25 December: Humphrey Bogart

US actor Humphrey Bogart was born on Christmas Day 1899. 10 things you might not know about him:

1. Although he was born on Christmas Day, it was once put about that he was born on January 23, and the studios had thought up the Christmas Day birthday for reasons best known to themselves. Other sources say it was the studios who’d preferred people to think he was born in January as a villain born on Christmas Day didn’t seem right to them.
2. Bogart was the son of a Heart surgeon. His mother, Maud Humphrey, was an illustrator whose family arrived in America on the Mayflower. Her illustrations were actually more lucrative than heart surgery, so she earned more money than her husband did. It’s sometimes said that Maud created the image of the Gerber Baby and based it on the infant Humphrey. That, however, is an urban myth. That said, she did produce a baby character for Gerber’s competitors, Mellin, which probably was based on Humphrey.
3. The late Princess Diana was Bogart’s ninth cousin, once removed. This was on his mother’s side, through American colonialist Thomas Woodford, one of Maud Humphrey’s ancestors.
4. At 18, Bogart joined the Navy, serving towards the end of WWI. He’s said to have thoroughly enjoyed his time in the Navy and it left him with a lifelong love of sailing. He owned a yacht, Santana, which he offered as a reserve vessel to the US Coast Guard. It’s possible that the scar on his upper lip dates from this time. He was escorting a prisoner of war when the prisoner hit him with his shackles. According to Bogie himself, it was from a childhood accident, and rumours abound that he got it in a fight. However he sustained the injury, it’s also said that it was the reason for his lisp, although since Bogart’s son also has a lisp, that is probably genetic.
5. His first film was Broadway’s Like That, a short film made in 1930. Unfortunately, the soundtrack has been lost, so it’s no longer possible to hear the first words Bogart uttered on screen.
6. He was a keen Chess player, and pretty good at it, too, by all accounts. Before he became a star, he’d challenge the professional chess players shops used to hire to entertain customers, and often beat them. In fact, one shop offered him a position as chess player, but Bogart turned it down, because he made more money from being the challenger. Later, during WWII, when he was too old to enlist, he used to play games of chess with the troops, by mail. He was even known to have taken US Chess Champion Samuel Reshevsky to a draw. It’s said, too, that it was his idea to portray Casablanca’s Rick as a chess player.
7. He married four times, and all his wives were actresses. The first was Helen Menken, who he met while he was a stage actor. The marriage ended in divorce after less than two years, although the couple remained friends. His second wife was Mary Philips and his third was Mayo Methot. Both these marriages were somewhat rocky. Hollywood insiders referred to Bogart and Methot as “the Battling Bogarts.” Methot was sure he was cheating on her with Ingrid Bergman while they were making Casablanca, although in reality the co-stars barely spoke. Methot was so jealous that she had him followed by a private detective. When Bogart worked out he was being tailed, he called the investigation agency. “Hello, this is Humphrey Bogart,” he allegedly said. “You’ve got a man on my tail. Would you check with him and tell me where I am?” His most famous match, however, was with Lauren Bacall, who was 20 years younger than he was.
8. Their partnership is so well known that there’s even an illness named after them. Bogart-Bacall Syndrome is an ailment that actors, public speakers and singers are prone to, in which fatigue of the vocal chords gives them a hoarse and raspy voice, just like these two actors had. Whether Humphrey Bogart suffered from it himself we don’t know – his raspy voice could have been down to his smoking and drinking. He made a point of smoking as much as possible while filming the Maltese Falcon, simply to wind up Jack Warner, only stopping when Warner threatened to fire him. His liking for Whiskey, however, meant that when most of the cast and crew of The African Queen went down with dysentery after drinking dodgy water on location in the Congo, Bogart was fine.
9. While many would say Casablanca was the greatest film Bogart ever made, he didn’t agree. Orson Welles claimed that Bogart had told him he thought it was his worst.
10. He died of cancer in January 1957. His last words were allegedly “I should have never switched from scotch to martinis.” At his funeral, Lauren Bacall placed a small gold whistle in his coffin, referring to the famous line she said in their first movie together: ‘You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and… blow’.

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