Munson Tales: Humphrey Bogart

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Humphrey DeForest Bogart was born in 1899 in Manhattan to Belmont D. Bogart, MD and Maude Humphreys, 7th great granddaughter of Thomas Munson. He was raised at homes on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and at their lake home Canandaigua Lake in Upstate New York. It was there he and his friends put on plays. Never interested in academics, he attended two prestigious prep schools, but dropped out and with no other options, he joined the Navy, where he excelled. 

His post-Navy life led him to the New York stage, where his career was launched. There, he met and divorced his first twife and married his second. The Stock Market Crash of 1929 sent many actors to Hollywood, Bogart included. Starting at $750 per week at Fox Studios, Spencer Tracy become one of his best friends. He went back and forth from Broadway to Hollywood much of the early 1930s, but by the mid-1930s, he was in Hollywood permanently, playing mostly gangster roles at Warner Brothers for $550 per week. 

His wife Mary and he divorced in 1937. Bogart met his third wife, Mayo Methot. This 1938 union was tumultuous, including Mayo setting the house on fire, stabbing Bogart, and throwing crockery. Insanely jealous and a hard drinker, Methot would ultimately die of acute alcoholism, but not before she and Bogartdivorced in 1945. Bogart’s career was on high by the 1940s with outstanding leading man roles such as Maltese Falcon,Casablanca, and To Have and Have Not. 

On set of the latter movie, he met 19-year-old actress Lauren Bacall and started an affair. They married as soon as his divorce was final in 1945. The couple had two children. The marriage was a committed one if not always faithful. Bogart developed cancer in late 1954 and died in 1957. Bogart had a complex and interesting life and legend.

Recommended reading: 

Tough Guy Without a Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart 

First published in The Munson Founcation Newsletter, Volume XXV, Issue 3, Dec 2023, by Lori Hahn