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Actor Bogart, now a hardy 54, is one of the most unactorish of his breed. He seems to take genuine delight in the marks of erosion that time and hard liquor have left on his face: once, after signing a long-term contract, he caused Producer Jack Warner to call for his lawyers by predicting in raucous triumph that both the Bogart hair and the Bogart teeth were sure to drop out before it ended. Prattle about theatrical art stirs him to open contempt. But he is full of surly pride in his own competence. "I don't approve," he says, "of the John Waynes and the Gary Coopers saying, 'Shucks, I ain't no actor —I'm just a bridge builder or a gas-station attendant.' If they aren't actors, what the hell are they getting paid for? I have respect for my profession. I worked hard at it."
Elastic & Adaptable. His work has taken him to the jungles of Africa, the mountains of Mexico, the streets of Italy and the islands of the Pacific. But come heat, hippopotamuses or hangover, Bogie will be on time for work, will absorb not only the language but the feel and importance of a piece of script in a few minutes of fierce concentration, and absolutely will not blow his lines. He is not a big man (5 ft. 9½ in., 150 Ibs.), but he can transfer an illusion of size and toughness to the screen and give his faint lisp undertones of unmistakable menace. Though he has the face of an inept welterweight, he can lend moody emotion to a romantic role. Through some inexplicable alchemy, his performance on film always comes out better than his performance on the set.
In a sense, his talent is narrow. For all his technical excellence, Bogart never gets completely out of Bogart and into the character he plays. But few screen personalities are so elastic and subtly adaptable; few stars can so convincingly and smoothly accomplish the trick of fitting a character to themselves. In an odd sort of way, as a result, Bogart manages to achieve surprising range and depth while still remaining the familiar figure with whom millions expect to renew an acquaintance when they pay at the box office to see a Bogart film.
Jaguars & Boxers. Thus equipped, he has not only survived 20 years in the Hollywood jungle but has spent a great deal of that time ferociously biting the hand, that feeds him: he is a man with a raffish compulsion to stick pins in balloons, and few of Hollywood's big shots have escaped his caustic tongue. He breaks the Hollywood taboos with equal regularity. He is a whisky drinker who seems warmed and comforted by disturbances of the peace late at night. When Columnist Earl Wilson asked him if he was drunk five years ago after an ultra-shapely young woman accused him of knocking her down at El Morocco (Bogart said that she tried to steal his stuffed panda), he replied, genially: "Isn't everybody drunk at 4 a.m.?"