Humphrey Bogart-Early Career

 

 

 

 

Bogart returned home to find Belmont was suffering from poor health.  Belmont medical practice was faltering, and he lost much of the family's money on bad investments in timber. During his naval days, Bogart's character and values developed independent of family influence.  He began to rebel somewhat against their values. He came to be a liberal who hated pretensions, phonies, and snobs.  At times he defied conventional behavior and authority, traits he displayed in life and in his movies. On the other hand, he retained their traits of good manners, articulateness, punctuality, modesty, and a dislike of being touched.

 

After his naval service, Bogart worked as a shipper and then bond salesman. He joined the Naval Reserve.

 

Bogart resumed his friendship with boyhood mate Bill Brady, Jr. whose father had show business connections, and eventually Bogart got an office job working for William A. Brady Sr.'s new company World Films. Bogart got to try his hand at screenwriting, directing, and production, but excelled at none. For a while, he was stage manager for Brady's daughter's play “A Ruined Lady”. 

 

In 1921, Bogart made his stage debut in “Drifting” as a Japanese butler in another Alice Brady play. Bogart nervously spoke one line of dialog.

 

Bogart made several more appearances followed in Alice Brady’s subsequent plays. Bogart liked the late hours actors kept.  He enjoyed the attention an actor got on stage. He stated, “I was born to be indolent and this was the softest of rackets”.

 

Bogart spent a lot of his free time in speakeasies and became a heavy drinker. He was in barroom brawl during this time might have been the actual cause of Bogart's lip damage, as this coincides better with the Louise Brooks account

 

Bogart had been raised to believe acting was beneath a gentleman, but he enjoyed stage acting. He never took acting lessons. He was persistent and worked steadily at his craft.

 

Bogart appeared in at least seventeen Broadway productions between 1922 and 1935. He played juveniles or romantic second-leads in drawing room comedies. He is said to have been the first actor to ask "Tennis, anyone?" on stage. 

 

Critic Alexander Woollcott wrote of Bogart's early work that he "is what is usually and mercifully described as inadequate." Some reviews were kinder. Heywood Broun reviewed “Nerves” wrote, “Humphrey Bogart gives the most effective performance...both dry and fresh, if that be possible”. Bogart loathed the trivial, effeminate parts he had to play early in his career, calling them "White Pants Willie" roles.

 

Early in his career, while playing double roles in the play “Drifting” at the Playhouse Theatre in 1922.  Bogart met actress Helen Menken. They were married on May 20, 1926 at the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York City then divorced on November 18, 1927.  They remained friends.

 

On April 3, 1928, he married Mary Philips at her mother's apartment in Hartford, Connecticut. Mary, like Menken, had a fiery temper. She too  was an actress. He had met Mary when they appeared in the play “Nerves”, which had a very brief run at the Comedy Theatre in September 1924.

 

After the stock market crash of 1929, stage production dropped off sharply, and many of the more photogenic actors headed for Hollywood. Bogart's earliest film role is with Helen Hayes in the 1928 two-reeler “The Dancing Town”.

 

Bogart appeared with Joan Blondell and Ruth Etting in a Vitaphone short, “Broadway's Like That”.

 

Bogart then signed a contract with Fox Film Corporation for $750 a week. Spencer Tracy was a serious Broadway actor whom Bogart liked and admired. The two became good friends and drinking buddies. It was Tracy, in 1930, who first called him "Bogey". (Spelled variously in many sources, Bogart himself spelled his nickname "Bogie".) Tracy and Bogart appeared in their only film together in John Ford's early sound film “Up the River”  with both playing inmates. It was Tracy's film debut. Bogart then performed in “The Bad Sister” with Bette Davis in 1931. It was a minor part.

 

Bogart shuttled back and forth between Hollywood and the New York stage from 1930 to 1935. He suffered long periods without work. His parents had separated. In 1934, Belmont died in debt, which Bogart eventually paid off. (Bogart inherited his father's gold ring which he always wore, even in many of his films. At his father's deathbed, Bogart finally told Belmont how much he loved him.)

 

Bogart's second marriage was on the rocks, and he was less than happy with his acting career to date; he became depressed, irritable, and drank heavily.