Breaking Walls

On Wednesday March 12th, 1952 at 9:30PM eastern time, Bogie and Bacall guest-starred on Bing Crosby’s CBS Chesterfield Show.

Two days later, Bogart’s next film, Deadline – U.S.A premiered in New York City. Bogie plays Ed Hutcheson, a newspaper editor who exposes a gangster's crimes, while also trying to reconcile with his ex-wife. His performance was well-received.

Bogart and Bacall’s appearance on The Bing Crosby Show pulled a rating of 9.1.

On August 23rd, 1952 Lauren Bacall gave birth to their second child, a daughter, Leslie Howard Bogart, named in honor of actor Leslie Howard who got Bogart his first major film role in The Petrified Forest.

The next day Bogart spoke to George Fisher about the experience. Both were soon back working as Bogart made Battle Circus and Bacall made How To Marry a Millionaire.

Bogart’s next big role and final Academy Award nomination came in an adaptation of Herman Wouk’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1951 novel, The Caine Mutiny. Bogart plays Captain Queeg.

In 1954 Bogart starred opposite Audrey Hepburn and the just-heard William Holden in Billy Wilder’s Sabrina. Bogart and Holden are brothers — Linus and David Larabee, competing for the love of Sabrina Fairchild.

Bogart agreed to it on a handshake with Wilder, although the script wasn’t finished. It was not a happy set. Bogart didn’t get along with Holden nor Hepburn, and didn’t like Wilder’s hands-on approach. There were also numerous last-minute script changes. Bogart later said “I got sick and tired of who gets Sabrina.” But the film proved to be a hit. The New York Times particularly praised Bogart's performance.

In the mid-1950s Bogart and Bacall’s social circle began to be jokingly known as the "Holmby Hills Rat Pack." The original members included Frank Sinatra, pack master; Judy Garland, first vice-president; Sid Luft, Judy’s husband, the cage master; agent Swifty Lazar, recording secretary; novelist Nathaniel Benchley pack historian; and Bacall, den mother.

Bogart simultaneously made The Barefoot Contessa opposite Rita Hayworth and Sinatra’s ex-wife Ava Gardner. Then in 1955 he made We’re No Angels, The Left Hand of God, and The Desperate Hours.

Just before Christmas in 1955, Bogart was honored with a roast at the Friar’s Club. But by then Bogart’s persistent cough and difficulty eating became too serious to ignore. He went for a battery of tests in January of 1956. The results were bleak: He had esophageal cancer.

He still managed to make his final film, The Harder They Fall opposite Rod Steiger. Bogart plays a newspaper man turned boxing PR writer, bent on exposing the corruption he sees. Critics gave the film, and his performance, especially considering his condition glowing reviews. This is the last scene Humphrey Bogart ever did in any film.

On March 1st, 1956 Humphrey Bogart had surgery to remove his esophagus, two lymph nodes and a rib. It was unsuccessful. Chemotherapy followed. He had another surgery in November. Although he became too weak to walk up and down stairs, he joked despite the pain: "Put me in the dumbwaiter and I'll ride down to the first floor in style.

Frank Sinatra, Katharine Hepburn, and Spencer Tracy visited him on January 13th, 1957. In a later interview, Hepburn said:

Spence patted him on the shoulder and said, "Goodnight, Bogie." Bogie turned his eyes to Spence very quietly and with a sweet smile covered Spence's hand with his own and said, "Goodbye, Spence." Spence's heart stood still. He understood.

Bogart lapsed into a coma and died the following day, January 14th, 1957, twenty days after his fifty-seventh birthday. At the time of his death he weighed only eighty pounds.

His funeral was held at All Saints Episcopal Church. It seemed like all of Hollywood came to mourn his passing. Spencer Tracy was to give the eulogy, but he was too moved to do so. John Huston spoke instead.

In 1951 Humphrey Bogart once again partnered with John Huston on an adaptation of C. S. Forester’s 1935 novel The African Queen.

Bogart plays the rough-and-ready Canadian mechanic Charlie Allnut, whose coarse behavior is barely tolerated by Katharine Hepburn’s Rose Sayer and her brother, Robert Morley’s Reverend Samuel Sayer.

The film takes place in German East Africa in August 1914 as Charlie is hired to take the Sayers and their goods to be delivered on his small steamboat, The African Queen.

