First performances Bogart returned home to find his father in poor health, his medical practice faltering, and much of the family's wealth lost in bad timber investments. His character and values developed separately from his family during his navy days, and he began to rebel. Bogart became a liberal who disliked pretension, phonies, and snobs, sometimes defying conventional behavior and authority; he was also well-mannered, articulate, punctual, self-effacing, and standoffish. After his naval service, he worked as a shipper and a bond salesman, joining the
Coast Guard Reserve. Frank Kelly Rich writes that Bogart "dove headfirst into the Jazz Age lifestyle, always up for late night revels... When his meager wages were exhausted, he'd play
chess against all comers in arcades for a dollar a match (he was a brilliant player) to fund his outings." Mike Doyle of
Chess.com writes that "Before he made any money from acting, he would hustle players for dimes and quarters, playing in New York parks and at Coney Island." Bogart resumed his friendship with Bill Brady Jr. (whose father had show-business connections), and obtained an office job with
William A. Brady's new World Films company. Although he wanted to try his hand at screenwriting, directing, and production, he excelled at none. Bogart was
stage manager for Brady's daughter
Alice's play
A Ruined Lady. He made his stage debut a few months later as a Japanese butler in Alice's 1921 play
Drifting (nervously delivering one line of dialogue), and appeared in several of her subsequent plays. Although Bogart had been raised to believe that acting was a lowly profession, he liked the late hours actors kept and the attention they received: "I was born to be indolent and this was the softest of rackets." Preferring to learn by doing, he never took acting lessons. Bogart was persistent and worked steadily at his craft, appearing in at least 18 Broadway productions between 1922 and 1935, 11 of which were comedies. He played juveniles or romantic supporting roles in drawing-room comedies and is reportedly the first actor to say, "
Tennis, anyone?" on stage. According to
Alexander Woollcott, Bogart "is what is usually and mercifully described as inadequate." Other critics were kinder.
Heywood Broun, reviewing
Nerves, wrote: "Humphrey Bogart gives the most effective performance ... both dry and fresh, if that be possible". He played a juvenile lead (reporter Gregory Brown) in
Lynn Starling's comedy
Meet the Wife, which had a successful 232-performance run at the
Klaw Theatre from November 1923 through July 1924. Bogart disliked his trivial, effeminate early-career roles, calling them "White Pants Willie" roles. While playing a double role in
Drifting at the Playhouse Theatre in 1922, he met actress
Helen Menken; they were married on May 20, 1926, at the
Gramercy Park Hotel in New York City. Divorced on November 18, 1927, they remained friends. Menken said in her divorce filing that Bogart valued his career more than marriage, citing neglect and abuse. He married actress
Mary Philips on April 3, 1928, at her mother's apartment in
Hartford, Connecticut; Bogart and Philips had worked together in the play
Nerves during its brief run at the Comedy Theatre in 1924. Theatrical production dropped off sharply after the
Wall Street Crash of 1929, and many of the more-photogenic actors headed for Hollywood. Bogart debuted on film with
Helen Hayes in the 1928 two-reeler
The Dancing Town, which survives intact. He also appeared with
Joan Blondell and
Ruth Etting in a
Vitaphone short, ''
Broadway's Like That'' (1930), which was rediscovered in 1963.
Broadway to Hollywood and Bogart in
Up the River (1930) Bogart signed a contract with the
Fox Film Corporation for $750 a week (about $13,933 in 2025). There he met
Spencer Tracy, a Broadway actor whom Bogart liked and admired, and the two men became close friends and drinking companions. In 1930, Tracy first called him "Bogie". Tracy made his feature film debut in his only movie with Bogart,
John Ford's early
sound film Up the River (1930), in which their leading roles were as inmates. Tracy received top billing, but Bogart's picture appeared on the film's posters. He was billed fourth behind Tracy,
Claire Luce, and
Warren Hymer, but his role was almost as large as Tracy's and much larger than Luce's or Hymer's. A quarter of a century later, the two men planned to make
The Desperate Hours together. Both insisted upon top billing, however; Tracy dropped out, and was replaced by
Fredric March. Bogart then had a supporting role in
Bad Sister (1931) with
Bette Davis. Bogart shuttled back and forth between Hollywood and the New York stage from 1930 to 1935, out of work for long periods. His parents had separated; his father died in 1934 in debt, which Bogart eventually paid off. He inherited his father's gold ring, which he wore in many of his films. At his father's deathbed, Bogart finally told him how much he loved him. Bogart's second marriage was rocky; dissatisfied with his acting career, depressed and irritable, he drank heavily.
