Bogart was born in New York City, the first child of Belmont DeForest Bogart (July 1867, Watkins Glen, New York September 8, 1934, Tudor City apartments, New York, New
York) and Maud Humphrey (1868 1940). Belmont and Maud were married in June 1898. His father's ancestors were of Dutch, English, and Spanish origin.[citation needed]
Bogart is a Dutch name meaning rchard. His mother's family were largely of English descent and to a lesser extent Welsh.[citation needed] Bogart's father was a
Presbyterian, while his mother was an Episcopalian. Bogart was raised in his mother's faith.
Bogart's birthday has been a subject of controversy. It was long believed that his birthday on Christmas Day 1899, was a Warner Bros. fiction created to romanticize
his background, and that he was really born on January 23, 1899, a date that appears in many references. However, this story is now considered baseless: although no
birth certificate has ever been found, 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.
Childhood
Bogart's father, Belmont, was a surgeon specializing in heart and lungs. His mother, Maud Humphrey, was a commercial illustrator, who received her art training in New
York and France, including study with James McNeill Whistler, and who later became artistic director of the fashion magazine The Delineator. 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, and 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 foughtesulting 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 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 innd the name "Humphrey." From his father, Bogart inherited a tendency for needling people, a fondness for
fishing, a life-long love of sailing, and an attraction to strong-willed women.
Education
The Bogarts sent their son to private schools. Humphrey began school at the Delancy 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, where he was admitted based on family connections. They hoped he 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 (alternatively, a groundskeeper) into Rabbit Pond, a
man-made lake on campus. Another cites smoking and drinking, combined with poor academic performance and possibly some intemperate comments 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.
Navy
Coming up with no other career options, Bogart followed his love for the sea and enlisted in the United States Navy in the spring of 1918. He recalled later, t
eighteen, war was great stuff. Paris! French girls! Hot damn!20] Bogart is recorded as a model sailor who spent most of his months in the navy after the Armistice was
signed, ferrying troops back from Europe.
Trademark scar
It was during his naval stint that Bogart may have gotten his trademark scar and developed his characteristic lisp, though the actual circumstances are unclear. In one
account, during a shelling of his ship the USS Leviathan, his lip was cut by a piece of shrapnel, although some claim Bogart didn make it to sea until after the
Armistice was signed. Another version, which Bogart's long time friend, author Nathaniel Benchley, claims is the truth, is that Bogart was injured while on assignment
to take a naval prisoner to Portsmouth Naval Prison in Kittery, Maine. Supposedly, while changing trains in Boston, the handcuffed prisoner asked Bogart for a
cigarette and while Bogart looked for a match, the prisoner raised his hands, smashed Bogart across the mouth with his cuffs, cutting Bogart's lip, and fled. The
prisoner was eventually taken to Portsmouth. An alternate explanation is in the process of uncuffing an inmate, Bogart was struck in the mouth when the inmate wielded
one open, uncuffed bracelet while the other side was still on his wrist. According to Darwin Porter's Humphrey Bogart: The Early Years, the scar was caused by his
father, Belmont, during a terrible argument.
By the time Bogart was treated by a doctor, the scar had already formed. "Goddamn doctor," Bogart later told David Niven, "instead of stitching it up, he screwed it
up." Niven says that when he asked Bogart about his scar he said it was caused by a childhood accident; Niven claims the stories that Bogart got the scar during
wartime were made up by the studios to inject glamour. His post-service physical makes no mention of the lip scar even though it mentions many smaller scars, so the
actual cause may have come later. When actress Louise Brooks met Bogart in 1924, he had some scarred tissue on his upper lip, which Belmont Bogart may have partially
repaired before Bogart went into films in 1930. She believes his scar had nothing to do with his distinctive speech pattern, his "lip wound gave him no speech
impediment, either before or after it was mended. Over the years, Bogart practiced all kinds of lip gymnastics, accompanied by nasal tones, snarls, lisps, and slurs.
His painful wince, his leer, his fiendish grin were the most accomplished ever seen on film."
Early career
Bogart returned home to find Belmont was suffering from poor health (perhaps aggravated by morphine addiction), his 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, and he began to rebel
somewhat from their values. He came to be a liberal who hated pretensions, phonies, and snobs, and 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.
More importantly, he 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. A few months later, in 1921, Bogart made his stage debut in Drifting as a Japanese butler in another
Alice Brady play, nervously speaking one line of dialog. Several more appearances followed in her subsequent plays. Bogart liked the late hours actors kept, and
enjoyed the attention an actor got on stage. He stated, was born to be indolent and this was the softest of rackets.
