Humphrey Bogart was a popular film actor whose career stretched from the early 1930s to the mid-1950s. He is most famous for his cool tough-guy character and his tight-lipped, clipped way of speaking.

After a string of bland roles in the early 1930s, Bogart made his first screen breakthrough in 1936 when he appeared as a convincing hoodlum in The Petrified Forest. His performance led to a five-year period during which he was typically cast as a gangster or a villain. In 1941, Bogart's soulful turn as a gangster with a heart of gold in High Sierra led to the final era in his career. He became one of Hollywood's most popular leading men, starring in such classics as The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1943; see entry under 1940s—Film and Theater in volume 3), To Have and Have Not (1944)—during which he met and fell in love...