In Hollywood permanently: The Petrified Forest '', 1936 In 1934, Bogart starred in the
Broadway play
Invitation to a Murder at the Theatre Masque (renamed the
John Golden Theatre in 1937). Its producer,
Arthur Hopkins, heard the play from offstage; he sent for Bogart and offered him the role of escaped murderer Duke Mantee in
Robert E. Sherwood's forthcoming play,
The Petrified Forest. Although
Leslie Howard was the star,
The New York Times critic
Brooks Atkinson said that the play was "a peach ... a roaring Western melodrama ... Humphrey Bogart does the best work of his career as an actor." Bogart said that the play "marked my deliverance from the ranks of the sleek, sybaritic, stiff-shirted, swallow-tailed 'smoothies' to which I seemed condemned to life." However, he still felt insecure. The play seemed ideal for the studio, which was known for its socially-realistic pictures for a public entranced by real-life criminals such as
John Dillinger and
Dutch Schultz.
Bette Davis and Leslie Howard were cast. Howard, who held the production rights, made it clear that he wanted Bogart to star with him. The studio tested several Hollywood veterans for the Duke Mantee role and chose
Edward G. Robinson, who had star appeal and was due to make a film to fulfill his contract. Bogart cabled news of this development to Howard in Scotland, who replied: "Att: Jack Warner Insist Bogart Play Mantee No Bogart No Deal L.H.". When Warner Bros. saw that Howard would not budge, they gave in and cast Bogart. Jack Warner wanted Bogart to use a
stage name but Bogart declined, having built a reputation with his name in Broadway theater. The film version of
The Petrified Forest was released in 1936. According to
Variety, "Bogart's menace leaves nothing wanting".
Frank S. Nugent wrote for
The New York Times that the actor "can be a psychopathic gangster more like Dillinger than the outlaw himself". The film was successful at the box office, earning $500,000 in rentals ($11,427,014 in 2025), and made Bogart a star. He never forgot Howard's favor and named his only daughter, Leslie Howard Bogart, after him in 1952.
Supporting gangster and villain roles Despite his success in
The Petrified Forest (an "A movie"), Bogart signed a tepid 26-week contract at $550 ($12,570 in 2025) per week and was
typecast as a gangster in a series of
B movie crime dramas. Although he was proud of his success, the fact that it derived from
gangster roles weighed on him: "I can't get in a mild discussion without turning it into an argument. There must be something in my tone of voice, or this arrogant face—something that antagonizes everybody. Nobody likes me on sight. I suppose that's why I'm cast as the heavy." In spite of his success, Warner Bros. had no interest in raising Bogart's profile. His roles were repetitive and physically demanding; studios were not yet
air-conditioned, and his tightly scheduled job at Warners was anything but the indolent and "peachy" actor's life he hoped for. Although Bogart disliked the roles chosen for him, he worked steadily. "In the first 34 pictures" for Warners, he told journalist
George Frazier, "I was shot in 12, electrocuted or hanged in 8, and was a jailbird in 9". He averaged a film every two months between 1936 and 1940, sometimes working on two films at the same time. Bogart used these years to begin developing his film persona: a wounded, stoical, cynical, charming, vulnerable, self-mocking loner with a code of honor. Amenities at Warners were few, compared to the prestigious
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Bogart thought that the Warners wardrobe department was cheap, and often wore his own suits in his films. He chose his own dog, named Zero, to play Pard (his character's dog) in
High Sierra. His disputes with Warner Bros. over roles and money were similar to those waged by the studio with more established and less malleable stars such as Bette Davis and
