Ethel Barrymore
Ethel Barrymore, 1896
Born	Ethel Mae Blythe (1879-08-15)August 15, 1879 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died	June 18, 1959(1959-06-18) (aged 79) Los Angeles, California
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1895–1957
Spouse	Russel Griswold Colt (m.1909-1923; divorced)

Ethel Barrymore (August 15, 1879 – June 18, 1959) was an American actress and a member of the Barrymore family of actors.^[1]

Early life[link]

Ethel Barrymore was born Ethel Mae Blythe in Philadelphia, the second child of the actors Maurice Barrymore (whose real name was Herbert Blythe) and Georgiana Drew. Named after her father’s favorite character—Ethel in William Makepeace Thackeray’s The Newcomes—she was one of the twentieth century’s most elegant, beautiful and gifted actresses.

She was the sister of actors John Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore, the aunt of actor John Drew Barrymore, and the great-aunt of actress Drew Barrymore. She was also the niece of Broadway matinée idol John Drew Jr and early Vitagraph movie star Sidney Drew.

She spent her childhood in Philadelphia, and attended Roman Catholic schools there.

Career[link]

Ethel Barrymore was a highly regarded stage actress in New York City and a major Broadway performer. Many today consider her to be the greatest actress of her generation.

Her first appearance in Broadway was in 1895, in a play called The Imprudent Young Couple which starred her uncle John Drew, Jr. and Maude Adams. She appeared with Drew and Adams again in 1896 in Rosemary.

In 1897 Ethel went with William Gillette to London to play Miss Kittridge in Gillette's Secret Service. The play, Gillette’s greatest work, was a huge success, but Ethel remained pretty much beneath everyone's radar scopes until one night when the leading actress, Odette Taylor, became ill and went home, still dressed in her costume. Ethel was standing in the wings in her nurse’s costume when the theater manager told her she would have to replace Taylor, dressed as she was. Ethel protested that she didn’t know Ms. Taylor’s part, but she went out in her nurse’s uniform and carried the show. It was a splendid performance, and she was noticed.

She was about to return to the States with Gillette's troupe when Henry Irving and Ellen Terry offered her the role of Annette in The Bells. A full London tour was on and, before it was over, Ethel created, on New Years Day 1898, Euphrosine in Peter the Great at the Lyceum, the play having been written by Irving's son, Laurence. Men everywhere were smitten with Ethel, most notably young Winston Churchill, who asked her to marry him. Not wishing to be a politician's wife, she refused. Winston, several years later, married Clementine Hozier, a ravishing beauty who looked very much like Ethel, but Winston and Ethel remained friends until the end of her life. Their “romance” was their own little secret until his son let the cat out of the bag 63 years after it happened.^[2]

After her big season in London, Ethel returned to America. Charles Frohman cast her first in Catherine and then as Stella de Grex in His Excellency the Governor. After that, Frohman finally gave Ethel the role that would make her a star: Madame Trentoni in Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, which opened at the Garrick Theatre on February 4, 1901. Unbeknownst to Ethel, her father Maurice had witnessed the performance as an audience member and walked up to his daughter, congratulated her and gave her a big hug. It was the first and only time he saw her on stage. When the tour concluded in Boston in June, she had out-drawn two of the most prominent actresses of her day, Mrs. Patrick Campbell and Minnie Maddern Fiske.

Following her triumph in Captain Jinks, Ethel gave sterling performances in many top-rate productions, and it was in Sunday that she uttered what would be her most famous line, "That's all there is, there isn't any more."^[3]

Ethel portrayed Nora in A Doll's House by Ibsen (1905), and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare (1922).

Barrymore playing the male character Carrots in a play of the same name, 1902

Ethel Barrymore in 1901 in one of the famous dresses from Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines

She was also a strong supporter of the Actors' Equity Association and had a high-profile role in the 1919 strike. In 1926, she scored one of her greatest successes as the sophisticated spouse of a philandering husband in W. Somerset Maugham's comedy, The Constant Wife. She starred in Rasputin and the Empress (1932), with John and Lionel Barrymore, playing the Czarina married to Czar Nicholas. In July 1934, she starred in the play Laura Garnett, by Leslie and Sewell Stokes, at Dobbs Ferry, New York State.

