This One Is For The Ladies-Humphrey Bogart

 

Lauren Bacall-Political views

 

 

Bacall is a liberal Democrat. She has proclaimed her political views on numerous occasions.

 

In October 1947, Bacall and Bogart traveled to Washington, D.C., along with other Hollywood stars, in a group that called itself the Committee for the First Amendment (CFA). She appeared alongside Humphrey Bogart in a photograph printed at the end of an article he wrote, titled "I'm No Communist", in the May 1948 edition of Photoplay magazine. Bogart written to counteract negative publicity resulting from his appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Bogart and Bacall specifically distanced themselves from the Hollywood Ten and were quoted as saying: "We're about as much in favor of Communism as J. Edgar Hoover."

 

She campaigned for Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson in the 1952 Presidential election and for Robert Kennedy in his 1964 run for Senate.

 

In a 2005 interview with Larry King, Bacall described herself as "anti-Republican... A liberal. The L-word." She went on to say that "being a liberal is the best thing on earth you can be. You are welcoming to everyone when you're a liberal. You do not have a small mind."

Lauren Bacall-Career

 

 

Bacall took lessons at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. During this time, she became a theatre usher and worked as a fashion model on the side. As Betty Bacall, she made her acting debut, at age 17, on Broadway as a walk-on in Johnny 2 X 4. According to her autobiography, she met her idol Bette Davis at Davis' hotel. Years later, Davis visited Bacall backstage to congratulate her on her performance in Applause, a musical based on Davis' turn in “All About Eve”.

 

Bacall became a part-time fashion model. Howard Hawks' wife Nancy spotted her on the March 1943 cover of Harper's Bazaar. Nancy urged Hawks to have Bacall take a screen test for “To Have and Have Not”. Hawks invited her to Hollywood for the audition. He signed Bacall up to a seven-year personal contract, brought her to Hollywood, gave her $100 a week, and began to manage her career. Hawks changed her name to Lauren Bacall.

 

Nancy Hawks took Bacall under her wing. She dressed Bacall stylishly, and guided her in matters of elegance, manners and taste. Bacall's voice was trained to be lower, more masculine and sexier.  In the movie, Bacall takes on Nancy's nickname “Slim."

 

During screen tests for “To Have and Have Not”, Bacall was nervous. To minimize her quivering, she pressed her chin against her chest and to face the camera, tilted her eyes upward. This effect became known as "The Look", Bacall's trademark.

 

Bacall and Bogart met on the set “Dark Passage” . It was Humphrey Bogart, who was married to Mayo Methot, initiated a relationship with Bacall some weeks into shooting and they began seeing each other.

 

On a visit to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Bacall's press agent Charlie Enfield, asked the 20-year-old Bacall to sit on the piano which was being played by Vice-President of the United States Harry S. Truman. The photos caused controversy and made worldwide headlines.

 

After “To Have and Have Not”, Bacall was seen opposite Charles Boyer in the critically panned “Confidential Agent”. Bacall would state in her autobiography that her career never fully recovered from this film, and that studio boss Jack Warner did not care about quality.

 

She then appeared with Bogart in the films noir “The Big Sleep” and “Dark Passage”. Bacall played John Huston's melodramatic suspense film “Key Largo”  with Bogart and Edward G. Robinson. She was cast with Gary Cooper in the period drama “Bright Leaf”.

Lauren Bacall-Personal life

 

 

On May 21, 1945, Bacall married Humphrey Bogart. Their wedding and honeymoon took place at Malabar Farm, Lucas, Ohio. It was the country home of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louis Bromfield, who was a close friend of Bogart. The wedding was held in the Big House. Bacall was 20 and Bogart was 45. They remained married until Bogart's death from esophageal cancer in 1957. Bogart usually called Bacall "Baby," even when referring to her in conversations with other people.

 

During the filming of “The African Queen”, Bacall and Bogart became friends with Katharine Hepburn and her partner Spencer Tracy. Bacall also began to mix in non-acting circles, becoming friends with the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and the journalist Alistair Cooke.

 

In 1952, she gave campaign speeches for Democratic Presidential contender Adlai Stevenson. Along with other Hollywood figures, Bacall was a staunch opponent of McCarthyism.

 

Shortly after Bogart's death in 1957, Bacall had a relationship with singer and actor Frank Sinatra. She told Robert Osborne in an interview that she had ended the romance. However, in her autobiography, she wrote that Sinatra abruptly ended the relationship, having become angry that the story of his proposal to Bacall had reached the press. Bacall and her friend Swifty Lazar had run into the gossip columnist Louella Parsons, to whom Lazar had spilled the beans. Sinatra then cut Bacall off and went to Las Vegas.

 

Bacall was married to actor Jason Robards, Jr. from 1961 to 1969.  According to Bacall's autobiography, she divorced Robards mainly because of his alcoholism. In her autobiography Now, she recalls having a relationship with Len Cariou, her co-star in Applause.