James Cagney. in
The Roaring Twenties (1939), the last film they made together Leading men at Warner Bros. included
George Raft, James Cagney and
Edward G. Robinson. Most of the studio's better scripts went to them or others, leaving Bogart with what was left: films such as
San Quentin (1937),
Racket Busters (1938), and ''
You Can't Get Away with Murder (1939). His only leading role during this period was in Dead End'' (1937, on loan to
Samuel Goldwyn), as a gangster modeled after
Baby Face Nelson. Bogart played violent roles so often that in
Nevil Shute's 1939 novel,
What Happened to the Corbetts, the protagonist replies "I've seen Humphrey Bogart with one often enough" when asked if he knows how to operate an automatic weapon. Although he played a variety of supporting roles in films such as
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Bogart's roles were either rivals of characters played by Cagney and Robinson or a secondary member of their gang. he played a good man who was caught up with (and destroyed by) a racist organization. The studio cast Bogart as a wrestling promoter in
Swing Your Lady (1938), a "
hillbilly musical" which he reportedly considered his worst film performance. He played a rejuvenated, formerly-dead scientist in
The Return of Doctor X (1939), his only horror film: "If it'd been
Jack Warner's blood ... I wouldn't have minded so much. The trouble was they were drinking mine and I was making this stinking movie." His wife, Mary, had a stage hit in
A Touch of Brimstone and refused to abandon her Broadway career for Hollywood. After the play closed, Mary relented; she insisted on continuing her career, however, and they divorced in 1937. and Bogart with their dogs (1944) On August 21, 1938, Bogart entered a turbulent third marriage to actress
Mayo Methot, a lively, friendly woman when sober but
paranoid and aggressive when drunk. She became convinced that Bogart was unfaithful to her (which he eventually was, with Lauren Bacall, while filming
To Have and Have Not in 1944). According to their friend,
Julius Epstein, "The Bogart-Methot marriage was the sequel to the
Civil War". Bogart bought a motor launch which he named
Sluggy, his nickname for Methot: "I like a jealous wife .. We get on so well together (because) we don't have illusions about each other ... I wouldn't give you two cents for a
dame without a temper." Louise Brooks said that "except for Leslie Howard, no one contributed as much to Humphrey's success as his third wife, Mayo Methot." Methot's influence was increasingly destructive, however, and was again irritated by his inferior films. Bogart rarely watched his own films and avoided premieres, issuing fake press releases about his private life to satisfy journalistic and public curiosity. When he thought an actor, director or studio had done something shoddy, he spoke up publicly about it. Bogart advised
Robert Mitchum that the only way to stay alive in Hollywood was to be an "againster". He was not the most popular of actors, and some in the Hollywood community shunned him privately to avoid trouble with the studios. Bogart once said, The Hollywood press, unaccustomed to such candor, was delighted.
Early stardom High Sierra High Sierra (1941, directed by
Raoul Walsh) featured a screenplay written by
John Huston, Bogart's friend and drinking partner, adapted from a novel by
W. R. Burnett, author of the novel on which
Little Caesar was based.
Paul Muni, George Raft, Cagney and Robinson turned down the lead role, The film cemented a strong personal and professional connection between Bogart and Huston. Bogart admired (and somewhat envied) Huston for his skill as a writer; a poor student, Bogart was a lifelong reader. He could quote
Plato,
Alexander Pope,
Ralph Waldo Emerson and over a thousand lines of
Shakespeare, and subscribed to the
Harvard Law Review.