After she became a stage star, she would often dismiss adoring audiences who kept demanding curtain calls by saying "That's all there is—there isn't any more!" This became a popular catch phrase in the 1920s and 1930s. Many references to it can be found in the media of the period, including the Laurel and Hardy 1933 film Sons of the Desert, and Arthur Train's 1930 Wall Street Crash novel Paper Profits.

Barrymore was a baseball and boxing fan. Her admiration for boxing ended when she witnessed as a spectator the brutality of the July 4, 1919, Dempsey/Willard fight in which Dempsey broke Willard's jaw and knocked out several of his teeth. Ethel vowed never to attend another boxing match though she would later watch boxing on television.

In 1928, the Shuberts opened the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, which operates under that name to the present day.

Film and TV career[link]

Barrymore appeared in her first motion picture, The Nightingale, in 1914. Members of her family were already in pictures; uncle Sidney Drew, his wife Gladys Rankin and Lionel had entered films in 1911 and John made his first feature in 1913. She made 15 silent pictures between 1914 and 1919 most of them for the old Metro studio. Most of these pictures were made on the East Coast, as her Broadway career and children came first. All of her silent films are lost with the exception of The Awakening of Helena Ritchie (1916) which survives at the Library of Congress and The Call of Her People (1917) held at George Eastman House, Rochester.^[4][5] In the 1940s, she moved to Hollywood, California. As children she and her brothers put on amateur or home made plays together often with Lionel the hero and John the villain, Ethel of course being the heroine. The only two films that featured all three siblings—Ethel, John and Lionel—were National Red Cross Pageant (1917) and Rasputin and the Empress (1932). The former film is now considered a lost film.

She won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the 1944 film None but the Lonely Heart opposite Cary Grant, but made plain that she was not overly impressed by it. On March 22, 2007, her Oscar was offered for sale on eBay.

She appeared in The Spiral Staircase (1946) directed by Robert Siodmak, The Paradine Case (1947) directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and Portrait of Jennie (1948), among others. Her last film appearance was in Johnny Trouble (1957). She also made a number of television appearances in the 1950s, including one memorable encounter with comedian Jimmy Durante on NBC's All Star Revue on December 1, 1951 (preserved on a kinescope). In 1956, she hosted 14 episodes of a TV series Ethel Barrymore Theatre, produced by the DuMont Television Network and presented on the DuMont flagship station WABD just as the network was folding. Unfortunately none of the episodes were preserved on kinescope. A 1952 appearance on What's My Line survives however in addition to several radio broadcasts.

In 1949, Barrymore appeared in the Academy Award winning film Pinky for which she was awarded an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Private life[link]

Ethel Barrymore by Carl Van Vechten (December 12, 1937)

Ethel Barrymore, husband Russell Griswold Colt and their three children, circa 1914.

Winston Churchill was among the closest of many of Barrymore's dear friends. Some have claimed Churchill proposed to her in 1900; however, Barrymore mentions no such thing in her autobiography, Memories. She had, at the age of 19, while on tour in England, been rumored to be engaged to the Duke of Manchester, actor Gerald Du Maurier, writer Richard Harding Davis and the aforementioned Churchill.^[6]

Ethel Barrymore married Russell Griswold Colt (1882–1923), grandnephew of American arms maker Samuel Colt (1814–1862), on March 14, 1909. The couple had been introduced, according to Barrymore's autobiography, when Colt had strolled by the table where she was having lunch with her uncle, actor John (Jack) Drew, in Sherry's Restaurant in New York.^[7] A New York Times article of 1911, when Barrymore first took preliminary divorce measures against Colt, states that Colt had been introduced to Barrymore by her brother John Barrymore some years before while Colt was still a student at Yale.^[8] The couple had three children: actress/singer Ethel Barrymore Colt (1912–1977), who appeared on Broadway in Stephen Sondheim's Follies; Samuel Colt (1909–1986); and John Drew Colt (1913–1975).