York) and Maud Humphrey (1868 1940). Belmont and Maud were married in June 1898. His father's ancestors were of Dutch, English, and Spanish origin.[citation needed]
Bogart is a Dutch name meaning rchard. His mother's family were largely of English descent and to a lesser extent Welsh.[citation needed] Bogart's father was a
Presbyterian, while his mother was an Episcopalian. Bogart was raised in his mother's faith.
Bogart's birthday has been a subject of controversy. It was long believed that his birthday on Christmas Day 1899, was a Warner Bros. fiction created to romanticize
his background, and that he was really born on January 23, 1899, a date that appears in many references. However, this story is now considered baseless: although no
birth certificate has ever been found, 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.
Childhood
Bogart's father, Belmont, was a surgeon specializing in heart and lungs. His mother, Maud Humphrey, was a commercial illustrator, who received her art training in New
York and France, including study with James McNeill Whistler, and who later became artistic director of the fashion magazine The Delineator. 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, and 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 foughtesulting 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 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 innd the name "Humphrey." From his father, Bogart inherited a tendency for needling people, a fondness for
fishing, a life-long love of sailing, and an attraction to strong-willed women.
Education
The Bogarts sent their son to private schools. Humphrey began school at the Delancy 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, where he was admitted based on family connections. They hoped he 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 (alternatively, a groundskeeper) into Rabbit Pond, a
man-made lake on campus. Another cites smoking and drinking, combined with poor academic performance and possibly some intemperate comments 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.
Navy
Coming up with no other career options, Bogart followed his love for the sea and enlisted in the United States Navy in the spring of 1918. He recalled later, t
eighteen, war was great stuff. Paris! French girls! Hot damn!20] Bogart is recorded as a model sailor who spent most of his months in the navy after the Armistice was
signed, ferrying troops back from Europe.
Trademark scar
It was during his naval stint that Bogart may have gotten his trademark scar and developed his characteristic lisp, though the actual circumstances are unclear. In one
account, during a shelling of his ship the USS Leviathan, his lip was cut by a piece of shrapnel, although some claim Bogart didn make it to sea until after the
Armistice was signed. Another version, which Bogart's long time friend, author Nathaniel Benchley, claims is the truth, is that Bogart was injured while on assignment
to take a naval prisoner to Portsmouth Naval Prison in Kittery, Maine. Supposedly, while changing trains in Boston, the handcuffed prisoner asked Bogart for a
cigarette and while Bogart looked for a match, the prisoner raised his hands, smashed Bogart across the mouth with his cuffs, cutting Bogart's lip, and fled. The
prisoner was eventually taken to Portsmouth. An alternate explanation is in the process of uncuffing an inmate, Bogart was struck in the mouth when the inmate wielded
one open, uncuffed bracelet while the other side was still on his wrist. According to Darwin Porter's Humphrey Bogart: The Early Years, the scar was caused by his
father, Belmont, during a terrible argument.
By the time Bogart was treated by a doctor, the scar had already formed. "Goddamn doctor," Bogart later told David Niven, "instead of stitching it up, he screwed it
up." Niven says that when he asked Bogart about his scar he said it was caused by a childhood accident; Niven claims the stories that Bogart got the scar during
wartime were made up by the studios to inject glamour. His post-service physical makes no mention of the lip scar even though it mentions many smaller scars, so the
actual cause may have come later. When actress Louise Brooks met Bogart in 1924, he had some scarred tissue on his upper lip, which Belmont Bogart may have partially
repaired before Bogart went into films in 1930. She believes his scar had nothing to do with his distinctive speech pattern, his "lip wound gave him no speech
impediment, either before or after it was mended. Over the years, Bogart practiced all kinds of lip gymnastics, accompanied by nasal tones, snarls, lisps, and slurs.
His painful wince, his leer, his fiendish grin were the most accomplished ever seen on film."
Early career
Bogart returned home to find Belmont was suffering from poor health (perhaps aggravated by morphine addiction), his 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, and he began to rebel
somewhat from their values. He came to be a liberal who hated pretensions, phonies, and snobs, and 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.
More importantly, he 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. A few months later, in 1921, Bogart made his stage debut in Drifting as a Japanese butler in another
Alice Brady play, nervously speaking one line of dialog. Several more appearances followed in her subsequent plays. Bogart liked the late hours actors kept, and
enjoyed the attention an actor got on stage. He stated, was born to be indolent and this was the softest of rackets.
No comments:
Post a Comment