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Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey Bogart

Frank Sinatra's group of friends, known as The Clan, was actually originally a group of Bogart's friends, including Sinatra, who enjoyed drinking heavily. They referred to themselves as The Holmby Hills Rat Pack, derived from the Holmby Hills section of Hollywood where the Bogarts lived. The origin of the term The Rat Pack was this: One morning, after a night of heavy drinking by Bogart and his friends, Bogart's wife Lauren Bacall walked into the room, looked at the group and flatly stated, "You look like a God-damned rat pack." Bogart enjoyed the term, and a legend was born. The name "Rat Pack" stopped being used by Bogie's friends when he died. Sinatra and his friends hated being called the Rat Pack. (source: Robert Osborne, Turner Classic Movies).

Lauren Bacall once recalled that while John Wayne and Fred Astaire hardly knew her husband Humphrey Bogart at all, they were the first to send flowers and good wishes after Bogart was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in January 1956.

Clifton Webb once said about Bogart, "Humphrey was not a tough guy, He was not at all. He was about as tough as Little Lord Fauntleroy".

According to "The Fifty Year Decline and Fall of Hollywood" by Ezra Goodman, Bogart would often strategically disappear from his table at the Hollywood landmark restaurant Romanoff's--a favorite Bogart hangout--when the check was brought to the table, especially after he had invited a magazine writer to dinner and drinks. Often the writer would wind up having to put on his expense account the bill that Bogart had run up for himself and his friends.

After undergoing a nine-and-a-half hour operation for esophageal cancer on 1 March 1956, Bogart began smoking filtered cigarettes for the first time in his life.



All four of his wives were actresses.

Almost all of the roles that made him a star (after a decade of toiling in minor films) were roles he got because George Raft had turned them down, from High Sierra (1941), in which Bogie was first noticed as a viable box office draw, to Casablanca (1942), which made him a true international star. Ironically, after having been overshadowed by Raft the whole first half of his career, Bogart is today by far the better-known star and is considered the superior actor of the two.

Although he and wife Lauren Bacall initially protested the House Un-American Activities Committee, they both eventually succumbed to pressure and distanced themselves from the Hollywood Ten in a March 1948 Photoplay Magazine article penned by Bogart titled "I'm No Communist".

Although usually considered a quiet and accommodating actor by most of his collaborators, he became disliked by William Holden and Billy Wilder during the filming of Sabrina (1954). A good friend before they made the film, Wilder later said that Bogart, near the end of his life, apologized for his behavior on the set and said it was due to his personal problems. Even so, Audrey Hepburn got along with him despite his criticism of her.

At 5'8", he was almost exactly the same height as his beloved wife Lauren Bacall.

Bogart's father, a wealthy surgeon, was friends with famed Broadway and film producer William A. Brady and the families lived near each other in New York City. It was through Brady that Bogart got his first acting job on Broadway, and he in fact worked for a while as the manager of Brady's film studio, World Films.

Bogart's speech defect (lisping) does not appear in the German dubbings of his voice, which is also lower.

Co-starred not only in Casablanca (1942), the film rated No. 1 on American Film Institute's list of Top 100 U.S. love stories (2002), but in four other films on AFI romance list: The African Queen (1951), ranked at #xx; Dark Victory (1939), ranked at #32; Sabrina (1954),ranked at #54; and To Have and Have Not (1944), ranked at #60.

Decades after his death, Bogie made a guest appearance on the TV horror series "Tales from the Crypt" (1989). Footage from several movies was computer enhanced and combined with a voice and body double to allow Bogart to receive top billing for the episode "You, Murderer." Guest starring with "Bogie" were John Lithgow and Isabella Rossellini, performing an eerie (and hilarious) parody of her mother, Ingrid Bergman.

Distantly related to the late Princess Diana, Princess of Wales, through her American relations.

Father: Belmont Bogart (1867-1934), mother: Maud Humphrey (March 30, 1865 in Rochester, NY-1940), sisters: Frances Bogart (1901-?) and Catherine "Kay" Bogart (1903-?).

For years, a 16mm print of the Janet Gaynor/Fredric March version of A Star Is Born (1937) would be screened at the Bogart household each and every Christmas Day (Bogart's birthday) while Bogart would sit watching the film and weeping. Finally, one year, director Richard Brooks, a long-time friend of Bogart's asked him why. "Because," Bogart explained, "I expected a lot more of myself. And I'm never going to get it.".

Frank Sinatra's group of friends was known as the Clan. Sinatra's Clan included many of the same hard-drinking friends as Bogie's Rat Pack. The name "Rat Pack" stopped being used upon Bogie's death. Bogart was the official founder and leader of the Holmby Hills Rat Pack, as he called them. Sinatra, a friend, was a member and, when Bogart died in 1957, started calling his group of friends the Clan, which of course had Sinatra as their Chairman. (From Robert Osborne, Turner Classic Movies).

Has three films on the American Film Institute's 100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time. They are: Dark Victory (1939) at #72, The African Queen (1951) at #48, and Casablanca (1942) at #32.

He and Lauren Bacall are immortalized in Suzanne Vega's song "Freeze Tag".

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