 

Bacall had a son and daughter with Bogart and a son with Robards. Her children with Bogart are her son Stephen Humphrey Bogart and  Leslie Bogart. Sam Robards, her son with Robards, is an actor.

 

Bacall has written two autobiographies, Lauren Bacall By Myself (1978) and Now (1994). In 2005, the first volume was updated with an extra chapter: "By Myself and Then Some".

Humphrey Bogart-Legacy

 

 

A "Bogie Cult" formed at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as well as Greenwich Village, New York and in France after his death.  It contributed to his spike in popularity in the late 1950s and 1960s.

 

Entertainment Weekly magazine named him the number one movie legend of all time in 1997.  the American Film Institute ranked him the Greatest Male Star of All Time in 1999.

 

Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless was the first film to pay tribute to Bogart. Later, in Woody Allen's comic tribute to Bogart “Play It Again, Sam”, Bogart's ghost comes to the aid of Allen's bumbling character, a movie critic with woman troubles and whose "sex life has turned into the 'Petrified Forest’”.

Humphrey Bogart-Death

  

Bogart's health was failing in the mid-1950s.  After signing a long-term deal with Warner Bros., Bogart predicted with glee that his teeth and hair would fall out before the contract ended. Bogart had formed a new production company.  He made plans for a new film “Melville Goodwin, U.S.A.”, in which he would play a general and Bacall a press magnate. His persistent cough and difficulty eating became too serious to ignore and he dropped the project. The film was re-named “Top Secret Affair” and made with Kirk Douglas and Susan Hayward.

 

Bogart, a heavy smoker and drinker, contracted cancer of the esophagus. He almost never spoke of his failing health and refused to see a doctor until January 1956. A diagnosis was made several weeks later and by then removal of his esophagus, two lymph nodes, and a rib on March 1, 1956 was too late to halt the disease. He underwent corrective surgery in November 1956 after the cancer had spread.

Frank Sinatra, Katharine Hepburn, and Spencer Tracy came to see him.  Bogart was too weak to walk up and down stairs. He valiantly fought the pain and tried to joke about his immobility: "Put me in the dumbwaiter and I'll ride down to the first floor in style." Which is what happened; the dumbwaiter was altered to accommodate his wheelchair. Hepburn described the last time she and Spencer Tracy saw Bogart (the night before he died):

Spence patted him on the shoulder and said, "Goodnight, Bogie." Bogie turned his eyes to Spence very quietly and with a sweet smile covered Spence's hand with his own and said, "Goodbye, Spence." Spence's heart stood still. He understood.

Bogart had just turned 57 and weighed 80 pounds when he died on January 14, 1957 after falling into a coma. He died at 2:25 am at his home at 232 S Mapleton Drive in Holmby Hills, California. His simple funeral was held at All Saints Episcopal Church with musical selections played from Bogart's favorite composers, Johann Sebastian Bach and Claude Debussy. It was attended by some of Hollywood's biggest stars, including Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, David Niven, Ronald Reagan, James Mason, Danny Kaye, Joan Fontaine, Marlene Dietrich, Errol Flynn, Gregory Peck and Gary Cooper, as well as Billy Wilder and Jack Warner. Bacall had asked Tracy to give the eulogy, but Tracy was too upset. John Huston gave the eulogy instead, and reminded the gathered mourners that while Bogart's life had ended far too soon, it had been a rich one.

Himself, he never took too seriously—his work most seriously. He regarded the somewhat gaudy figure of Bogart, the star, with an amused cynicism; Bogart, the actor, he held in deep respect...In each of the fountains at Versailles there is a pike which keeps all the carp active; otherwise they would grow over fat and die. Bogie took rare delight in performing a similar duty in the fountains of Hollywood. Yet his victims seldom bore him any malice, and when they did, not for long. His shafts were fashioned only to stick into the outer layer of complacency, and not to penetrate through to the regions of the spirit where real injuries are done...He is quite irreplaceable. There will never be another like him."

His cremated remains are interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale, California. Buried with him is a small gold whistle, which he had given to Lauren Bacall, before they married. In reference to their first movie together, it was inscribed: "If you want anything, just whistle."

Humphrey Bogart-Awards And Honors

 

 

On August 21, 1946 Humphrey Bogart was honored in a ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theater to record his hand and footprints in cement. On February 8, 1960 he was posthumously given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. During his career he was nominated for several awards including the BAFTA award for best foreign actor in 1952 for “The African Queen” and several Academy Awards.

Humphrey Bogart-House Un-American Activities Committee

  

 

Bogart organized a delegation to Washington, D.C. He called the Committee for the First Amendment, against the House Un-American Activities Committee's harassment of Hollywood screenwriters and actors. He subsequently wrote an article "I'm No Communist" in the March 1948 edition of Photoplay magazine in which he distanced himself from The Hollywood Ten in order to counter the negative publicity that resulted from his appearance. Bogart wrote: "The ten men cited for contempt by the House Un-American Activities Committee were not defended by us."