When Charlie warns the Sayers that war has broken out between Germany and Britain, they choose to remain in Kungdu, only to witness German colonial troops burn down the village and press villagers into service. When Samuel protests, he’s struck by a soldier and soon becomes delirious with fever, dying shortly afterward. Charlie helps Rose bury her brother and escape in the African Queen.

Much of the film was shot on location in Uganda and the Congo in Africa. This was unusual for the time. The cast and crew endured sickness from the food, water, and hot conditions. Bogart later joked that he and Huston were the only members of the cast and crew who escaped illness, which he credited to having drunk whiskey on location rather than the water.

The African Queen premiered on December 26th, 1951 at the Fox Wilshire Theatre in Beverly Hills the day after Christmas and the day after Bogart’s fifty-first birthday.

The African Queen debuted just in time to qualify for the 1952 Academy Awards, which turned out to be of utmost significance for Humphrey Bogart. Promising friends that if he won his speech would break the convention of thanking everyone in sight, he was instead modest and subdued.

The kid from Manhattan that disappointed his parents and never took an acting lesson in his life was, at that moment, the best lead actor of the year. Bogart himself considered his role in The African Queen his finest performance.

On January 6th, 1949 Lauren Bacall gave birth to their first child, Stephen Humphrey Bogart, named in honor of his character in To Have and Have Not.

Meanwhile Bogart made Knock on Any Door and Tokyo Joe for his Santana Productions company. Both were moderately panned by critics. In 1950 he made Chain Lightning for Warner Brothers and In A Lonely Place for Santana.

In A Lonely Place sees Bogart star as Dixon Steele, a troubled, violence-prone screenwriter suspected of murder. Gloria Grahame co-stars as Laurel Gray, his neighbor who soon falls for Dix.

The film is considered among Bogart’s best and perhaps a character with personality traits most like the real man. It was among a trio of films released that year, along with Sunset Boulevard and All About Eve, which comment on the dark side of Hollywood. Simultaneously, Bogart and Bacall looked for a vehicle on radio for their talents.

Santana Productions partnered with the Frederic W. Ziv Company to develop a series called Bold Venture. It would be written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin, who famously wrote for Broadway is My Beat and Crime Classics.

Bogart had long interest in starring in his own series, but had resisted due to the constraints of live radio. By 1950, due to widespread transcription, that was no longer an issue. He could do the show in takes and have music and sound effects added later. Three or four shows a week could be done, leaving Bogart and Bacall free for the rest of the year.

Bogart plays Slate Shannon, hotel owner and owner of a boat called the "Bold Venture." Bacall, plays Sailor Duval, and Jester Hairson plays calypso singer King Moses. Shannon, based out of Havana, is always ready to rescue a friend in need or hunt down an enemy.

Seventy-eight thirty minute shows were produced. The first show aired on March 26th, 1951.

The Ziv Company distributed the series, putting up twelve-thousand dollars per episode. Bogart and Bacall were each paid four-thousand-dollars per show.

Four-hundred twenty-three stations bought the series, paying weekly fees to Ziv ranging from fifteen dollars for small stations to seven-hundred-fifty dollars for big ones. Newsweek noted that although the series was set in Havana, it could just have easily been in Casablanca.

While the series was first airing, the Bogarts were in Africa. Humphrey was set to star opposite Kathryn Hepburn in The African Queen.

In 1947 Humphrey Bogart signed a new Warner Brothers contract. It gave him limited script refusal and the right to form his own production company. He and Bacall soon made the thriller Dark Passage based on the 1946 novel of the same name by David Goodis. Critics gave the film, and Bogart’s performance mixed reviews, but generally praised Bacall and the cinematography.

On the eve of Thanksgiving, as NBC broadcast News of the World with Morgan Beatty, the United States was a country in transition.

World War two had created fundamental changes in society. While men of all races and creeds were overseas spilling the same colored blood, women had taken charge of the workforce. When veterans collected enough points for an honorable discharge, they returned home with different ideals, and what we’d now call PTSD.

As new cars, roads, and homes brought young families to the suburbs, racial discrimination came to the forefront in the face of the G.I. Bill, where a much higher percentage of white Americans were having their applications accepted.