Barrymore's marriage to Colt was a precarious one from the start, with Barrymore filing divorce papers as early in the marriage as 1911, much to Colt's surprise, and later recanted by Barrymore as a misunderstanding by the press. At least one source, a servant, alleged that Colt abused her and also that he fathered a child with another woman while married to Barrymore. They divorced in 1923 and, quite surprisingly, she did not seek alimony from Colt for herself, which was her right but she demanded that his entailed wealth still provide for their children.

Ethel Barrymore did not remarry. She had platonic relationships with other men, most notably actors Henry Daniell and Louis Calhern.

Death[link]

Ethel Barrymore died of cardiovascular disease in 1959, at her home in Hollywood, California, after having lived for many years with a heart condition. She was two months shy of her 80th birthday. She was entombed at Calvary Cemetery. The Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York City is named after her.^[9]

Filmography[link]

See also[link]

Biography portal

• List of people on the cover of Time Magazine: 1920s – 10 Nov. 1924

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ethel Barrymore

• Ethel Barrymore at the Internet Broadway Database
• Ethel Barrymore at the Internet Movie Database
• Ethel Barrymore at AllRovi
• Ethel Barrymore photo gallery NYP Library
• with brother Lionel on his last film, Main Street to Broadway 1953
• Ethel Barrymore; PeriodPaper
• Ethel Barrymore guest appearance on Whats My Line October 12, 1952

Humphrey Bogart
Bogart in 1946, in a photograph by Yousuf Karsh
Born	Humphrey DeForest Bogart (1899-12-25)December 25, 1899 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	January 14, 1957(1957-01-14) (aged 57) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Esophageal cancer
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California
Education	Trinity School
Alma mater	Phillips Academy
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1921–1956
Spouse	Helen Menken (m.1926-1927; divorced) Mary Philips (m.1928-1937; divorced) Mayo Methot (m.1938-1945; divorced) Lauren Bacall (m.1945-1957; his death)
Children	Stephen Humphrey Bogart (born 1949) Leslie Howard Bogart (born 1952)
Parents	Dr. Belmont DeForest Bogart, Maud Humphrey
Website
http://www.humphreybogart.com/

Humphrey DeForest Bogart (December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957)^[1][2] was an American actor.^[3] He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.^[4][5] The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema.

After trying various jobs, Bogart began acting in 1921 and became a regular in Broadway productions in the 1920s and 1930s. When the stock market crash of 1929 reduced the demand for plays, Bogart turned to film. His first great success was as Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936), and this led to a period of typecasting as a gangster with films such as Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and B-movies like The Return of Doctor X (1939).

Bogart's breakthrough as a leading man came in 1941, with High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon. The next year, his performance in Casablanca raised him to the peak of his profession and, at the same time, cemented his trademark film persona, that of the hard-boiled cynic who ultimately shows his noble side. Other successes followed, including To Have and Have Not (1944); The Big Sleep (1946); Dark Passage (1947) and Key Largo (1948), with his wife Lauren Bacall; The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948); In a Lonely Place (1950); The African Queen (1951), for which he won his only Academy Award; Sabrina (1954); and The Caine Mutiny (1954). His last movie was The Harder They Fall (1956). During a film career of almost thirty years, he appeared in 75 feature films.

Early life[link]

Bogart was born on Christmas Day, 1899 in New York City, the eldest child of Dr. Belmont DeForest Bogart (July 1867, Watkins Glen, New York – September 8, 1934, Tudor City apartments, New York City) and Maud Humphrey (1868–1940). Belmont and Maud married in June 1898. The name “Bogart” comes from the Dutch surname “Bogaert”. It is derived from the word “bogaard”, a short name for “boomgaard”, which means “orchard”.^[6] Bogart's father was a Presbyterian of English and Dutch descent; his mother was an Episcopalian of English descent. Bogart was raised in the Episcopalian faith, but gave up his belief in God and was an atheist since the age of eight.^[7]

Bogart's birthday has been a subject of controversy; according to Warner Bros, he was born on Christmas Day, 1899. Others believe that this was a fiction created by the studio to romanticize their star, and that he was actually born on January 23, 1899. However, this story is now considered baseless: although no birth certificate has ever been found, his birth notice did appear in a New York newspaper in early January 1900, which supports the December 1899 date, as do other sources, such as the 1900 census.^{[N 1]}

