The real Humphrey Bogart is revealed in Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes

The New York-born son of a well-to-do family, Bogart went from a spell in the US Navy at the end of the First World War to stage work and then Hollywood, where he found success playing hoodlums in films like The Petrified Forest, before hitting the big time in the 1941 film noir The Maltese Falcon.

But his path to Hollywood stardom has never before been told through the prism of the women around him, from his mother Maud Humphrey to the four actresses he married, including the equally famous Lauren Bacall – Stephen’s mother and Bogie’s co-star in films like The Big Sleep and Key Largo.

"Each of them had a real impact on his life and his career at key moments in his life. He definitely got a lot from them," says Kathryn Ferguson, the director of Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes. A short-lived marriage to actress Helen Menken ended in 1927 after just 18 months, and that was followed by a nine-year marriage to Mary Philips, his co-star in the Broadway play Nerves.

Then came the real fireworks. Before he married Bacall in 1945, the star endured a turbulent seven-year spell with his third wife, Mayo Methot, that was characterised by frequent arguments and heavy drinking as they became known as the "battling Bogarts" in the press.

Belfast-born Ferguson, whose 2022 film Nothing Compares documented the life of singer Sinead O’Connor, says the role of these women has been ignored. "All of them, bar Lauren Bacall, have been left as footnotes in history," she says. "We were very interested in what had happened to them, starting with his mother, Maud Humphrey, who was one of the highest paid illustrators in 1899 when Bogart was born, and a leading suffragette."

Ferguson says that Bogart’s mother has completely vanished from many accounts of her son’s life, despite being one of the biggest influences on him. Theirs was a troubled relationship – unable to express affection for him, she left him to be raised by maids. "He had a very complex relationship with women, and a lot of that is to do with this mother-wound that I think he had his whole life," says Ferguson. "He certainly wasn't all bad by any means. He was very supportive of his partners in different ways. But of course, there was a lot of problematic traits."

His combative relationship with Methot is concerning, of course. Fuelled by booze, they frequently fought in their Hollywood home that was known as Sluggy Hollow. Infamously, Methot once stabbed Bogie in the shoulder, but it was hardly the only altercation; she was often seen with bruises on her face. Their relationship "just kind of descended into something that is anathema to the way I live my life," says Stephen.

Bogie’s son is gentler when it comes to his father’s relationship with his mother, Bacall, which flourished until his death in 1957. "They're the number one couple in Hollywood… they stayed married and in love the whole time. There was no divorce." Ferguson concurs, calling their union "authentic", although she points out that Bacall was only 19 when they met on the set of the 1944 film To Have and Have Not. At the time, Bogart was 44. "Obviously the age gap is problematic, you can’t shy away from that, but it still happens today."

If this was the more troublesome side of Bogart, you can see he was a man carved from the granite of another era. Take his beloved yacht, Santana. "He wouldn’t allow women on the boat because he couldn’t pee over the side. So he said," laughs Stephen. "Nowadays that wouldn’t matter, because nobody cares who pees over the side, but back then he was a very puritanical kind of guy, as [his African Queen co-star] Katharine Hepburn said."

Bogart, who died aged 57 of oesophageal cancer when Stephen was just eight years old, was tough on his children too (he and Bacall had a second child, Leslie Howard in 1952). Stephen’s abiding memories all revolve around Santana. "He wouldn’t let me go out on the boat unless I knew how to swim," he recalls, recalling how his father made him swim to the vessel, albeit with a crew member in a boat alongside him to ensure his safety. Stephen passed the test, managing to brave the inclement waters. "I still can't believe it, because I know how cold the Pacific is."

To Ferguson, Bogart is a paradoxical character. During the era of McCarthyism, he organised a delegation to head to Washington DC to protest against the House of Un-American Activities Committee’s hounding of Hollywood players who were believed to be Communist sympathisers. But when he returned from the trip he had a change of heart, backing away from the protests and declaring, "That trip was ill-advised, even foolish... I have absolutely no use for communism."

"That did seem out of character for him to step down from that, because everything else in his life... he didn’t apologise. Put it that way," says Ferguson. "So it was interesting that under that pressure, he did." Still, you imagine if he was around today he’d be getting in trouble on social media for spouting his forthright views. "He certainly enjoyed putting his thoughts out there," says Ferguson. "He wrote quite a few open letters to the press."

Would Bogart have survived in today’s Hollywood? "It's very hard to know," admits Ferguson. Nevertheless, the legacy of the man who rocked a fedora and trench-coat endures. "It’s incredible how many actors today still cite him as being their number one," says Ferguson. "He obviously had a huge impact on lots of actors. And it must be his irreverence, his coolness. There’s definitely something about him that people have really hung on to, given that he’s been gone for 70 years."

An actor who fought the studio system and started up his own production company to produce work and control his image, in that way he was a very modern star. "He was brilliant in picking the scripts that he did. He was a guy who liked writers," says Stephen, who notes that his father was always drawn to character-driven pieces like the classic tale of greed, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. "Nowadays there’s explosions and all that sort of crap," he sighs. "Movies just aren’t the same." You can bet if Bogart were alive today, he’d be the explosive one.

Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes is available to purchase now across all major platforms including Amazon, Apple TV+, Sky Store, and Google Play.

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