Americans were organizing. In the year after VJ Day, more than five million struck for better wages and benefits. This debilitated key sectors of the economy and stifled production. Consumer goods were slow to appear on shelves and in showrooms, frustrating Americans who desperately wanted to purchase items they’d forsaken during the war.

It caused the largest inflation rise in the country’s modern history, and the Taft-Hartley Act, limiting the power of Labor Unions.

President Truman was seemingly at odds with Congress over every domestic policy and his approval rating sank to thirty-two percent.

The U.S. War Debt topped $240 Billion. Because the nation emerged as one of the world’s leaders, America was expected to have the largest hand in rebuilding Europe.

On the eve of Thanksgiving, news outlets reported that in order to stabilize Europe, Americans should be ready to resume sacrifices they made during the war. Not agreeing to do so could result in political enemies taking over the continent.

The changing world stoked people’s fears. Anti-communism was abound. On Monday November 24th, The House Committee on Un-American Activities declared a list of ten "unfriendly witnesses" who’d refused to answer questions about alleged communist influence in Hollywood.

Bogart, who’d been questioned and cleared the first time the committee came to Hollywood, organized the Committee for the First Amendment. He felt HUAC was abusing its power, harassing writers and actors, and went to Washington to state his case.

Bogart was later forced to recant to counter negative publicity. He wrote an article for Photoplay Magazine. Entitled “I’m No Communist,” he said, “the ten men cited for contempt by HUAC weren’t defended by us."

Part of the reason for the article was Head of Warner Brothers Jack Warner, who was the first person to volunteer testimony before HUAC in September of 1947.

Bogart’s next Warner Brothers film, The Treasure of The Sierra Madre, was to be written and directed by John Huston.

Huston and Bogart were liberal democrats, but they knew better than to commit career suicide. The film was critically praised, but ticket sales were lukewarm. It received four Oscar nominations, winning three — Best Supporting Actor for Walter Huston, and Best Director and Best Screenplay for John Huston.

It’s been long-held that Bogart should have been nominated as best actor, but his involvement against HUAC led to the snub. The Lux Radio Theatre adapted The Treasure of The Sierra Madre on April 18th, 1949.

Later in 1948 Bogart and Bacall made Key Largo with Edward G. Robinson, and Bogart formed Santana Productions. One of its early missions was to develop a radio series for the couple.

Bogart and Bacall moved into a white brick mansion in Holmby Hills, and he bought a fifty-five foot yacht called the Santana from Dick Powell, spending about thirty weekends each year on the water.

With World War II over, Bogart wanted to do more radio. On September 17th, 1945 he hosted an audition for a new mystery/thriller program called Humphrey Bogart Presents.

Meanwhile Bogart and Bacall were on screen together again in 1946, this time in an adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe novel, The Big Sleep.

During World War II, comedy, drama, news, and variety dominated the radio dial, but after the war, detective shows gained network popularity as programming shifted to smaller studios. They were considered a good deal for advertisers.

Although Bill Spier was entrenched at CBS, he still had ties with his old agency BBD&O, as well as with Lawrence White, Dashiel Hammett’s literary agent.

Both ABC and CBS wanted to bring The Adventures of Sam Spade to the air. Initially, everyone wanted Bogart to be the star.

Even with Bogart’s drawbacks, it was assumed no other actor could fill Spade’s shoes. Auditions were held in April of 1946. Enter Howard Duff. An audition was recorded on May 1st.

In June, Wildroot officially signed on as sponsor. Spade would make its debut in July over ABC’s airwaves. Not to be outdone, on July 2nd, CBS broadcast an episode of Academy Award adapting “The Maltese Falcon.” Humphrey Bogart reprised his role. We heard the opening portion earlier in this episode of Breaking Walls, here’s the close.

Meanwhile on October 14th, 1946 Bogart and Bacall reprised their roles from To Have and Have Not for The Lux Radio Theatre. The next January 5th, 1947, Bogart and Lauren Bacall were guests on The Jack Benny Program.

In 1943 and 1944 Bogart went on War effort tours with his third wife Mayo Methot, making trips to Italy and North Africa. He produced shorts for The American Red Cross effort and the Victory Bond drive. The relationship with Mayo was strained. She accused Bogart of having an affair with Ingrid Bergman during the filming of Casablanca. Bergman later remembered that Bogart barely spoke to her off camera, let alone had an affair.