The Maltese Falcon Now regarded as a classic
film noir,
The Maltese Falcon (1941) was
John Huston's directorial debut. Based on the
Dashiell Hammett novel, it was first serialized in the pulp magazine
Black Mask in 1929 and was the basis of two earlier film versions; the second was
Satan Met a Lady (1936), starring
Bette Davis. Producer
Hal B. Wallis initially offered to cast George Raft as the
leading man, but Raft (then better known than Bogart) had a contract stipulating he was not required to appear in
remakes. Fearing that it would be nothing more than a sanitized version of the pre-
Production Code The Maltese Falcon (1931), Raft turned down the role to make
Manpower with director
Raoul Walsh, with whom he had worked on
The Bowery in 1933. Huston then eagerly accepted Bogart as his
Sam Spade. Complementing Bogart were co-stars
Sydney Greenstreet,
Peter Lorre,
Elisha Cook Jr., and
Mary Astor as the treacherous female foil. Bogart's sharp timing and facial expressions were praised by the cast and director as vital to the film's quick action and rapid-fire dialogue. It was a commercial hit, and a major triumph for Huston. Bogart was unusually happy with the film: "It is practically a masterpiece. I don't have many things I'm proud of ... but that's one".
Casablanca in
Casablanca (1942), which earned Bogart the first of three
Oscar nominations Bogart played his first romantic lead in
Casablanca (1942): Rick Blaine, an
expatriate nightclub owner hiding from a suspicious past and negotiating a fine line among
Nazis, the
French underground, the
Vichy prefect and unresolved feelings for his ex-girlfriend. Bosley Crowther wrote in his November 1942
New York Times review that Bogart's character was used "to inject a cold point of tough resistance to evil forces afoot in Europe today". The film, directed by
Michael Curtiz and produced by Hal Wallis, featured
Ingrid Bergman,
Claude Rains,
Sydney Greenstreet,
Paul Henreid,
Conrad Veidt,
Peter Lorre and
Dooley Wilson. Bogart and Bergman's on-screen relationship was based on professionalism rather than actual rapport, although Mayo Methot assumed otherwise. Off the set, the co-stars hardly spoke. Bergman (who had a reputation for affairs with her leading men) later said about Bogart, "I kissed him but I never knew him." Because she was taller, Bogart had blocks attached to his shoes in some scenes. often enjoying games with crew members and cast but finding his better in Paul Henreid. During the production, Bogart also began playing games of
correspondence chess against American
G.I.s through mail. The series of long distance matches began after a
private who Bogart versed on set was transferred to the South Pacific. The letters began to be intercepted by the
FBI due to fears the
algebraic notation used in chess games was actually an
encrypted message.
Casablanca won the
Academy Award for Best Picture at the
16th Academy Awards for 1943. Bogart was nominated for
Best Actor in a Leading Role, but lost to
Paul Lukas for his performance in
Watch on the Rhine. The film vaulted Bogart from fourth place to first in the studio's roster, however, finally overtaking
James Cagney. He more than doubled his annual salary to over $460,000 by 1946 ($7,493,777 in 2025), making him the world's highest-paid actor. Bogart went on
United Service Organizations and
War Bond tours with Methot in 1943 and 1944, making arduous trips to Italy and North Africa (including Casablanca). again with Greenstreet), but turned down
God Is My Co-Pilot that year.