Bogart's father, Belmont, was a cardiopulmonary surgeon. His mother, Maud Humphrey, was a commercial illustrator, who received her art training in New York and France, including study with James McNeill Whistler, and who later became artistic director of the fashion magazine The Delineator. She was a militant suffragette.^[9] She used a drawing of baby Humphrey in a well-known ad campaign for Mellins Baby Food.^[10] In her prime, she made over $50,000 a year, then a vast sum, far more than her husband's $20,000 per year.^[11] The Bogarts lived in a fashionable Upper West Side apartment, and had an elegant cottage on a fifty-five acre estate in upstate New York on Canandaigua Lake. As a youngster, Humphrey's gang of friends at the lake would put on theatricals.^[12]

Humphrey was the oldest of three children; he had two younger sisters, Frances and Catherine Elizabeth (Kay).^[10] His parents were very formal, busy in their careers, and frequently fought—resulting in little emotion directed at the children, "I was brought up very unsentimentally but very straightforwardly. A kiss, in our family, was an event. Our mother and father didn't glug over my two sisters and me."^[13] As a boy, Bogart was teased for his curls, his tidiness, the "cute" pictures his mother had him pose for, the Little Lord Fauntleroy clothes she dressed him in—and the name "Humphrey."^[14] From his father, Bogart inherited a tendency for needling people, a fondness for fishing, a life-long love of boating, and an attraction to strong-willed women.^[15]

The Bogarts sent their son to private schools. Bogart began school at the Delancey School until fifth grade, when he was enrolled in Trinity School.^[16] He was an indifferent, sullen student who showed no interest in after-school activities.^[17] Later he went to the prestigious preparatory school Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts, where he was admitted based on family connections.^[18] They hoped he would go on to Yale, but in 1918, Bogart was expelled.^[19] The details of his expulsion are disputed: one story claims that he was expelled for throwing the headmaster (alternatively, a groundskeeper) into Rabbit Pond, a man-made lake on campus. Another cites smoking and drinking, combined with poor academic performance and possibly some inappropriate comments made to the staff. It has also been said that he was actually withdrawn from the school by his father for failing to improve his academics, as opposed to expulsion. In any case, his parents were deeply dismayed by the events and their failed plans for his future.^[20]

Navy[link]

With no viable career options, Bogart followed his love for the sea and enlisted in the United States Navy in the spring of 1918. He recalled later, "At eighteen, war was great stuff. Paris! French girls! Hot damn!"^[21] Bogart is recorded as a model sailor who spent most of his months in the Navy after the Armistice was signed, ferrying troops back from Europe.^[22]

It was during his naval stint that Bogart may have gotten his trademark scar and developed his characteristic lisp, though the actual circumstances are unclear. In one account, during a shelling of his ship the USS Leviathan, his lip was cut by a piece of shrapnel, although some claim Bogart did not make it to sea until after the Armistice with Germany was signed. Another version, which Bogart's long time friend, author Nathaniel Benchley, claims is the truth, is that Bogart was injured while on assignment to take a naval prisoner to Portsmouth Naval Prison in Kittery, Maine. Supposedly, while changing trains in Boston, the handcuffed prisoner asked Bogart for a cigarette and while Bogart looked for a match, the prisoner raised his hands, smashed Bogart across the mouth with his cuffs, cutting Bogart's lip, and fled. The prisoner was eventually taken to Portsmouth. An alternate explanation is in the process of uncuffing an inmate, Bogart was struck in the mouth when the inmate wielded one open, uncuffed bracelet while the other side was still on his wrist.^[23]

By the time Bogart was treated by a doctor, the scar had already formed. "Goddamn doctor," Bogart later told David Niven, "instead of stitching it up, he screwed it up." Niven says that when he asked Bogart about his scar he said it was caused by a childhood accident; Niven claims the stories that Bogart got the scar during wartime were made up by the studios to inject glamour. His post-service physical makes no mention of the lip scar even though it mentions many smaller scars, so the actual cause may have come later.^[22] When actress Louise Brooks met Bogart in 1924, he had some scarred tissue on his upper lip, which Belmont Bogart may have partially repaired before Bogart went into films in 1930.^[20] She believes his scar had nothing to do with his distinctive speech pattern, his "lip wound gave him no speech impediment, either before or after it was mended. Over the years, Bogart practiced all kinds of lip gymnastics, accompanied by nasal tones, snarls, lisps and slurs. His painful wince, his leer, his fiendish grin were the most accomplished ever seen on film."^[24]

