The astonishing life story of Humphrey Bogart
Legendary Oscar-winning actor Humphrey Bogart lived life the way he thought he should, and only in his fourth marriage he did settle down.
Legendary Oscar-winning actor Humphrey Bogart lived life the way he thought he should, not wanting to give up any pleasure, and only in his fourth marriage he did settle down with his much younger wife and had two children with her. When he passed away on January 14, 1957, at the age of fifty-seven, the legendary actor Humphrey Bogart left an indelible mark in world cinema. He lived the way most people do not dare, but the way he wanted to. Many remember him for the famous movie “Casablanca”, which even today, seventy years after it was filmed, leaves viewers breathless. After his role in this Oscar-winning film, Humphrey received the award for the best American actor of all time.
The famous actor was born on December 25, 1889. Influential and wealthy parents Belmont DeForest Bogart and Maud Humphrey raised three children in all the luxury. However, for his parents, wealth and power were sometimes more important than everything, so for a surgeon and a commercial illustrator, no price was too high to make their dreams come true. Later, when he remembered growing up, the actor felt that he was deprived of true parental love.
“I can't say that I loved my mother, but I certainly admired her. I was raised without much emotion. The kiss was a real event in my family” - admitted Bogart. Young and crazy, he grew up as a rebellious young man without a clear goal in life and opportunities for a serious career, and when he became an adult he decided to join the Navy in 1918.
The environment in which he grew up simply disgusted him, so defiance became a pattern of his behavior. A childhood friendship with Bill Bradley, whose father was in the entertainment industry, opened the door to a new chapter in his life. After attempts as a director, screenwriter, and producer, he started having a curiosity for acting. Although his family considered the acting profession below the level of a gentleman, in 1920 he began a successful career. Although he never went to acting classes, the leaders of the theater immediately recognized his top talent.
And just then, at the beginning of his career, he fell in love with a ravishing brunette, also a Broadway actress Helen Menken. Shortly after meeting, they got married in 1926, but the following year, they broke up and remained friends until death.
Later, The Broadway show “Nerves” gathered a great team in which, in addition to Bogart, fatal beauty Mary Phillips played, who later started a relationship with him. Humphrey married this girl with big blue eyes, expressive temperament, and sophisticated nature, who was a well-known theatrical person at the time, in April 1928. For Mary, the New York theater scene was primary and their marriage was on shaky ground because of it. She did not want to give up her career at any cost, and he found solace in alcohol.
An additional aggravating circumstance was his father's death, so he fell into depression, became irritable, and he was often completely drunk. However, at that time, his film career began with the screening of the play “The Petrified Forest”. The path to the top was open, but the actor still failed to get rid of the childhood complex. The couple tried to build a life in Los Angeles, but more and more often disagreements happened, so in 1937 they decided to divorce.
In the middle of the summer of 1938, he got married a third time, to Mayo Methot. He was not aware that she was a paranoid and destructively jealous woman. Convinced that her husband was cheating, Mayo started acting crazy. Only when it was discovered that they both obsessively love alcohol, the mystery of their relationship and the fact that they were still married was solved.
The newspapers adored Bogart because he was a refreshment in the Hollywood mosaic of the same characters, and just then, at the beginning of 1940, what he himself had long expected happened. One after another, great titles began to follow: “High”, “Casablanca”, “Maltese Falcon”, “Treasure of the Sierra Madre”. Triumphs continued in the films “Deep Dream”, “Largo Island”, “Queen of America”.
Then he met nineteen-year-old Lauren Bacall after which their love affair began. They briefly enjoyed the forbidden love, because in February 1945, Bogart divorced Mayo and on May 21, he became the husband of the young Lauren. The secret of their happy marriage was hidden in her tolerance for Bogart's drinking problems.
However, in the middle of the fifties, the glittering life of Bogart is already close to an end. As a passionate smoker, he contracted esophageal tumors, but he never fought that battle. He didn't even talk about it, and going to the doctor was out of the question. He left us too early, but he lived a fulfilled life that many can only dream of.
