year Huston cast him as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, opposite Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet. The film's precision, Huston's direction, and Bogart's unsentimental intelligence forged the screen identity that would define him: flinty, skeptical, and self-possessed, yet guided by a private code.

Casablanca and the Iconic Persona
Casablanca (1942), directed by Michael Curtiz and co-starring Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, and Paul Henreid, turned Bogart into a global figure. As Rick Blaine, he embodied the romantic cynic who discovers a buried capacity for sacrifice. The film's dialogue and wartime mood connected with audiences, and Bogart earned an Academy Award nomination. His post-Casablanca work reinforced the persona without calcifying it: he navigated criminals and cops, lovers and loners, often with Peter Lorre or Sydney Greenstreet nearby to spark sly, charged exchanges.

Partnership with Lauren Bacall
In 1944 Howard Hawks cast Bogart in To Have and Have Not, introducing Lauren Bacall in a debut that reshaped both of their lives. Their onscreen chemistry continued in The Big Sleep (1946), from Raymond Chandler's novel, as well as Dark Passage (1947) and Key Largo (1948), the latter directed by John Huston and also featuring Edward G. Robinson. Bogart and Bacall married in 1945, forming a partnership that blended star power with authentic companionship. Their home became a gathering place for friends such as John Huston and, later, a social circle that would be dubbed the Rat Pack, with figures like Frank Sinatra among the regulars. The marriage, admired by colleagues and audiences, tempered Bogart's image with warmth and humor while preserving his essential toughness.

Postwar Range and Peak
Bogart pursued roles that put pressure on his screen identity. In The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), opposite Walter Huston and directed by John Huston, he played a prospector descending into paranoia and greed, a portrait of disintegration few leading men of the era attempted. In Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place (1950), with Gloria Grahame, he gave one of his most layered performances as a talented screenwriter with a volatile temperament, revealing fragility beneath the bravado.

The African Queen (1951), directed by John Huston and co-starring Katharine Hepburn, offered a more overtly heroic arc without shedding his trademark skepticism. As the rough-hewn Charlie Allnut, Bogart won the Academy Award for Best Actor, a recognition that confirmed his status as a mature, nuanced leading man. He moved easily among genres: the tense newsroom drama Deadline U.S.A. (1952) for Richard Brooks; the caper send-up Beat the Devil (1953) with Jennifer Jones and Gina Lollobrigida under Huston's playful hand; and two major 1954 releases, Billy Wilder's Sabrina, opposite Audrey Hepburn and William Holden, and Edward Dmytryk's The Caine Mutiny, in which Bogart, as the brittle Captain Queeg, delivered a late-career triumph and earned another Oscar nomination.

Working Methods and Collaborations
Bogart's craft relied less on theatrical flourish than on precision: a measured cadence, economy of gesture, and a gaze that could suggest skepticism, sympathy, or danger in a single beat. Directors like Michael Curtiz, Raoul Walsh, Howard Hawks, John Huston, and Nicholas Ray valued his professionalism; peers such as Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, and Ida Lupino appreciated his generosity and exacting standards. His relationship with Warner Bros. boss Jack L. Warner was frequently contentious, but the friction often pushed Bogart toward stronger scripts and more control, evolving into a degree of independence rare for contract-bound stars.

Politics and Public Stance
During the late 1940s, Bogart and Bacall joined the Committee for the First Amendment, traveling with colleagues including John Huston and Gene Kelly to protest the excesses of the House Un-American Activities Committee. The trip put him briefly at the center of Hollywood's political storms. He later wrote publicly to clarify his opposition to political coercion while emphasizing his belief in civil liberties, a stance consistent with the skeptical but principled figures he often portrayed. He remained wary of ideology, focused instead on individual rights and professional integrity.

Personal Life
Bogart was married several times before his union with Lauren Bacall, including to actresses Helen Menken and Mary Phillips, and to Mayo Methot, with whom he had a tempestuous relationship that fed tabloid headlines. With Bacall he had two children, and the stability of family life intertwined with his love of sailing; his boat, the Santana, served as refuge and social hub, where friends like John Huston talked shop, traded stories, and plotted new projects. Behind the hardboiled veneer, he was known to intimates for dry humor and loyalty.

Later Career, Illness, and Death
In the mid-1950s Bogart remained in demand, balancing mainstream studio assignments with more idiosyncratic choices. Even as younger styles emerged, he adapted, sharpening his timing and deepening his characterizations. A lifelong heavy smoker and drinker, he developed esophageal cancer, which curtailed his work and led to surgery and prolonged treatment. He died on January 14, 1957, in Los Angeles, with colleagues and friends paying tribute to a figure who had come to symbolize a uniquely American brand of fortitude touched by rueful wisdom.

Legacy
Humphrey Bogart's legacy rests on the paradox he embodied: a hardened realist capable of grace. He distilled the moral anxieties of the 20th century into characters who navigated corruption and loss with wary intelligence. Films such as The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Big Sleep, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The African Queen, and The Caine Mutiny remain cornerstones of American cinema, not only for their craftsmanship but for the tensile clarity of his performances. Directors from François Truffaut to contemporary filmmakers have cited his work as a model for screen naturalism. The American Film Institute later named him the greatest male screen legend, a testament to the durability of his image.

His persona endures because it was never merely posture. Working with artists like John Huston, Howard Hawks, Michael Curtiz, and Nicholas Ray, and opposite partners including Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, and Katharine Hepburn, Bogart created an indelible gallery of men who learned the hard way what integrity costs. He left behind not just iconic scenes but a blueprint for cinematic acting that prizes restraint, wit, and the suggestion of a conscience at war with the world.

Our collection contains 13 quotes who is written by Humphrey, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Success - Aging - Movie - Heartbreak.

Other people realated to Humphrey: Peter Ustinov (Actor), Bette Davis (Actress), Claud Cockburn (Journalist), Dashiell Hammett (Author)

• Humphrey Bogart children: Two: Stephen and Leslie
• Humphrey Bogart Casablanca: Played Rick Blaine in Casablanca (1942)
• Humphrey Bogart height: 5 ft 8 in (173 cm)
• Stephen Bogart: Son of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall; author/producer (b. 1949)
• Humphrey Bogart spouse: Lauren Bacall (m. 1945–1957); previously Helen Menken, Mary Philips, Mayo Methot
• Humphrey Bogart movies: Casablanca; The Maltese Falcon; The African Queen; The Big Sleep; Key Largo
• How old was Humphrey Bogart? He became 57 years old

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