Early career[link]

Bogart returned home to find his father was suffering from poor health (perhaps aggravated by morphine addiction), his medical practice was faltering, and he lost much of the family's money on bad investments in timber.^[25] During his naval days, Bogart's character and values developed independent of family influence, and he began to rebel somewhat against their values. He came to be a liberal who hated pretensions, phonies, and snobs, and at times he defied conventional behavior and authority, traits he displayed in life and in his movies. On the other hand, he retained their traits of good manners, articulateness, punctuality, modesty, and a dislike of being touched.^[26] After his naval service, Bogart worked as a shipper and then bond salesman.^[27] He joined the Naval Reserve.

Bogart resumed his friendship with boyhood pal Bill Brady, Jr. whose father had show business connections, and eventually Bogart got an office job working for William A. Brady Sr.'s new company World Films.^[28] Bogart got to try his hand at screenwriting, directing, and production, but excelled at none. For a while, he was stage manager for Brady's daughter's play A Ruined Lady. A few months later, in 1921, Bogart made his stage debut in Drifting as a Japanese butler in another Alice Brady play, nervously speaking one line of dialog. Several more appearances followed in her subsequent plays.^[29] Bogart liked the late hours actors kept, and enjoyed the attention an actor got on stage. He stated, "I was born to be indolent and this was the softest of rackets".^[27] He spent a lot of his free time in speakeasies and became a heavy drinker. A barroom brawl during this time might have been the actual cause of Bogart's lip damage, as this coincides better with the Louise Brooks account.^[30]

Bogart had been raised to believe acting was beneath a gentleman, but he enjoyed stage acting. He never took acting lessons, but was persistent and worked steadily at his craft. He appeared in at least seventeen Broadway productions between 1922 and 1935.^[31] He played juveniles or romantic second-leads in drawing room comedies. He is said to have been the first actor to ask "Tennis, anyone?" on stage.^[32] Critic Alexander Woollcott wrote of Bogart's early work that he "is what is usually and mercifully described as inadequate."^[33] Some reviews were kinder. Heywood Broun, reviewing Nerves wrote, "Humphrey Bogart gives the most effective performance...both dry and fresh, if that be possible".^[34] Bogart loathed the trivial, effeminate parts he had to play early in his career, calling them "White Pants Willie" roles.

Early in his career, while playing double roles in the play Drifting at the Playhouse Theatre in 1922, Bogart met actress Helen Menken. They were married on May 20, 1926 at the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York City, divorced on November 18, 1927, but remained friends.^[35] On April 3, 1928, he married Mary Philips at her mother's apartment in Hartford, Connecticut. She, like Menken, had a fiery temper and, like every other Bogart spouse, was an actress. He had met Mary when they appeared in the play Nerves, which had a very brief run at the Comedy Theatre in September 1924.

After the stock market crash of 1929, stage production dropped off sharply, and many of the more photogenic actors headed for Hollywood. Bogart's earliest film role is with Helen Hayes in the 1928 two-reeler The Dancing Town, of which a complete copy has never been found. He also appeared with Joan Blondell and Ruth Etting in a Vitaphone short, Broadway's Like That (1930) which was re-discovered in 1963.^[36]

Bogart then signed a contract with Fox Film Corporation for $750 a week. Spencer Tracy was a serious Broadway actor whom Bogart liked and admired, and they became good friends and drinking buddies. It was Tracy, in 1930, who first called him "Bogey". (Spelled variously in many sources, Bogart himself spelled his nickname "Bogie".)^[37] Tracy and Bogart appeared in their only film together in John Ford's early sound film Up the River (1930), with both playing inmates. It was Tracy's film debut.^[38] Bogart then performed in The Bad Sister with Bette Davis in 1931, in a minor part.^[39]

