Mention film star Humphrey Bogart and a trio of Warner Bros. films are likely to spring to mind: High Sierra (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), and his most famous performance, Casablanca (1942).
But though these might be his best-known cinematic forays, they are but a trio of the 48 Warner Bros. films he appeared in between 1932 and 1951, far more than for any other studio. He made 75 feature films overall; nearly two-thirds of his career was spent at Burbank’s Warner Bros.
Bogart and fellow actor Spencer Tracy first became acquainted as students at New York’s Trinity School. They remained friends for the rest of Bogart’s life. Tracy was the one who coined the nickname “Bogie,” and he was one of the pallbearers at Bogart’s funeral.
Bogart served in the U.S. Navy from 1918 to 1919, during the final months of World War I. Just one of the several versions he told regarding his distinctive upper lip scar is that his ship came under attack and he was struck by shrapnel. There is no evidence to support that story…or any of the other accounts put forward by Bogart himself or by Warners’ publicity department.
When he returned from the Navy, he drifted until deciding to try his hand at acting. His first role on Broadway was in Drifting, which opened on January 2, 1922, at New York’s Playhouse Theatre. In his bio of Bogart, Joe Hyams quoted the actor as saying he became an actor because, “I was born to be indolent and this was the softest of rackets.”
After work dried up in Hollywood, Bogart, now in his mid-thirties, landed a role as escaped murderer Duke Mantee in Robert Sherwood’s 1935 play, The Petrified Forest. It was a hit, with 197 performances in New York. Bogart’s performance marked his transition to the gritty, dramatic roles that would define him and his career. Critics and his co-star Leslie Howard praised his portrayal, and when Warner Bros. acquired the film rights to The Petrified Forest, Howard insisted that Bogart reprise the role of Duke Mantee. The film was a box-office success and established Bogart as one of Hollywood’s most promising actors.
While the film, The Petrified Forest (1936), was a success, Bogart was bound into a contract with Warners that paid $550 per week, and he was typecast as a gangster in a string of B movies. Between 1936 and 1940 he churned out a new movie every two months.
Then came the 1940s. From 1941 through 1950, Bogart made some 40 films. Among them were, High Sierra, The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), Key Largo, (1948) and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) – all produced on Warners’ Burbank lot.
In his first romantic lead role, in Casablanca, one of his most famous lines was, “Here’s looking at you, kid.” It wasn’t scripted, Bogart improvised it. The line was ranked the fifth best line in American cinema by the American Film Institute.
But despite the recognition these films brought him, Bogart was not a happy camper. With no freedom to pick his own roles, poor pay, and constant verbal battles with studio head Jack Warner, he was drinking more than ever…alcohol was a constant problem throughout Bogie’s life.
Bogart did not shy away from political activism. The relationship between him and Jack Warner became even more difficult after Bogart joined the Committee for the First Amendment to protest the hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947.
Humphrey Bogart never lived in the San Fernando Valley, but for more than a decade it was his workplace. As one of Warner Bros.’ biggest stars, he spent countless days on the Burbank studio lot, where many of his greatest films, including Casablanca and The Big Sleep, were produced.
Away from the cameras, he and his fourth wife, Lauren Bacall, were frequent visitors to Studio City’s Sportsmen’s Lodge, one of the Valley’s best-known gathering places for film folk. They were married from 1945 until Bogart’s death, a highly successful union despite the 25-year age difference.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences recognized Bogart with its Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar in 1952 for his performance as Charlie Allnut in the The African Queen, opposite Katharine Hepburn. While that was the only Academy Award of his career, he was also Oscar-nominated for his roles in Casablanca and The Caine Mutiny (1954).
Humphrey Bogart was born in 1899 and died in 1957. He is buried in Forest Lawn in Glendale. Just a few of those who attended his funeral were Hepburn, Tracy, Judy Garland, Ronald Reagan, Bette Davis, Danny Kaye, Joan Fontaine, Marlene Dietrich, James Cagney, Errol Flynn, Gregory Peck, Gary Cooper, Billy Wilder…and Jack Warner.
Martin Cooper supervised public relations for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for 10 years; held executive positions with Disney and Universal Studios; was Board Chairman of the UCLA Film & Television Archive, and is a member of the Board of the British Film Institute in America. Cooper is a Fernando Award Honoree and Past Chairman of VICA. An award-winning author, he has written five books, three of them on the San Fernando Valley. His fifth book, The ‘Reel’ Hollywood: The San Fernando Valley, the history of motion pictures in the Valley, was published in May and is available on Amazon and in book stores.
