Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey Bogart (studio publicity photograph, ca. 1941)

Humphrey Bogart (December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957) was an American actor famous for portraying cool, hard-boiled characters in movies such as Casablanca (1942), The Maltese Falcon (1941), and The Big Sleep (1946). He also starred alongside James Cagney in Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), and with Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen (1946). He was awarded the Best Actor Academy Award for his role as Charlie Allnut in The African Queen, and was also twice nominated, for playing Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny (1954), and for the role of Rick Blaine in Casablanca. Bogart was married four times: his last marriage was to Lauren Bacall, his co-star in To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948). He died of cancer of the esophagus at the age of 57, after starring in more than 45 movies.

Bogart was an avid, lifelong chess player who even earned some money playing the game during the Great Depression. He inserted several chess-playing scenes into his most famous movie, Casablanca. "His chess playing buddy, Mike Romanoff, was his pallbearer" at his funeral.^[1] Bogart opted to play chess alone in his trailer rather than accept co-star Ingrid Bergman's invitation to dinner during the filming of Casablanca, and Bogart ignored Bergman on the set except as absolutely necessary to make the movie.

Bogart and HUAC[edit]

In 1947 Bogart, Bacall, John Huston, William Wyler and other prominent film industry figures established the Committee for the First Amendment to protest against what they perceived as unfair treatment of the Hollywood Eleven, film industry actors, writers and directors who were questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee about membership in or links with the Communist Party USA and its front groups. Bogart later wrote an article entitled I'm No Communist and claimed to have been "duped".

Further Information[edit]

• Filmography (IMDB)
• HUAC Incident

References[edit]