 

NOTE: If you are curious about learning further about Bogart’s part in this matter, I recommend reading “Hollywood Party” by Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley. The book tells about how Communist infiltrated Hollywood and the movie’s union. It is a really good book.

 

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.

Humphrey Bogart-Navy

 

 

 

Bogart followed his love for the sea and enlisted in the United States Navy in the spring of 1918. He recalled later, “At eighteen, war was great stuff. Paris! French girls! Hot damn!” Bogart is recorded as a model sailor.  Bogart spent most of his months in the Navy after the Armistice was signed, ferrying troops back from Europe.

Humphrey Bogart-Early Years

 

 

Bogart was born on December 25, 1899 in New York City, the eldest child of Dr. Belmont DeForest Bogart and Maud Humphrey. Belmont and Maud married in June 1898. Bogart is a Dutch surname derived from “bogaard”, a short name for “boomgaard”, which means “orchard”. Bogart's father was a Presbyterian of English and Dutch descent.  His mother was an Episcopalian of English descent. Bogart was raised in his mother's faith.

 

Bogart's birthday has been a subject of controversy; according to Warner Bros, he was born on Christmas Day, 1899. Others believe that this was a fiction created by the studio in order to romanticize their star, and that he was actually born on January 23, 1899. However, this story is now considered false. No birth certificate has ever been found but his birth notice did appear in a New York newspaper in early January 1900, which supports the December 1899 date, as do other sources, such as the 1900 census.

 

Bogart's father was a cardiopulmonary surgeon. His mother, Maud Humphrey, was a commercial illustrator. She was a militant suffragette. She used a drawing of baby Humphrey in a well-known ad campaign for Mellins Baby Food. In her prime, she made over $50,000 a year, then a vast sum, far more than her husband's $20,000 per year. The Bogarts lived in a fashionable Upper West Side apartment, had an elegant cottage on a fifty-five acre estate in upstate New York on Canandaigua Lake. As a youngster, Humphrey's gang of friends at the lake would put on theatricals.

 

Humphrey was the oldest of three children. He had two younger sisters, Frances and Catherine Elizabeth (Kay). His parents were very formal, busy in their careers, and frequently fought—resulting in little emotion directed at the children, "I was brought up very unsentimentally but very straightforwardly. A kiss, in our family, was an event. Our mother and father didn’t glug over my two sisters and me."

 

As a boy, Bogart was teased for his curls, his tidiness, the "cute" pictures his mother had him pose for ‘the Little Lord Fauntleroy’ clothes she dressed him in. From his father, Bogart inherited a tendency for needling people, a fondness for fishing, a life-long love of boating, and an attraction to strong-willed women.

 

The Bogarts sent their son to private schools. Bogart began school at the Delancey School until fifth grade, when he was enrolled in Trinity School. He was an indifferent, sullen student who showed no interest in after-school activities Later he went to the prestigious preparatory school Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts.

 

The Bogarts hoped Humphrey would go on to Yale, but in 1918, Bogart was expelled. The details of his expulsion are disputed: one story claims that he was expelled for throwing the headmaster into Rabbit Pond, a man-made lake on campus. Another cites smoking and drinking, combined with poor academic performance and possibly some inappropriate comments made to the staff. It has also been said that he was actually withdrawn from the school by his father for failing to improve his academics, as opposed to expulsion. In any case, his parents were deeply dismayed by the events and their failed plans for his future.

A Tribute To Humphrey Bogart

 

The song is "Fighting Man" sung by Ian Gillan.

 

This video was uploaded on You Tube by LisaLaLisa92.

 

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Born:  Humphrey DeForest Bogart

            December 25, 1899(1899-12-25)

            New York City, New York, U.S.

 

Died:  January 14, 1957(1957-01-14) (aged 57)

           Los Angeles, California, U.S.

 

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Articles And Websites On Humphrey Bogart:

 

• The Official Humphrey Bogart Website

•  Bogart-Urban Legends

• SPRING FILMS/REVIVALS; How One Role Made Bogart Into an Icon

• The Religious Affiliation of Humphrey Bogart

• I'm No Communist

• Bogart- Behind the Legend (documentary)

• Tribute to Humphrey Bogart

• New Humphrey Bogart bio a superficial effort

 

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Tribute to Classic Film Gangsters

 

 

This video was put up on You Tube by JackBenny1924.

Humphrey Bogart-It's My Life

 

I don't know about anybody else but I love Bogie. When I Found this video I had to share it. It is a music video. The song is "It's My Life" sung by Bon Jovi.

This video was put up on You Tube by mottie393.