Both Hollywood stars and Hollywood stars exist. Some people become obscenely wealthy and well-known, but others become legends. There have been many of them throughout history, but no one can dispute that Humphrey Bogart is one of the best.
A performer who made pretty much anything he touched into gold, the American stage and movie actor is regarded as one of the most enduring stars ever.
He built a family while accumulating accolades and honors for his trophy case. Son Stephen Humphrey Bogart, who still upholds his father’s legacy, was one of his offspring. However, the truth is that he discovered how famous his father was after the man had been buried.
Hollywood has produced several illustrious actors whose names will live on forever. There has been one for every generation and decade, whether it was Paul Newman, John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, or Audrey Hepburn.
All of these recognizable movie stars made contributions that helped the following generation of actors and actresses decide their destinies. However, few had the same impact on the film and entertainment industry as Humphrey Bogart.
The American actor appeared in several of the most well-known movies ever and had a career starring in more than 80 movies.
Among the iconic roles he played is Linus Larrabee in Sabrina (co-starring with Audrey Hepburn), Dixon Steele in In A Lonely Place, and of course, Rick Blaine, the nightclub owner in the great Casablanca, co-starring with the lovely Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund.
The actor was Humphrey Bogart’s calling from the start.
Humphrey Bogart had the resources to develop his unique style when he was born to a prosperous New York family on December 25, 1899, in New York City.
His mother was a successful painter and the artistic director of a women’s fashion magazine named The Delineator, while his father was a well-known heart surgeon.
Humphrey Bogart’s mother painted him while he was a newborn at a baby food company, and his image appeared in a widespread marketing campaign.
He was a big star even though he was still in diapers.
As Biography reported, he remarked, “There was a time in American history when you couldn’t pick up a goddamn magazine without seeing my kisser in it.”
Despite being a hard-working woman, Humphrey’s mother didn’t particularly enjoy her son, according to Humphrey.
“If, when I was a grownup, I had sent my mom one of those Mother’s Day telegrams or said it with flowers, she would have returned the wire and flowers to me, collect,” he added.
After several unsuccessful attempts to enroll in various elite institutions and a brief time in the US Navy during World War I, Bogart succeeded in the entertainment industry courtesy of a theatrical actress named Alice Brady. He served as the company manager for The Ruined Lady’s touring production before making his theatrical debut in Drifting a year later.
Humphrey Bogart was at a point in his career where acting was all he wanted to do. He was still in New York but knew he needed to relocate to Los Angeles since he was interested in the film industry. His struggle to land significant roles during the following ten years was challenging. Then, when he played the escaped murderer Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest in 1934, everything changed.
Bogart would always stay as he advanced toward prominence.
Humphrey became an actor that everyone wished they could use in their movies. He appeared in several gangster films, including King of the Underworld (1939), Dead End (1937), and The Great O’Malley (1937).
Although each of these parts shared a familiar premise, Bogart didn’t find playing the same kind of character challenging because he was looking for something greater. He eventually started down the path to legendary status when he appeared in the classic The Maltese Falcon in 1941.
The year after, Bogart and Ingrid Bergman co-starred in Casablanca, which went on to become one of the all-time great movies. Nobody can ever forget Bogart’s now-famous final statement in the movie, “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Three Academy Awards were given to Casablanca for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Director. Bogart was a prominent figure in Hollywood at that point.
The renowned actor worked in Hollywood for over two decades before receiving his first Academy Award in 1952 for his role in The African Queen.
Bogart also met the love of his life at about the same time. He wed the actress Lauren Bacall in 1945. After working together in the 1944 movie To Have and Have Not, they starred in four films. They had two kids together: Leslie Howard Bogart, born in 1952, and Stephen Humphrey Bogart, born in 1949.
But in 1957, catastrophe struck the entertainment industry after more than three decades in the industry.
When he had a terrible cough the previous year, in 1956, Bogart went to the doctor recommended by Greer Carson, a fellow actor, and coworker. He had been a smoker for a while, so it wasn’t particularly strange, but this time seemed different.
As Lauran Bacall noted in her memoir, “Sometimes his throat burned when he drank orange juice.”
She remembered that he appeared to be an entirely different person, with his hand and arm “swollen to four times their normal size” and having something “terrible black thing placed in his mouth to keep him from swallowing his tongue.”
Bogart ended up needing urgent surgery because his irritated esophagus was discovered to be the cause. Sadly, he never bounced back. Humphrey Bogart, who was 58 years old, passed suddenly on January 15, 1957. His doctor, Dr. Michael Flynn, informed the Detroit Free Press that just before he passed away in his Los Angeles home, he placed his hand on his wife, Lauren Bacall, and muttered, “Goodbye, kid.”
How was a body supposed to handle that? Bacall enquired. “Oh, poor baby, what was the state of the body under the blanket with all those tubes and bottles?” He appeared pretty different from Bogie — thankfully still unconscious, encased in a different reality, and guarded not by me but by those raised bedside rails, with those bottles and tubes sustaining life.