Bogie and Bacall To Have and Have Not in
To Have and Have Not (1944)
Howard Hawks introduced Bogart and Lauren Bacall while Bogart was filming
Passage to Marseille (1944). The three subsequently collaborated on
To Have and Have Not (1944), a loose adaptation of the
Ernest Hemingway novel, and Bacall's film debut. It has several similarities to
Casablanca: the same kind of hero and enemies, and a piano player (portrayed this time by
Hoagy Carmichael) as a supporting character. When they met, Bacall was 19 and Bogart 44; he nicknamed her "Baby". A model since age 16, she had appeared in two failed plays. Bogart was attracted by Bacall's high cheekbones, green eyes, tawny blond hair, lean body, maturity, poise and earthy, outspoken honesty; he reportedly said, "I just saw your test. We'll have a lot of fun together". Their emotional bond was strong from the start; their difference in age and acting-experience encouraged a mentor-student dynamic. In contrast to the Hollywood norm, their affair was Bogart's first with a leading lady. His early meetings with Bacall were discreet and brief, their separations bridged by love letters. The relationship made it easier for Bacall to make her first film, and Bogart did his best to put her at ease with jokes and quiet coaching. He encouraged her to steal scenes;
Howard Hawks also did his best to highlight her role, and found Bogart easy to direct. However, Hawks began to disapprove of the relationship. Hawks said about Bacall, "Bogie fell in love with the character she played, so she had to keep playing it the rest of her life." However, Bacall wrote in her memoir about the love she and Bogart shared, "No one has ever written a romance better than we lived it." and she said regarding Bogart's personality, "He was a very gentle soul. He was very strong, and very sure about what he believed in and what he thought was important and not important. He couldn't be pushed around. But he was a gentle man. I was very, very lucky to have even met him, much less have been married to him. He had extraordinary gifts. He was much more of a complete individual than most people are. He had the kind of standards my mother had. Their values were very much the same. It was very interesting. He had tremendous character and a great sense of honor and would not tolerate lies, even if they asked him what he thought of a movie."
The Big Sleep Months after wrapping
To Have and Have Not, Bogart and Bacall were reunited for an encore: the film noir
The Big Sleep (1946), based on the novel by
Raymond Chandler with script help from
William Faulkner. Chandler admired the actor's performance: "Bogart can be tough without a gun. Also, he has a sense of humor that contains that grating undertone of contempt." Although the film was completed and scheduled for release in 1945, it was withdrawn and re-edited to add scenes exploiting Bogart and Bacall's box-office chemistry in
To Have and Have Not and the publicity surrounding their offscreen relationship. At the insistence of director Howard Hawks, production partner
Charles K. Feldman agreed to a rewrite of Bacall's scenes to heighten the "insolent" quality which had intrigued critics such as
James Agee and audiences of the earlier film, and a memo was sent to studio head Jack Warner. The dialogue, especially in the added scenes supplied by Hawks, was full of sexual
innuendo. The film was successful, although some critics found its plot confusing and overly complicated. According to Chandler, Hawks and Bogart argued about who killed the chauffeur; when Chandler received an inquiry by telegram, he could not provide an answer.
Marriage to Bacall Bogart filed for divorce from Methot in February 1945. He and Bacall married in a small ceremony at the country home of Bogart's close friend,
Pulitzer Prize-winning author
Louis Bromfield, At the time of the
1950 United States census, the couple was living at 2707 Benedict Canyon Drive in Beverly Hills with their son and nursemaid. Bacall is listed as Betty Bogart. The marriage was a mostly happy one but not without its troubles. Bogart's drinking was sometimes problematic and he initially wasn't happy about having his first child, fearing that it would create distance between himself and Bacall. He was a homebody, and Bacall liked the nightlife; he loved the sea, and it made her
seasick. In a 1997
Parade magazine cover story, she told reporter Dotson Rader that Bogart said "'If you want a career more than anything, I will do everything I can to help you, and I will send you on your way, but I will not marry you. I've been through it, and I know it doesn't work.' He was right. He loved me and wanted me with him. I made the deal, and I stuck to it, and I'm damn glad that I did." Bogart bought the
Santana, a sailing yacht, from actor
Dick Powell in 1945. He found the sea a sanctuary and spent about thirty weekends a year on the water, with a particular fondness for sailing around
Catalina Island: "An actor needs something to stabilize his personality, something to nail down what he really is, not what he is currently pretending to be." Bogart joined the
Coast Guard Temporary Reserve (a forerunner of the modern Coast Guard Auxiliary), offering the Coast Guard use of the
Santana. He reportedly attempted to enlist, but was turned down due to his age.