Bogart shuttled back and forth between Hollywood and the New York stage from 1930 to 1935, suffering long periods without work. His parents had separated, and Belmont died in 1934 in debt, which Bogart eventually paid off. Bogart inherited his father's gold ring which he always wore, even in many of his films. At his father's deathbed, Bogart finally told Belmont how much he loved him.^[40] His second marriage was on the rocks, and he was less than happy with his acting career to date; he became depressed, irritable, and drank heavily.^[41]

[edit] The Petrified Forest

Bogart in the 1934 original theatrical trailer

Bogart starred in the Broadway play Invitation to a Murder at the Theatre Masque, now the John Golden Theatre, in 1934. The producer Arthur Hopkins heard the play from off-stage and sent for Bogart to play escaped murderer Duke Mantee in Robert E. Sherwood's new play, The Petrified Forest.^[41] Hopkins recalled:

When I saw the actor I was somewhat taken aback, for he was the one I never much admired. He was an antiquated juvenile who spent most of his stage life in white pants swinging a tennis racquet. He seemed as far from a cold-blooded killer as one could get, but the voice (dry and tired) persisted, and the voice was Mantee's.^[42]

The play had 197 performances at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York in 1935.^[43] Leslie Howard though, was the star. New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson said of the play, "a peach... a roaring Western melodrama... Humphrey Bogart does the best work of his career as an actor."^[44] Bogart said the play "marked my deliverance from the ranks of the sleek, sybaritic, stiff-shirted, swallow-tailed 'smoothies' to which I seemed condemned to life." However, he was still feeling insecure.^[43]

Warner Bros. bought the screen rights to The Petrified Forest. The studio was famous for its socially-realistic, urban, low-budget action pictures; the play seemed like the perfect property for it, especially since the public was entranced by real-life criminals like John Dillinger (whom Bogart resembled) and Dutch Schultz.^[45] Bette Davis and Leslie Howard were cast. Howard, who held production rights, made it clear he wanted Bogart to star with him. The studio tested several Hollywood veterans for the Duke Mantee role, and chose Edward G. Robinson, who had first-rank star appeal and was due to make a film to fulfill his expensive contract. Bogart cabled news of this to Howard, who was in Scotland. Howard's cabled reply was, "Att: Jack Warner Insist Bogart Play Mantee No Bogart No Deal L.H.". When Warner Bros. saw that Howard would not budge, they gave in and cast Bogart.^[46] Jack Warner, famous for butting heads with his stars, tried to get Bogart to adopt a stage name, but Bogart stubbornly refused.^[47] Bogart never forgot Howard's favor, and in 1952 he named his only daughter "Leslie Howard" after Howard, who had died in World War II under mysterious circumstances.^[48] Robert E. Sherwood remained a close friend of Bogart's.

Early film career[link]

Invisible Stripes trailer

The film version of The Petrified Forest was released in 1936. His performance was called "brilliant", "compelling", and "superb." Despite his success in an "A movie," Bogart received a tepid twenty-six week contract at $550 per week and was typecast as a gangster in a series of "B movie" crime dramas.^[49] Bogart was proud of his success, but the fact that it came from playing a gangster weighed on him. He once said: "I can't get in a mild discussion without turning it into an argument. There must be something in my tone of voice, or this arrogant face—something that antagonizes everybody. Nobody likes me on sight. I suppose that's why I'm cast as the heavy." Bogart's roles were not only repetitive, but physically demanding and draining (studios were not yet air-conditioned), and his regimented, tightly-scheduled job at Warners was not exactly the "peachy" actor's life he hoped for.^[50] However, he was always professional and generally respected by other actors. In those "B movie" years, Bogart started developing his lasting film persona – the wounded, stoical, cynical, charming, vulnerable, self-mocking loner with a core of honor.

