Humphrey Bogart: it’s hard to think of anyone who’s had the same lasting impact on the culture of movies. Though he died at the young age of fifty-seven more than half a century ago, his influence among actors and filmmakers, and his enduring appeal for film lovers around the world, remains as strong as ever. What is it about Bogart, with his unconventional looks and noticeable speech impediment, that has captured our collective imagination for so long? In this definitive biography, Stefan Kanfer answers that question, along the way illuminating the private man Bogart was and shining the spotlight on some of the greatest performances ever captured on celluloid. Bogart fell into show business almost by accident and worked for nearly twenty years before becoming the star we know today. Born into a life of wealth and privilege in turn-of-the-century New York, Bogart was a troublemaker throughout his youth, getting kicked out of prep school and running away to join the navy at the age of nineteen. After a short, undistinguished stint at sea, Bogart spent his early twenties drifting aimlessly from one ill-fitting career to another, until, through a childhood friend, he got his first theater job. Working first as a stagehand and then, reluctantly, as a bit-part player, Bogart cut his teeth in one forgettable role after another. But it was here he began to develop a work ethic; deciding that there were “two kinds of men: professionals and bums,” Bogart, for the first time in his life, wanted to be the former. After the Crash of ’29, Bogart headed west to try his luck in Hollywood. That luck was scarce, and he slogged through more than thirty B-movie roles before his drinking buddy John Huston wrote him a part that would change everything; with High Sierra, Bogart finally broke through at the age of forty—being a pro had paid off. What followed was a string of movies we have come to know as the most beloved classics of American cinema: The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Big Sleep, The African Queen . . . the list goes on and on. Kanfer appraises each of the films with an unfailing critical eye, weaving in lively accounts of behind-the-scenes fun and friendships, including, of course, the great love story of Bogart and Bacall. What emerges in these pages is the portrait of a great Hollywood life, and the final word on why there can only ever be one Bogie.

Features photographs from the private archives of the Hollywood icon and includes coverage of his Oscar-winning performance in "The African Queen," his relationship with Lauren Bacall, and the ongoing legacy of "Casablanca."

"Look, I'm hardly pretty, he seems to say. I sound like gravel; I look rough and tough; and, honest, I don't give you the soft, foolish answers the pretty boys will give you. You may not like what I say, but you better believe it." He became a legend as "Bogie," the world-weary, wisecracking outsider, but in reality Humphrey Bogart was plagued by doubts and demons. He was born upper-class yet made his name playing mavericks, drank with the Rat Pack, and met four wives on set—including his great love, Lauren Bacall—yet always mistrusted stardom. Here David Thomson, one of film's most provocative writers, reveals the man behind cinema's greatest icon.

Bogart paints an indelible portrait of a complex man, from the privilege and abuse he experienced in childhood to his triumphant 1935 acting breakthrough in The Petrified Forest to his classic roles as the cynical idealist Rick of Casablanca and the drunken yet lovable Charlie Allnut in The African Queen. Based on more than two hundred interviews, years of research, and documents ranging from Warner Brothers script reports to an extensive FBI file, this is the definitive account of the immortal actor, painted against a backdrop of studio politics during Hollywood’s Golden Age and the witch-hunts of the McCarthy era. Bogart is engrossing and unforgettable—a biography as towering as the legend at its heart.

Biography gives a controversial closeup of a young, hot and horny Bogart, pre-Casablanca, pre-Bacall, pre-African Queen.

In this comprehensive biography of one of the great movie icons of our time, Stefan Kanfer, the acclaimed biographer of Lucille Ball, Groucho Marx, and Marlon Brando, illuminates the life and career of Humphrey Bogart. Along the way, Kanfer gives us a wide-reaching cultural appraisal of the movies many of us know and love as masterpieces of American cinema: The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, To Have and Have Not, and countless others. He appraises each of the films with an unfailing critical eye, weaving in lively accounts of behind-the-scenes fun and friendships, including, of course, the great love story of Bogart and Lauren Bacall. What emerges in these pages is a portrait of a great Hollywood life, and the final word on why there can only ever be one Bogie.