Dark Passage and Key Largo The suspenseful
Dark Passage (1947) was Bogart and Bacall's next collaboration. According to Bogart's biographer, Stefan Kanfer, it was "a production line film noir with no particular distinction". Bogart and Bacall's last pairing in a film was in
Key Largo (1948). Directed by John Huston,
Edward G. Robinson was billed second (behind Bogart) as gangster Johnny Rocco: a seething, older synthesis of many of his early bad-guy roles. The billing question was hard-fought and at the end of at least one of the trailers, Robinson is listed above Bogart in a list of the actors' names in the last frame; and in the film itself, Robinson's name, appearing between Bogart's and Bacall's, is pictured slightly higher onscreen than the other two. Robinson had top billing over Bogart in their four previous films together:
Bullets or Ballots (1936),
Kid Galahad (1937),
The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) and
Brother Orchid (1940). In some posters for
Key Largo, Robinson's picture is substantially larger than Bogart's, and in the foreground manhandling Bacall while Bogart is in the background. The characters are trapped during a hurricane in a hotel owned by Bacall's father-in-law, portrayed by
Lionel Barrymore.
Claire Trevor won an
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Rocco's physically abused, alcoholic girlfriend.
Later career The Treasure of the Sierra Madre Riding high in 1947 with a new 15-year contract with Warners which provided limited script refusal and the right to form his own production company, Bogart starred with Barbara Stanwyck in
The Two Mrs. Carrolls, and later Bogart rejoined with John Huston for
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre: a stark tale of greed among three gold prospectors in Mexico. Lacking a love interest or a happy ending, it was considered a risky project. Bogart later said about co-star (and John Huston's father)
Walter Huston, "He's probably the only performer in Hollywood to whom I'd gladly lose a scene." The film was shot in the heat of summer for greater realism and atmosphere and was grueling to make.
James Agee wrote, "Bogart does a wonderful job with this character ... miles ahead of the very good work he has done before." Although John Huston won the
Academy Award for Best Director and screenplay and his father won the
Best Supporting Actor award, the film had mediocre box-office results. Bogart complained, "An intelligent script, beautifully directed—something different—and the public turned a cold shoulder on it."
House Un-American Activities Committee Bogart, a liberal
Democrat, organized the
Committee for the First Amendment (a delegation to Washington, D.C.) opposing what he saw as the
House Un-American Activities Committee's harassment of Hollywood screenwriters and actors. He later wrote an article, "I'm No Communist", for the March 1948 issue of
Photoplay magazine distancing himself from the
Hollywood Ten to counter negative publicity resulting from his appearance. Bogart wrote, "The ten men cited for contempt by the House Un-American Activities Committee were not defended by us."
Santana Productions Bogart created his film company,
Santana Productions (named after his yacht and the cabin cruiser in
Key Largo), in 1948. The right to create his own company had left Jack Warner furious, fearful that other stars would do the same and further erode the major studios' power. In addition to pressure from freelancing actors such as Bogart,
James Stewart, and
Henry Fonda, they were beginning to buckle from the impact of television and the enforcement of antitrust laws which broke up theater chains. Bogart's new contract with Warners had required him to make one film a year for Warners but he only made
Chain Lightning (1950) and
The Enforcer (1951) for them during the contract period. In 1953, his contract with Warners was dissolved by mutual consent. Santana released its films through
Columbia Pictures; Columbia re-released
Beat the Devil a decade later. Several Bogart biographers, and actress-writer Louise Brooks, have felt that this role is closest to the real Bogart. According to Brooks, the film "gave him a role that he could play with complexity, because the film character's pride in his art, his selfishness, drunkenness, lack of energy stabbed with lightning strokes of violence were shared by the real Bogart". The character mimics some of Bogart's personal habits, twice ordering the actor's favorite meal (ham and eggs). A parody of sorts of
The Maltese Falcon,
Beat the Devil was the final film for Bogart and
John Huston. Co-written by
Truman Capote, the eccentrically filmed story follows an amoral group of rogues, one of whom was portrayed by
Peter Lorre, chasing an unattainable treasure. Bogart sold his interest in Santana to Columbia for over $1 million in 1955.
