Humphrey Bogart as Star (Lecture)

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Birth and Death

-Born in 1899 Controversy about the exact date

  • Grave marker: 25 December
  • Other publicity: 23 January or 25 Dec 1900

-Died of cancer, 14 Jan 1957

-Polysemy: The many meanings associated with Bogart.

  • Constructed through media texts (all elements that Bogart appeared in: publicity, movies, magazines, etc.)
  • Publicly available private life: this is how is was perceived; Not the “real” Bogart
  • Both media text and his public private life build a "star text" or image.

5 Elements of Bogart's Polysemy:


1. Anti-authority (contempt for authority/rules)

  • Expelled from prep school: for pushing an assistant professor into a fountain
  • Protested against HUAC in 1947(House Unamerican Activities Committee): this committee looked for people thought to be associated with Communism; also attacked Hollywood and the Hollywood 10
  • “Rat Pack” founder/member: 1950s; began when Bogart and wife Bacall had parties and Bacall told a man he looked like a rat pack; from then on they friends and themselves were known as "rats"; Bogart was known as the "rat in charge of public relations"; Members known for carousing, drunkenness, general trouble making; daily gatherings at Romanoff's for lunch; Frank Sinatra, Joey Bishop, and Shirley Maclaine all members.
  • Major icon for 1960s counter culture: after his death, he was viewed as a symbol of anti-establishment; (posters in college dorm rooms for example)


2. Certain type of masculinity

  • Unconventionally handsome(compared with other male leads of the time); "beat up" looking
  • Romantic leading man despite lack of attractiveness(eg. Lauren Bacall and Casablanca); In these films, the woman tends to pursue him instead of vice versa.
  • Domestic violence: (eg Play It Again, Sam) Bogart thought of as a rough and tumble guy; in publically available private life, he was known for fights with his wife, Mayo Methot; they were dubbed the "Battling Bogarts"; 1949 incident at El Morocco where Bogart spent the night in jail for struggling with a "cigarette girl" for a baby panda; Not represented as a “wife beater” instead, a fighter in an equal battle; once he married Bacall, this ends.


Marriages:

1926-27 stage actress Helen Menken (before his career really started)

1928-37 stage actress Mary Phillips

1938-45 film actress Mayo Methot

1945-57 Lauren Bacall

  • Children: Stephen Humphrey (1949); Leslie Howard (1952)
  • Met during To Have and Have Not; she was 19 and he was 45
  • Remained married until his death
  • On screen romance thought to reflect them offscreen.


3. Cynicism

  • “Tough guy”: established with Petrified Forest: This movie opened his career and pushed him to stardom; "hard boiled" tradition in pulp fiction tough characters in seamy situations


4. Class conflict: working class vs. American “aristocracy” (Bogart brings these two contradictions into one being)

-Aristocratic:

  • Upbringing: parents (father was a Manhattan surgeon and mother was a prominent illustrator), prep school and well-to-do family
  • Early theater work: normally cast in sophistocated roles (not the tough guy)/upper class

-Working class:

  • Served in the Navy
  • Associated with “working class” studio: Warners (known for gangster films)
  • Promotional materials: presented him as living modestly (modest house, being a dad, with dog)

-Conflict embodied in sailing & sea: Luxury because he owned a yacht and Working Class because this was a sail boat and he worked on it (raising the sails and such)


5. Liberalism:

  • Member of the Committee for the First Amendment who protested HUAC in Washington D.C. of the Hollywood 10
  • Accused of being a communist because of his support for the protests
  • Forced by Warners to recant and regrets it (but in the late 40s and 50s, if you were labeled a communist, you were out of a job!)

Career chronology

1920s-early ‘30s: Theatrical work

  • High-society playboys, and upper-class characters

1935: The Petrified Forest on Broadway

  • Star Leslie Howard demanded Bogart continue in film version (1936)
  • Led to a contract with Warners (which specialized in working-class films)

1930s-40s: Languished in B films and oddities

  • Lots of tough-guy roles
    • E.g., The Roaring Twenties (Raoul Walsh, 1939)

1941: US entry into WW II

  • Bogart’s career takes off
  • High Sierra -- film noir
  • The Maltese Falcon

1942: Casablanca

  • Best remembered role: Rick Blaine

1944: To Have and Have Not (Hawks)

  • Met and fell in love with Lauren Bacall

1947 Committee for the First Amendment protests in Washington, DC

  • Against HUAC's persecution of the Hollywood 10
  • Forms own production company: Santana

1951 The African Queen

1956 The Harder They Fall

1957 died from cancer

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