Humphrey Bogart

His thing was tormented characters. His sad gesture, almost disconcerted from him, his deep and twangy voice and a certain air of very few friends made him the incarnation of the gangster par excellence. But over the years, and over the movies, Bogart would get into the shoes of very diverse characters that would expand his legend to unsuspected extremes.

Humphrey DeForest Bogart was born in New York on Christmas Day 1899. His parents wanted their son to be a doctor and dreamed of him studying at Yale. But something quite different happened: young Humphrey was kicked out of high school, decided books weren’t his thing, and enlisted in the Navy during World War I. From that time dates a wound that would leave his upper lip half paralyzed and that, paradoxes of fate, would give his diction a unique hallmark.

After passing without much success on the Broadway stage, Bogart traveled to Hollywood in search of a career in the cinema. His first steps were difficult until he stood out in a film called The Petrified Forest (1936). From then on he embodied various roles as outlaws or gangsters with grim eyes and bad manners in films directed by directors such as Michael Curtiz or William Wyler . His life changed when Raoul Walsh offered him the leading role in The Last Refuge (1939). There the gangster became the good hero in the hands of an unfortunate fate. But Bogie’s legend would not come until he got into the skin of detective Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon.(1941), directed by a novice named John Huston . Then came Casablanca (1942) and he would never stop being the hard man with a heart of gold, willing to give up his life for the old (and always valid) ideals of always.

Three years later he met what would be the woman of his life, the “skinny” Lauren Bacall from To Have and Have Not (1944). With his later works – The Eternal Dream (1946), Dead End Alley (1947), The Dark Path (1947), Long Key (1948), The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948)… – Bogey further forged his aura of myth living. He later showed his independent and rebellious character: he was a pioneer by setting up his own production company (Santana Pictures) and together with his wife Bacall led the protest against the Witch Hunt.

Among his latest works, it is worth mentioning The African Queen (1951), for which he won the only Oscar of his career, The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Sabrina (1954), The Caine Mutiny (1954) and The Harder Will Be fall (1956), which was his last work before esophageal cancer ended his life on a sad January 14, 1957. Many years have passed since that date and the words that his friend John Huston pronounced in his funeral: “He had the greatest gift a man can have: talent. The whole world came to recognize him… he got from life everything he asked for and even more. We have no reason to pity him; yes to ourselves for having lost him. No one can replace him.”.