The African Queen Outside Santana Productions, Bogart starred with
Katharine Hepburn in the John Huston-directed
The African Queen in 1951. The
C. S. Forester novel on which it was based was overlooked and left undeveloped for 15 years until producer
Sam Spiegel and Huston bought the rights. Spiegel sent Katharine Hepburn the book; she suggested Bogart for the male lead, believing that "he was the only man who could have played that part". Huston's love of adventure, his deep, longstanding friendship (and success) with Bogart, and the chance to work with Hepburn convinced the actor to leave Hollywood for a difficult shoot on location in the
Belgian Congo. Bogart was to get 30 percent of the profits and Hepburn 10 percent, plus a relatively small salary for both. The stars met in London and announced that they would work together. Bacall came for the over-four-month duration, leaving their young son in Los Angeles. The Bogarts began the trip with a
junket through Europe, including a visit with
Pope Pius XII. Bacall later made herself useful as a cook, nurse and clothes washer; her husband said: "I don't know what we'd have done without her. She
Luxed my undies in darkest Africa." Nearly everyone in the cast developed
dysentery except Bogart and Huston, who subsisted on canned food and alcohol; Bogart said, "All I ate was baked beans, canned
asparagus and
Scotch whisky. Whenever a fly bit Huston or me, it dropped dead." Hepburn (a
teetotaler) fared worse in the difficult conditions, losing weight and at one point becoming very ill. Bogart resisted Huston's insistence on using real
leeches in a key scene where Charlie has to drag his steam launch through an infested marsh, and reasonable fakes were employed. The crew overcame illness,
army-ant infestations, leaky boats, poor food, attacking
hippos, poor water filters, extreme heat, isolation, and a boat fire to complete the film. Despite the discomfort of jumping from the boat into swamps, rivers and marshes,
The African Queen apparently rekindled Bogart's early love of boats; when he returned to California, he bought a classic mahogany
Hacker-Craft runabout which he kept until his death. His performance as cantankerous skipper Charlie Allnut earned Bogart an
Academy Award for Best Actor in 1951 (his only award of three nominations), and he considered it the best of his film career. Promising friends that if he won his speech would break the convention of thanking everyone in sight, Bogart advised
Claire Trevor when she was nominated for
Key Largo to "just say you did it all yourself and don't thank anyone". When Bogart won, however, he said: "It's a long way from the Belgian Congo to the stage of this theatre. It's nicer to be here. Thank you very much ... No one does it alone. As in tennis, you need a good opponent or partner to bring out the best in you. John and Katie helped me to be where I am now." Despite the award and its accompanying recognition, Bogart later said: "The way to survive an Oscar is never to try to win another one ... too many stars ... win it and then figure they have to top themselves ... they become afraid to take chances. The result: A lot of dull performances in dull pictures."
The African Queen was Bogart's first starring
Technicolor role.
The Caine Mutiny ,
Robert Francis and
Van Johnson Bogart dropped his asking price to obtain the role of Captain Queeg in
Edward Dmytryk's drama,
The Caine Mutiny (1954). Though he retained some of his old bitterness about having to do so, he delivered a strong performance in the lead; he received his final Oscar nomination and was the subject of a June 7, 1954,
Time magazine cover story. Despite his success, Bogart was still
melancholy; he grumbled to (and feuded with) the studio, while his health began to deteriorate. Like his portrayal of Fred C. Dobbs in
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Bogart's Queeg is a paranoid, self-pitying character whose small-mindedness eventually destroys him.
Henry Fonda played a different role in the Broadway version of
The Caine Mutiny, generating publicity for the film.
