Editing Humphrey Bogart (section)

=== Supporting gangster and villain roles ===
<span id="Supporting roles as gangsters and villains"></span>

Despite his success in ''The Petrified Forest'' (an "A movie"), Bogart signed a tepid 26-week contract at $550 ($12,570 in 2025) per week and was [[typecast]] as a gangster in a series of [[B movie]] crime dramas.<ref>Sperber and Lax 1997, pp. 60–61.</ref> Although he was proud of his success, the fact that it derived from [[gangster]] roles weighed on him: "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."<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Bogart|first1=Stephen Humphrey|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_IS1BwAAQBAJ&pg=PT64|title=Bogart: In Search of My Father|last2=Provost|first2=Gary|date=2012|publisher=Untreed Reads|isbn=978-1-61187-495-2|language=en}}</ref>

In spite of his success, Warner Bros. had no interest in raising Bogart's profile. His roles were repetitive and physically demanding; studios were not yet [[air-conditioned]], and his tightly scheduled job at Warners was anything but the indolent and "peachy" actor's life he hoped for.<ref name="Meyers_p56">{{Harvnb|Meyers|1997|p=56.}}</ref> Although Bogart disliked the roles chosen for him, he worked steadily. "In the first 34 pictures" for Warner's, he told journalist [[George Frazier (journalist)|George Frazier]], "I was shot in 12, electrocuted or hanged in 8, and was a jailbird in 9".<ref name="Shipman68">{{cite book|last=Shipman|first=David|author-link=David Shipman (writer)|title=The Great Movie Stars: The Golden Years|location=London|publisher=Macdonald|year=1989|edition=3rd|page=68}} Shipman indicates the quote is from a 1965 book about Bogart by Richard Gehman citing Frazier. This outline also appears in Frazier's June 2, 1944, profile of Bogart in ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' magazine, p. 59</ref> He averaged a film every two months between 1936 and 1940, sometimes working on two films at the same time. Bogart used these years to begin developing his film persona: a wounded, stoical, cynical, charming, vulnerable, self-mocking loner with a code of honor.

Amenities at Warners were few, compared to the prestigious [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]]. Bogart thought that the Warners wardrobe department was cheap, and often wore his own suits in his films. He chose his own dog named Zero, to play Pard (his character's dog) in ''[[High Sierra (film)|High Sierra]]''. His disputes with Warner Bros. over roles and money were similar to those waged by the studio with more established and less malleable stars such as Bette Davis and [[James Cagney]].<ref name="Meyers_p54">{{Harvnb|Meyers|1997|p=54.}}</ref>

[[File:James Cagney Humphrey Bogart in The Roaring Twenties trailer.jpg|left|thumb|alt=Bogart behind a smiling James Cagney in a film trailer|Taking a back seat to [[James Cagney]] in ''[[The Roaring Twenties]]'' (1939), the last film they made together]]

Leading men at Warner Bros. included [[George Raft]], James Cagney and [[Edward G. Robinson]]. Most of the studio's better scripts went to them or others, leaving Bogart with what was left: films like ''[[San Quentin (1937 film)|San Quentin]]'' (1937), ''[[Racket Busters]]'' (1938), and ''[[You Can't Get Away with Murder]]'' (1939). His only leading role during this period was in ''[[Dead End (1937 film)|Dead End]]'' (1937, on loan to [[Samuel Goldwyn]]), as a gangster modeled after [[Baby Face Nelson]].<ref name=Meyers_p69>{{Harvnb|Meyers|1997|p=69.}}</ref>

Bogart played violent roles so often that in [[Nevil Shute]]'s 1939 novel, ''[[What Happened to the Corbetts]]'', the protagonist replies "I've seen Humphrey Bogart with one often enough" when asked if he knows how to operate an automatic weapon.<ref name="shute1939">{{cite book | chapter-url=http://www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/shuten-whathappenedtothecorbetts/shuten-whathappenedtothecorbetts-00-h.html | title=What Happened to the Corbetts | publisher=William Morrow | author=Shute, Nevil | year=1939 | chapter=Chapter 3}}</ref> Although he played a variety of supporting roles in films such as ''[[Angels with Dirty Faces]]'' (1938), Bogart's roles were either rivals of characters played by Cagney and Robinson or a secondary member of their gang.<ref name="Shipman68" /> In ''[[Black Legion (film)|Black Legion]]'' (1937), a movie [[Graham Greene]] described as "intelligent and exciting, if rather earnest",<ref name=Meyers_p67>{{Harvnb|Meyers|1997|p=67.}}</ref> he played a good man who was caught up with (and destroyed by) a racist organization.

The studio cast Bogart as a wrestling promoter in ''[[Swing Your Lady]]'' (1938), a "[[hillbilly]] musical" which he reportedly considered his worst film performance.<ref>[[Lax, Eric]]. [[Audio commentary]] for Disc One of the 2006 three-disc DVD special edition of ''The Maltese Falcon''.</ref> He played a rejuvenated, formerly-dead scientist in ''[[The Return of Doctor X]]'' (1939), his only horror film: "If it'd been [[Jack L. Warner|Jack Warner]]'s blood&nbsp;... I wouldn't have minded so much. The trouble was they were drinking mine and I was making this stinking movie."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Senn|first=Bryan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XxSBCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA429|title=Golden Horrors: An Illustrated Critical Filmography of Terror Cinema, 1931–1939|date=September 3, 2015|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-1-4766-1089-4|language=en}}</ref> His wife, Mary, had a stage hit in ''A Touch of Brimstone'' and refused to abandon her Broadway career for Hollywood. After the play closed, Mary relented; she insisted on continuing her career, however, and they divorced in 1937.<ref>Sperber and Lax 1997, pp. 62–63.</ref>

[[File:Bogarts-LIFE-1944.jpg|thumb|alt=Publicity photo of a smiling Bogart and Mayo Methot with their three dogs|[[Mayo Methot]] and Bogart with their dogs (1944)]]
On August 21, 1938, Bogart entered a turbulent third marriage to actress [[Mayo Methot]], a lively, friendly woman when sober but [[paranoid]] and aggressive when drunk. She became convinced that Bogart was unfaithful to her (which he eventually was, with Lauren Bacall, while filming ''To Have and Have Not'' in 1944).<ref name="Bacall" /> They drifted apart; Methot's drinking increased, and she threw plants, crockery and other objects at Bogart. She set their house afire, stabbed him with a knife, and slashed her wrists several times. Bogart needled her; apparently enjoying confrontation, he was sometimes violent as well. The press called them "the Battling Bogarts".<ref name=Meyers_p78,91-92>{{Harvnb|Meyers|1997|pp=78, 91–92.}}</ref>

According to their friend, [[Julius J. Epstein|Julius Epstein]], "The Bogart-Methot marriage was the sequel to the [[American Civil War|Civil War]]".<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Bogart|first1=Stephen Humphrey|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_IS1BwAAQBAJ&pg=PT114|title=Bogart: In Search of My Father|last2=Provost|first2=Gary|date=2012|publisher=Untreed Reads|isbn=978-1-61187-495-2|language=en}}</ref> Bogart bought a motor launch which he named ''Sluggy,'' his nickname for Methot: "I like a jealous wife&nbsp;.. We get on so well together (because) we don't have illusions about each other&nbsp;... I wouldn't give you two cents for a [[woman|dame]] without a temper." Louise Brooks said that "except for Leslie Howard, no one contributed as much to Humphrey's success as his third wife, Mayo Methot."<ref name="Meyers_p81">{{Harvnb|Meyers|1997|p=81}}</ref> Methot's influence was increasingly destructive, however,<ref name="Meyers_p81" /> and Bogart also continued to drink.<ref name="Bacall" />

He had a lifelong disdain for [[pretension]] and phoniness,<ref>Interview of son Stephen with [[Turner Classic Movies]] host [[Robert Osborne]] in 1999</ref> and was again irritated by his inferior films. Bogart rarely watched his own films and avoided premieres, issuing fake press releases about his private life to satisfy journalistic and public curiosity.<ref name=Meyers_p76>{{Harvnb|Meyers|1997|p=76.}}</ref> When he thought an actor, director or studio had done something shoddy, he spoke up publicly about it. Bogart advised [[Robert Mitchum]] that the only way to stay alive in Hollywood was to be an "againster". He was not the most popular of actors, and some in the Hollywood community shunned him privately to avoid trouble with the studios.<ref name=Meyers_p86-87>{{Harvnb|Meyers|1997|pp=86–87}}</ref> Bogart once said,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Bogart|first1=Stephen Humphrey |last2=Provost |first2=Gary |title=Bogart: In Search of My Father|date=2012|publisher=Untreed Reads|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_IS1BwAAQBAJ&pg=PT63|access-date=April 11, 2016|isbn=978-1-61187-495-2 }}</ref>
{{Blockquote|All over Hollywood, they are continually advising me, "Oh, you mustn't say that. That will get you in a lot of trouble," when I remark that some picture or writer or director or producer is no good. I don't get it. If he isn't any good, why can't you say so? If more people would mention it, pretty soon it might start having some effect. The local idea that anyone making a thousand dollars a week is sacred and is beyond the realm of criticism never strikes me as particularly sound.}}

The Hollywood press, unaccustomed to such candor, was delighted.<ref name=MeyersNP>{{Harvnb|Meyers|1997}}</ref>