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Humphrey Bogart: Roles
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Bogart began his acting career on the Brooklyn stage in 1921, playing a Japanese butler. He never took acting lessons, and had no formal training. An early reviewer wrote of Bogart's work: "To be as kind as possible, we will only say that this actor was inadequate." Bogart loathed the trivial roles he had to play early in his career, calling them "White Pants Willie" roles.
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After several others, including Ronald Reagan, passed on the role, Bogart got his first real romantic lead: playing Rick Blaine, the nightclub owner in Casablanca. Bogart had learned how to convey pain in his eyes, and how to show emotion with subtle shadings of his voice. He was still young but looked like a man who had lived hard.
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[H]is big break came in 1935, when Bogart played the role of Duke Mantee in "Petrified Forest." He headed back to Hollywood once again and successfully recreated this role for a movie there. A contract was signed with Warner Brothers, and Humphrey Bogart was on his way. Not to medical school as his parents dreamed he would one day be, but, rather, he was on his way to being a movie star.
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After his discharge from the Navy, Bogart never took acting lessons, but just started an acting career on the Brooklyn stage in 1921. In 1935 he would act in his last Broadway play The Petrified Forest, a role he would reprise on film in 1936.
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Bogart began his acting career on the stage in 1921. He never took a single acting lesson, never had any formal training. But he was serious about his work, learned his lines quickly, absorbed his role deeply.
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In 1920, established stage actress Alice Brady noticed something special about Bogart and asked her father to hire him. Bogart eventually became a company manager, in charge of a touring play called The 'Ruined' Lady, and earned $50 a week. Neither Bogart nor Alice Brady felt he was suited for the job... and soon she gave him a line to read. Dr. Bogart, upon seeing his son in his first role as a Japanese waiter, leaned over and whispered to a companion, "The boy's good, isn't he?" Critics weren't as quick to ascertain the unique quality that Dr. Bogart and Alice perceived, but it didn't matter. Bogart had decided to become an actor.
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