Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey Bogart is one of the greatest movie icons to have ever graced the big screen, starring in in the likes of Casablanca, Africa Queen and The Maltese Falcon.

In a career that spanned over thirty years he made a massive seventy five feature films moving from the heist movie genre to war and romance.

And while Bogart is one of the greatest actors to ever grace the silver screen it's hard to believe that he just received one Oscar for his efforts.

He struggled to get big roles during the thirties and eventually made an impact with The Petrified forest in 1936.

But it was to be High Sierra five years later that was to be his big breakthrough.

Bogart plays a violent criminal just released from prison who knows he's got just one more job in him. An aging gang boss wants Bogart to lead a jewel heist at a resort.

He followed this up with The Maltese Falcon and cemented himself as one of the great new leading men in Hollywood at the time.

The film was well received by the critics and went on to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. And today over sixty five years after it's release it is still widely considered one of the greatest movies of all time.

But it's the role of Rick Blaine that Bogart still remains famous for in romance and war movie Casablanca.

Casablanca proved to be Bogart's catapult to stardom as he was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar as well as becoming the highest paid actor in the world.

The film has become one of the greatest movies of all time making Bogart a cinematic icon.

Throughout the rest of the decade he went on to have a successful on screen partnership with Lauren Bacall as they starred together in To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948), they went on to marry.

Bogart finally won an Oscar in 1951 for his role as Charlie Allnut in The African Queen, a performance many consider his best.

The film was also nominated for Best Actress for Katharine Hepburn, Best Director, for John Huston and Best Adapted Screenplay.

But by the late fifties Bogart's health was poor due to being a heavy smoker and drinker and he suffered from cancer of the oesophagus.

But even after an operation to remove his oesophagus, a rib and two lymph nodes and a course of chemotherapy he passed away on January 14th 1957 at the age of fifty seven.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw


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