Back stateside, Bogart was cast as Steve Morgan for an adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not.

In casting "Slim" Browning, Howard Hawks’ wife Nancy Keith saw a Harper’s Bazaar cover that featured an eighteen year-old model and actress named Betty Joan Perske. Hawks immediately signed her to a contract. She’d soon change her name to Lauren Bacall.

Mayo Methot had long accused Bogart of affairs with all his co-stars, something he’d actually never done. When Bogie and Bacall met, he was attracted to her outspoken personality, poise, looks, and long, lean figure.

Bogart kept Bacall at ease during filming and their chemistry was apparent from the beginning, with their twenty-five year age difference creating a mentor-student acting dynamic.

At first Bogart made sure his meetings with her were discreet and brief. They wrote heart-felt letters and made sure to be publicly professional, while Bogart encouraged her to steal scenes, delighting Howard Hawks. But when Hawks realized there was more to their chemistry than friendship, he disapproved of the affair.

The film premiered on October 11th, 1944 while Bogart refused to stop seeing Bacall. His marriage to Mayo Methot was finally over. He filed for divorce in February of 1945.

The next month, Bogart appeared on the Thursday March 8th 1945 episode of Suspense in Bill Spier’s production of “Love’s Lovely Counterfeit” at 8PM eastern time. This episode had a rating of 13.6, winning its time slot against NBC’s Frank Morgan Show. Playing opposite Bogart was Lurene Tuttle.

Bogart and Lauren Bacall married in a small ceremony at the country home of Bogart's close friend, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louis Bromfield, on May 21st, 1945.

On August 30th, the couple appeared with Frank Sinatra on Command Performance.

In 1941, Warner Brothers story editor Irene Diamond was in New York when she discovered the script to an un-produced play called Everybody Comes to Rick’s. She convinced Hal Wallis to buy the rights to the script in January of 1942 for twenty-thousand dollars.

The project was renamed Casablanca. Humphrey Bogart was cast as 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.

Ingrid Bergman was cast opposite Bogart with Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Paul Henreid, Peter Lorre, and Dooley Wilson in supporting roles.

Michael Curtiz directed. Principal photography began on May 25th, 1942. The film was shot entirely at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, California, with the exception of one sequence at Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles.

As Ingrid Bergman mentioned in an interview with the CBC, no one involved with Casablanca’s production expected it to be good. It was rushed to take advantage of the publicity from the Allied invasion of North Africa and had its world premiere on November 26th, 1942, in New York City. It was nationally released on January 23rd, 1943.

But Casablanca quickly became iconic. Many exiled and cause-sympathetic film actors appeared in cameos, including Helmut Dantine, Dan Seymour, Madeleine Lebeau, Frank Puglia, Jack Benny, Marcel Dalio, Leonid Kinskey, Torben Meyer, Ilka Grünig, Ludwig Stössel, and Wolfgang Zilzer.

A witness to the filming of the "duel of the anthems" sequence said he saw many of the actors crying because they knew that they were all real-life refugees.

The film was nominated for eight Oscars, including Bogart for best actor, and Casablanca won best picture, best direction, and best adapted screenplay at the 1943 Academy awards.

On April 26th, 1943, six weeks after the awards, the Screen Guild Theater broadcast an adaptation of the film.

Humphrey Bogart’s film success led to more radio appearances on comedy programs, giving Bogie the chance to show off his comedic timing. On June 3rd, 1941 Bogart appeared on The Bob Hope Show. The program had a rating of 25.3.

The next February, Bogart appeared on The Jack Benny Program. Benny and Bogart had tremendous natural chemistry.

Years later, Bogart was talking to friend and columnist George Fisher about the top ten characters he’d met through the years. John Barrymore was one Bogart mentioned. That one time Bogart met Barrymore was on the February 19th, 1942 episode of The Rudy Vallée Show. John Barrymore passed away three months later.

As the 1940s got underway, bringing the U.S. closer to World War II, Humphrey Bogart drifted socially and professionally. That year he made four films: Virginia City, It All Came True, Brother Orchid, and They Drive By Night.

On Sunday January 7th, 1940 at 7:30PM eastern time over CBS, he reprised his role of Duke Mantee in a Screen Guild Theater adaptation of The Petrified Forest.