The studio system, then at its most entrenched, usually restricted actors to one studio, with occasional loan-outs, and Warner Bros. had no interest in making Bogart a top star. Shooting on a new movie might begin days or only hours after shooting on the previous one was completed. Any actor who refused a role could be suspended without pay. Bogart disliked the roles chosen for him, but he worked steadily: between 1936 and 1940, Bogart averaged a movie every two months, sometimes even working on two simultaneously, as movies were not generally shot sequentially. Amenities at Warners were few compared to those for their fellow actors at MGM. Bogart thought that the Warners wardrobe department was cheap, and often wore his own suits in his movies. In High Sierra, Bogart used his own pet dog Zero to play his character's dog, Pard. Bogart's disputes with Warner Bros. over roles and money were similar to those the studio had with other less-than-obedient stars, such as Bette Davis, James Cagney, Errol Flynn, and Olivia de Havilland.^[51]

Taking a back seat to James Cagney in The Roaring Twenties (1939)

The leading men ahead of Bogart at Warner Bros. included not only such classic stars as James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson, but also actors far less well-known today, such as Victor McLaglen, George Raft and Paul Muni. Most of the studio's better movie scripts went to these men, and Bogart had to take what was left. He made films like Racket Busters, San Quentin, and You Can't Get Away with Murder. The only substantial leading role he got during this period was in Dead End (1937), while loaned to Samuel Goldwyn, where he portrayed a gangster modeled after Baby Face Nelson.^[52] He did play a variety of interesting supporting roles, such as in Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) (in which his character got shot by James Cagney's). Bogart was gunned down on film repeatedly by Cagney and Edward G. Robinson, among others. In Black Legion (1937), for a change, he played a good man caught up and destroyed by a racist organization, a movie Graham Greene called "intelligent and exciting, if rather earnest".^[53]

In 1938, Warner Bros. put Bogart in a "hillbilly musical" called Swing Your Lady as a wrestling promoter; he later apparently considered this his worst film performance.^[54] In 1939, Bogart played a mad scientist in The Return of Doctor X. He cracked, "If it'd been Jack Warner's blood...I wouldn't have minded so much. The trouble was they were drinking mine and I was making this stinking movie." Mary Philips, in her own stage hit A Touch of Brimstone (1935), refused to give up her Broadway career to go to Hollywood with Bogart. After the play closed, however, she went to Hollywood, but insisted on continuing her career and they divorced in 1937.^[55]

Dark Victory (1939) was one of the last films in which he played a supporting role

On August 21, 1938, Bogart entered into a disastrous third marriage, with actress Mayo Methot, a lively, friendly woman when sober, but paranoid when drunk. She was convinced that her husband was cheating on her. The more she and Bogart drifted apart, the more she drank, got furious and threw things at him: plants, crockery, anything close at hand. She even set the house on fire, stabbed him with a knife, and slashed her wrists on several occasions. Bogart for his part needled her mercilessly and seemed to enjoy confrontation. Sometimes he turned violent. The press accurately dubbed them "the Battling Bogarts."^[56] "The Bogart-Methot marriage was the sequel to the Civil War," said their friend Julius Epstein. A wag observed that there was "madness in his Methot." During this time, Bogart bought a motor launch, which he named Sluggy, after his nickname for his hot-tempered wife. Despite his proclamations that, "I like a jealous wife," "We get on so well together (because) we don't have illusions about each other," and, "I wouldn't give you two cents for a dame without a temper," it was a highly destructive relationship.^[57]

In California in 1945, Bogart bought a 55-foot (17 m) sailing yacht, the Santana, from actor Dick Powell. The sea was his sanctuary^[58] and he loved to sail around Catalina Island. He was a serious sailor, respected by other sailors who had seen too many Hollywood actors and their boats. About 30 weekends a year, he went out on his boat. He once said, "An actor needs something to stabilize his personality, something to nail down what he really is, not what he is currently pretending to be."

Bogart had a lifelong disgust for the pretentious, fake or phony, as his son Stephen told Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne in 1999. Sensitive yet caustic, and disgusted by the inferior movies he was performing in, Bogart cultivated the persona of a soured idealist, a man exiled from better things in New York, living by his wits, drinking too much, cursed to live out his life among second-rate people and projects.

Bogart rarely saw his own films and avoided premieres. He even protected his privacy with invented press releases about his private life to satisfy the curiosity of the newspapers and the public.^[59] When he thought an actor, director, or a movie studio had done something shoddy, he spoke up about it and was willing to be quoted. He advised Robert Mitchum that the only way to stay alive in Hollywood was to be an "againster." As a result, he was not the most popular of actors, and some in the Hollywood community shunned him privately to avoid trouble with the studios.^[60] But the Hollywood press, unaccustomed to candor, was delighted. Bogart once said: