Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey Bogart didn't fit the beauty standards of Hollywood's golden age. He had a scar on his upper lip and a voice that sounded like gravel. But that tough-guy face is exactly what allowed him to survive a decade of mediocre roles.

Born in New York in 1899 to a well-off family. His mother was a successful illustrator and his father a respected surgeon. So no one expected that boy would end up playing small-time gangsters on the Broadway stage.

And the gamble paid off.

In 1936 he filmed The Petrified Forest at Leslie Howard's personal request. Howard threatened to walk away from the project with Warner Bros unless Bogart reprised the role of Duke Mantee, which he had already mastered on stage. That was the first sign that something was changing in the industry.

The Tough Guy Who Couldn't Shoot

The studio kept him on salary as the villain who always died in the last reel. For years he worked nonstop in B-movies where he had barely three lines. He took whatever roles came his way because he needed the money to keep up his lifestyle and his boats.

But in 1941, John Huston arrived with the script for The Maltese Falcon under his arm. Bogart played Sam Spade with a mix of cynicism and his own code of ethics, which audiences devoured immediately. That detective was no ordinary hero (he was a man who knew the world was rotten).

Casablanca defined his iconic image in 1942. The shoot was total chaos, with no one knowing how the story would end until the last day of production. Bogart hated the original script and constantly argued with Michael Curtiz because he didn't understand his character's motivations.

It was a risky move.

Despite the doubts, the result was a hit that took him out of gangster roles for good. His chemistry with Ingrid Bergman worked through pure professionalism, since off set the two barely spoke to each other.

A Business of His Own Against the System

Bogart hated the studio contract system that treated actors like livestock. That's why he founded Santana Productions in 1948 to control his own projects and decide which stories deserved to be told. He was one of the first to understand that independence was the only way to last in the business.

In 1951 he shot The African Queen under Huston in deplorable conditions in the Congo. While the entire crew fell sick from drinking contaminated water, Bogart stayed healthy on whiskey and canned food. He won the Oscar for Best Actor for that role as a drunken, surly Canadian.

Marlon Brando went home without the award.

His relationship with Lauren Bacall became the center of gossip columns after they worked together on To Have and Have Not in 1944. She was nineteen and he was forty-four. Despite the age gap, they formed the most solid duo in a Hollywood that tended to chew up marriages within a few months.

But his health began to decline sharply in the mid-1950s. Excessive smoking and drinking caused him esophageal cancer, which he tried to hide from the press for months so he could keep working.

He died in his Hollywood bed on January 14, 1957 after a failed surgery that lasted nine hours. At the time of his death, he weighed barely 36 kilos, according to the hospital's medical report.