The Screen Guild Theater drew several Hollywood stars a week for radio adaptations. First taking to the air on January 8th, 1939 for Gulf Oil, all fees that would normally go to stars instead were given to the Motion Picture Relief Fund. This money was used to build and maintain the Motion Picture Country House: forty bungalow units for housing aging and needy film stars.

By the summer of 1942 almost eight-hundred-thousand-dollars had been raised. This episode’s rating was a 13. Roughly nine million listeners tuned in.

In late 1940, John Huston was adapting a script for a new film, High Sierra. Produced by Mark Hellinger and directed by Raoul Walsh, Paul Muni, George Raft, James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson all turned down the lead role, much to the delight of Huston.

The character gave Bogart the chance to show his range. Finally playing someone with depth, the film was Bogart's career breakthrough, transforming him from supporting player to leading man. He played opposite Ida Lupino.

The film's success also led to a breakthrough for Huston, giving him the leverage needed to transition from screenwriter to director, setting Bogart up for Huston’s next project: an adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon.

The Maltese Falcon was Huston’s directorial debut. Although a pre-code version of the film had been made ten years earlier, the 1941 version with Bogart starring as private detective Sam Spade was considered an instant classic film noir. Complementing Bogart were co-stars Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Mary Astor, and Elisha Cook Jr.

Bogart's sharp timing and facial expressions were praised as vital to the film's quick action and hard-boiled dialogue. It was a commercial hit, and Bogart was unusually happy with the film. He later said, "It’s practically a masterpiece. I don't have many things I'm proud of, but that's one."

The film was nominated for three Academy Awards, including best picture and best direction. Bogart reprised his role on the July 3rd, 1946 episode of Academy Award Theater.

Despite his success in The Petrified Forest, Bogart signed a tepid twenty-six-week contract at five-hundred-fifty dollars per week. He was immediately typecast as a gangster in a series of B movie crime dramas.

He played a supporting role in Bullets or Ballots released in 1936. Bogart reprised the role of Bugs Fenner on the Monday April 17th, 1939 episode of The Lux Radio Theatre opposite Edward G. Robinson, Mary Astor, and Otto Kruger. It aired at 10PM eastern time on CBS.

Lux was Monday night’s highest-rated and CBS’s highest-rated show of the 1938-39 season. This episode’s rating was 21.1. Roughly fourteen million listeners tuned in.

Cecil B. DeMille was introduced at the beginning of every episode as producer, but was actually a well-paid front man. His duties were reading the scripted introductions to each act and commercial-laden interviews with the stars at the end of each show. The real man behind the program was the J. Walter Thompson agency’s Danny Danker.

Each show was a five day commitment beginning with a Thursday table read. Rehearsals were Friday, run-throughs with sound effects on Saturday, and Sunday had readings with sound and orchestra.

The first dress rehearsal on Monday morning was recorded for director Frank Woodruff’s final critique. A final dress rehearsal was held with an audience at 4:30, and the broadcast aired live at 6:00 PM Pacific Time.

But, Warner Brothers had no interest in raising Bogart's profile. Their studios were often unairconditioned. He thought the Warner’s wardrobe department was cheap, and often wore his own suits. His jobs were tightly scheduled and repetitive, but he worked steadily. He played wrestling promoters, gangsters, a scientist, and a few good men dragged into bad situations they didn’t deserve to be in.

Bogart and his second wife Mary divorced in 1937. He married actress Mayo Methot on August 21st, 1938. It was an unhappy one filled with outbursts and mutual violence. The press called them "the Battling Bogarts."

Dissatisfied with his work, Bogart rarely watched his own films and avoided premieres. He issued fake press releases about his life to satisfy public curiosity. When interviewed in person, he was too candid, later saying “All over Hollywood, they advise me, ‘Oh, you mustn't say that. That will get you in a lot of trouble’, when I remark that some picture or writer or director or producer is no good.

“I don't get it. If he isn't any good, why can't I say so? If more people would mention it, pretty soon it might start having some effect. The idea that anyone making a thousand dollars a week is sacred and beyond the realm of criticism never strikes me as particularly sound.”

Bogart made twenty-nine films between 1936 and 1940, developing his now-famous film persona—cynical, self-mocking, vulnerable, charming, and above all, a loner with a code of honor.

It was his two next roles, however, both with John Huston, that would catapult him into A-list status.