Final roles For
Sabrina (1954),
Billy Wilder wanted
Cary Grant for the older male lead but chose Bogart to play the conservative brother who competes with his younger, playboy sibling (
William Holden) for the affection of the Cinderella-like Sabrina (
Audrey Hepburn). Although Bogart was lukewarm about the part, he agreed to it on a handshake with Wilder without a finished script but with the director's assurance that he would take good care of Bogart during filming. The actor, however, got along poorly with his director and co-stars; he complained about the script's last-minute drafting and delivery, and accused Wilder of favoring Hepburn and Holden on and off the set. Wilder was the opposite of Bogart's ideal director (John Huston) in style and personality; Bogart complained to the press that Wilder was "overbearing" and "is [a] kind of
Prussian German with a riding crop. He is the type of director I don't like to work with ... the picture is a crock of crap. I got sick and tired of who gets Sabrina." Wilder later said, "We parted as enemies but finally made up." Despite the acrimony, the film was successful; according to a review in
The New York Times, Bogart was "incredibly adroit ... the skill with which this old rock-ribbed actor blends the gags and such duplicities with a manly manner of melting is one of the incalculable joys of the show".
Joseph L. Mankiewicz's
The Barefoot Contessa (1954) was filmed in
Rome. In this Hollywood backstory, Bogart is a broken-down man, a cynical director-narrator who saves his career by making a star of a
flamenco dancer modeled on
Rita Hayworth. He was uneasy with
Ava Gardner in the female lead; she had just broken up with his
Rat Pack buddy
Frank Sinatra, and Bogart was annoyed by her inexperienced performance. The actor was generally praised as the film's strongest part. During filming and while Bacall was home, Bogart resumed his discreet affair with
Verita Bouvaire-Thompson (his long-time studio assistant, whom he drank with and took sailing). When Bacall found them together, she extracted an expensive shopping spree from her husband; the three traveled together after the shooting. Bogart could be generous with actors, particularly those who were blacklisted, down on their luck or having personal problems. During the filming of the
Edward Dmytryk–directed
The Left Hand of God (1955), he noticed his co-star
Gene Tierney having a hard time remembering her lines and behaving oddly; he coached her, feeding Tierney her lines. Familiar with mental illness because of his sister's bouts of depression, Bogart encouraged Tierney to seek treatment. He also stood behind
Joan Bennett and insisted on her as his co-star in
Michael Curtiz's ''
We're No Angels (1955) when a scandal made her persona non grata'' with studio head Jack Warner. Bogart shot
The Harder They Fall, a boxing drama with
Rod Steiger in a supporting role. Steiger later mentioned Bogart's courage and geniality during his final performance: Bogey and I got on very well. Unlike some other stars, when they had closeups, you might have been relegated to a two-shot, or cut out altogether. Bogey didn't play those games. He was a professional and had tremendous authority. He'd come in exactly at 9 a.m. and leave at precisely 6 p.m. I remember once walking to lunch in between takes and seeing Bogey on the lot. I shouldn't have because his work was finished for the day. I asked him why he was still on the lot, and he said, "They want to shoot some retakes of my closeups because my eyes are too watery". A little while later, after the film, somebody came up to me with word of Bogey's death. Then it struck me. His eyes were watery because he was in pain with the cancer. I thought: "How dumb can you be, Rodney"!
Television and radio in the televised version of
The Petrified Forest, 1955 Bogart rarely performed on television, but he and Bacall appeared on
Edward R. Murrow's
Person to Person and disagreed on the answer to every question. He also appeared on
The Jack Benny Program, where a surviving
kinescope of the live telecast captures him in his only TV sketch-comedy performance (October 25, 1953). Bogart and Bacall worked on an early color telecast in 1955, an
NBC adaptation of "
The Petrified Forest" for ''
Producers' Showcase''. Bogart received
top billing,
Henry Fonda played Leslie Howard's role and Bacall played
Bette Davis's part.
Jack Klugman,
Richard Jaeckel, and
Jack Warden played supporting roles. In the late 1990s, Bacall donated the only known
kinescope of the 1955 performance (in black and white) to the Museum of Television & Radio (now the
Paley Center for Media), where it remains archived for viewing in New York City and Los Angeles. It is now in the public domain. Bogart also performed radio adaptations of some of his best-known films, such as
Casablanca and
The Maltese Falcon, and recorded a radio series entitled
Bold Venture with Bacall. == Personal life ==