page_title: Humphrey Bogart
section_title: In Hollywood permanently: The Petrified Forest
hierarchical_section_title: Humphrey Bogart / Acting / In Hollywood permanently: The Petrified Forest
caption_attribution_description: screenshot of Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney and Jeffrey Lynn from the trailer for the film The Roaring Twenties
context_page_description: Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American film and stage actor. His performances in Classical Hollywood cinema films made him an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Bogart as the greatest male star of classic American cinema.
  Bogart began acting in Broadway shows, beginning his career in motion pictures with Up the River for Fox. Bogart appeared in supporting roles for the next decade, sometimes portraying gangsters. Bogart was praised for his work as Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest, but remained secondary to other actors Warner Bros. cast in lead roles.
  His breakthrough from supporting roles to stardom came with High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon, considered one of the first great noir films. Bogart's private detectives, Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe, became the models for detectives in other noir films. His most significant romantic lead role was with Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca, which earned him his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
context_section_description: In 1934, Bogart starred in the Broadway play Invitation to a Murder at the Theatre Masque (renamed the John Golden Theatre in 1937). Its producer, Arthur Hopkins, heard the play from offstage; he sent for Bogart and offered him the role of escaped murderer Duke Mantee in Robert E. Sherwood's forthcoming play, The Petrified Forest. Hopkins later recalled:
  When I saw the actor I was somewhat taken aback, for [I realized] 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.
  The play had 197 performances at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York in 1935. Although Leslie Howard was the star, The New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson said that the play was "a peach ... a roaring Western melodrama ... Humphrey Bogart does the best work of his career as an actor." Bogart said that 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 still felt insecure. Warner Bros. bought the screen rights to The Petrified Forest in 1935. The play seemed ideal for the studio, which was known for its socially-realistic pictures for a public entranced by real-life criminals such as John Dillinger and Dutch Schultz. Bette Davis and Leslie Howard were cast. Howard, who held the production rights, made it clear that 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 star appeal and was due to make a film to fulfill his contract. Bogart cabled news of this development to Howard in Scotland, who replied: "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. Jack Warner wanted Bogart to use a stage name, but Bogart declined having built a reputation with his name in Broadway theater. The film version of The Petrified Forest was released in 1936. According to Variety, "Bogart's menace leaves nothing wanting". Frank S. Nugent wrote for The New York Times that the actor "can be a psychopathic gangster more like Dillinger than the outlaw himself." The film was successful at the box office, earning $500,000 in rentals, and made Bogart a star. He never forgot Howard's favor and named his only daughter, Leslie Howard Bogart, after him in 1952.
caption: Bogart with James Cagney and Jeffrey Lynn in The Roaring Twenties, 1939, the last film Cagney and Bogart made together
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