Humphrey DeForest Bogart (December 25 1899 - January 14 1957) was an Academy Award-winning American actor and film star.
He is recognised for playing typically smart, playful, courageous, tough, occasionally reckless characters who lived in a corrupt world, anchored by a hidden moral code.
In 1999, the American Film Institute named Bogart the Greatest Male Star of All Time. Bogart's most notable films include The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Key Largo (1948), The African Queen (1951) (for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor), The Caine Mutiny (1954), We're No Angels (1955) and The Left Hand of God (1955). Altogether, he appeared in 75 feature motion pictures. Though he started his career as Broadway stage player and B-movie actor during the 1920s and 1930s, Bogart's later accomplishments have made him a worldwide icon. French actors, such as Jean-Paul Belmondo, were deeply influenced by his work and image. India’s great national movie star, Ashok Kumar, listed Bogart as a major influence on his "natural" acting style. In 1997, the United States Postal Service featured Bogart in its "Legends of Hollywood" series, and Entertainment Weekly magazine has named Bogart the number one movie legend of all time.
The son of a moderately wealthy Manhattan surgeon (who was secretly addicted to opium) and a famed magazine illustrator, Humphrey Bogart was educated at Trinity School, New York City, sent to Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, in preparation for medical studies at Yale. He was expelled from Phillips and joined the U.S. Naval Reserve. From 1920 to 1922, he managed a stage company owned by family friend William A. Brady (the father of actress Alice Brady), performing a variety of tasks at Brady's film studio in New York. He then began regular stage performances. Alexander Woollcott described his acting in a 1922 play as inadequate. In 1930, he gained a contract with Fox, his feature film debut in a ten-minute short, Broadway's Like That (1930), co-starring Ruth Etting and Joan Blondell. Fox released him after two years. After five years of stage and minor film roles, he had his breakthrough role in Petrified Forest, The (1936) from Warner Bros. He won the part over Edward G. Robinson only after the star, Leslie Howard (I), threatened Warner Bros. that he would quit unless Bogart was given the key role of Duke Mantee, which he had played in the Broadway production with Howard. The film was a major success and led to a long-term contract with Warner Bros. From 1936 to 1940, Bogart appeared in 28 films, usually as a gangster, twice in Westerns and even a horror film. His landmark year was 1941 (often capitalizing on parts George Raft had stupidly rejected) with roles in classics such as High Sierra (1941) and as Sam Spade in one of his most fondly remembered films, Maltese Falcon, The (1941). These were followed by Casablanca (1942), Big Sleep, The (1946), and Key Largo (1948). Bogart, despite his erratic education, was incredibly well-read and he favored writers and intellectuals within his small circle of friends. In 1947, he joined wife Lauren Bacall and other actors protesting the McCarthy House Un-American Activities Committee witch hunts. He also formed his own production company, and the next year made Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The (1948). Bogie won the best actor Academy Award for African Queen, The (1951) and was nominated for Casablanca (1942) and as Captain Queeg in Caine Mutiny, The (1954), a film made when he was already seriously ill. He died in his sleep at his Hollywood home following surgeries and a battle with throat cancer.