Many famous people attended Humphrey Bogart’s All Saints Episcopal Church funeral service, including Audrey Hepburn, Judy Garland, Ronald Reagan, Bette Davis, Joan Fontaine, Marlene Dietrich, and Errol Flynn. At Glendale, California, his ashes were scattered at the Columbarium of Eternal Light in Forest Lawn Memorial Park.
It was a significant shock to the entertainment industry. Of course, the loss of their adored father and husband was unbearable for Bogart’s family.
However, his son Stephen Humphrey Bogart is trying to honor his late father. The truth is that Stephen didn’t know his father was one of the world’s biggest movie stars when he was a child.
And when you look at Stephen nowadays, you can’t help but notice how much he looks like his father.
Stephen Humphrey Bogart was just eight years old when his father passed away. But it was enough time for him to experience the affection of a loving father who never put anything else before him.
On January 6, 1949, Stephen was born in Los Angeles, California.
Stephen Humphrey didn’t see his father a lot as a child because he was constantly working on a movie project. However, he has many happy recollections of the things they did together.
“He would take me down to the Santana,” he told Fox News. “Eventually, we would go out on the boat after I could swim. I can still picture swimming from Catalina Island to the Santana. He was pleased with me because he knew I could swim, and I succeeded. Such a sense of pride endures.
Humphrey Bogart cherished having dinner with his wife whenever he got home.
It was the 1950s, Stephen remembers, “when kids were seen, not heard.” “Parents ate dinner with the adults; at least my mother and father did. They were in love, nevertheless. They worked well together. They were a married couple.
Growing up without knowing what your parents do for a living is not the simplest thing. Of course, it might be simpler to understand if your father is a well-known Hollywood actor.
Yet Stephen Humphrey never realized that he had a father whose image was well-known on a global scale.
No, I wasn’t. That’s not how they raised me, he said.
“When you experience that as a child, your family becomes yours. Your family consists of your mother and father; you still receive time out as they bicker with you. You then struggle and yell, “No, mom!” You grow up with Art Linkletter and Sammy Cahn on the other side of the street. Judy Garland, Joey, Lorna Luft, and Liza Minnelli resided nearby. Behind us, Gloria Grahame lived. They are, therefore, just like buddies and parents while you are around them—nothing exceptional about it.
Stephen first recognized something special about his father after his father went away. It was unexpected.
According to Bogart, there were 3,000 people at his father’s burial that he didn’t know. “I assumed there was a difference. And there undoubtedly was.
Stephen had started to notice that something was off just a few days before the funeral.
With cameras following the Bogart family everywhere, having a very well-known father was a burden.
According to Stephen, “They came at me like a gang of big kids, taking my picture without even asking,” The New York Times.
“I no longer wanted my photo taken. I realized that I could stop them at the church after the funeral. To prevent them from seeing me, I would just put my hands over my face, and they would refrain from taking my photo.
But shortly, his picture appeared in newspapers throughout the nation. His life would never be the same, and he would have to deal with the responsibility of having a renowned father. He and his mother initially resided in England before relocating to New York City. But no matter where he was, it was challenging being the renowned son of Humphrey Bogart.
After briefly turning to drugs, Stephen was expelled from many colleges. He received his degree from the University of Hartford in 1979.
Regardless of the past, Stephen carried on his father’s legacy. Later, he became a news department executive at NBC before working as a producer for Sunday Today. In addition, he served as executive producer on four movies, the most recent being White Orchid in 2018.
Stephen Humphrey Bogart dedicates his time to simultaneously keeping his father’s work alive. Along with volunteering and esophageal cancer awareness campaigns, he has worked with the Esophageal Cancer Action Network.
He founded the Humphrey Bogart Estate Facebook Page with his managing partner Robert, with more than 500,000 likes.
Stephen told Cinema-Fanatic, “We administer the estate, my father’s name and likeness, Bogart LLC. “I have a significant role in that. We communicate once a week and try our best to keep everything running, and Warner Bros. is a big help.
At this point, Stephen Humphrey Bogart is 71 years old. He claims that using words to describe his father’s legacy is impossible. However, after a few very trying years following Humphrey’s passing, he also values being his son.
“People often ask, ‘What do you think about that?’ According to Stephen Humphrey Bogart, you cannot describe it.
“Wonderful writing and wonderful movies. He was a fantastic performer, and everything fell into place. It’s like being the child of Elvis Presley. How would you measure that? You truly can’t. The fact that my mum and father are my mother and father is wonderful to me. You know, like, “Oh, you’re Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall’s kid?” Although I don’t have that opinion, it is incredible that I am their child.
Humphrey Bogart will always be remembered for being a great actor. At the same time, we appreciate his son Stephen for continuing his father’s legacy.
To honor Humphrey Bogart, please tell your friends and family about this.
