Tough Without a Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Stefan Kanfer (Author)

Book Description

Release date: February 1, 2011

Humphrey Bogart: it’s hard to think of anyone who’s had the same lasting impact on the culture of movies. Though he died at the young age of fifty-seven more than half a century ago, his influence among actors and filmmakers, and his enduring appeal for film lovers around the world, remains as strong as ever. What is it about Bogart, with his unconventional looks and noticeable speech impediment, that has captured our collective imagination for so long? In this definitive biography, Stefan Kanfer answers that question, along the way illuminating the private man Bogart was and shining the spotlight on some of the greatest performances ever captured on celluloid.

Bogart fell into show business almost by accident and worked for nearly twenty years before becoming the star we know today. Born into a life of wealth and privilege in turn-of-the-century New York, Bogart was a troublemaker throughout his youth, getting kicked out of prep school and running away to join the navy at the age of nineteen. After a short, undistinguished stint at sea, Bogart spent his early twenties drifting aimlessly from one ill-fitting career to another, until, through a childhood friend, he got his first theater job. Working first as a stagehand and then, reluctantly, as a bit-part player, Bogart cut his teeth in one forgettable role after another. But it was here he began to develop a work ethic; deciding that there were “two kinds of men: professionals and bums,” Bogart, for the first time in his life, wanted to be the former.

After the Crash of ’29, Bogart headed west to try his luck in Hollywood. That luck was scarce, and he slogged through more than thirty B-movie roles before his drinking buddy John Huston wrote him a part that would change everything; with High Sierra, Bogart finally broke through at the age of forty—being a pro had paid off.

What followed was a string of movies we have come to know as the most beloved classics of American cinema: The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Big Sleep, The African Queen . . . the list goes on and on. Kanfer appraises each of the films with an unfailing critical eye, weaving in lively accounts of behind-the-scenes fun and friendships, including, of course, the great love story of Bogart and Bacall. What emerges in these pages is the portrait of a great Hollywood life, and the final word on why there can only ever be one Bogie.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Kanfer, a Time magazine editor who has written biographies of Marlon Brando, Lucille Ball, and Groucho Marx, turns his attention to Humphrey Bogart, whose "outstanding characteristics--integrity, stoicism, a sexual charisma accompanied by a cool indifference to women--are never out of style when he's on-screen." After a privileged New York childhood as the son of famed illustrator Maud Humphrey, Bogart flunked out of Phillips Andover, joined the Navy near the end of WWI, and entered show business as a stage manager. Kanfer delivers compelling coverage of Bogart's early marriages and 13 years as a New York stage actor, culminating with The Petrified Forest, his 1935 Broadway breakthrough. Casablanca and other film classics are detailed with both illuminating insights and anecdotal accounts of Tinseltown. Raymond Chandler was pleased by the casting of The Big Sleep because, he wrote, "Bogart can be tough without a gun." By the mid-1940s, Bogart was the world's highest paid actor, with a résumé of 19 plays and 53 films. Although Bogart was heard on more than 80 radio broadcasts (even singing) between 1936 and 1954, Kanfer overlooks this medium. Apart from that lapse, the biography stands as an entertaining, definitive portrait, enriched with delightful digressions into Bogie's noirish, rough-hewn persona. (Feb. 3)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Humphrey Bogart was 42 before in 1941 he broke through as an A-list star in The Maltese Falcon and High Sierra. He was dead of lung cancer a mere 16 years later. Yet, as Kanfer points out in his revealing account of Bogart’s life and legacy, Bogie, in those few short years, established a cinematic identity that lives on across generations. Kanfer thoroughly covers the relatively familiar ground of Bogart’s upbringing as the rebellious child of blue-blood parents; his long apprenticeships, first in the theater and then playing bad guys in the movies; and, finally, his brief but iconic years of stardom. Beyond that, though, what separates Kanfer’s book from other Bogart bios by David Thomson, Jeffrey Meyers, and Richard Schickel is the emphasis on the actor’s “afterlife,” the way that somehow his persona—“integrity, stoicism, sexual charisma accompanied by a cool indifference to women”—has never gone out of style. Bogart divided the world into “professionals and bums,” and Kanfer makes a convincing case that, with so many bums surrounding us today, the real pros never grow stale. --Bill Ott

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; First Edition edition (February 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307271005
• ISBN-13: 978-0307271006
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.2 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #557,982 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

67 of 69 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Spend an Evening, Maybe Two Getting to Know Humphrey Bogart - 4 STARS !!!! February 5, 2011

By A Customer TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Does anyone ever really get to understand a Hollywood star. It's all illusion and manufactured. The only way to pierce the veil of the invented perception is to get down and read a thoroughly researched book that has no ax to grind, and that is exactly what we have here. Author Stefan Kanfer has gone back and done the research and thoroughly dissected the history of one of the true 20th century Hollywood legends - Humphrey Bogart. Born to wealth, in trouble as a young man, Bogart finally came to the realization later in life that there were only two types of people. There were the bums and there were the professionals. He wanted to be known as a professional, and thus began the long journeyman career into acting.

He worked on it for almost two decades, honing his craft, playing bit after bit part, until he catches a big break when Director John Huston puts him in High Sierra. Both the star and director were drinking buddies, and drinks and buddies count in Hollywood. It was a radically different industry back then. Today the average movie costs $120 million and studios put out between 12 and 15 big budget movies per year.

Back in the 1930's and 1940's, the average studio of which there were seven, put out a picture a week. That's right a picture a week which means about 50 pictures per studio per year. It's one of the reasons why you had the cast system, which meant that the actors were owned lock, stock, and barrel by the studio. From month to month they would be moved around from movie to movie as they were needed. On occasion they would be loaned to a different studio in return for a payment. This was the system that Bogart who became one of the biggest stars of his generation was a part of, in his case a big part of.

The book points out that in generations passed, voice impersonators were always taking on the job of impersonating famous actors. From James Cagney to Clark Gable, and then there was Humphrey Bogart, the most impersonated actor of all time. Today nobody impersonates actors anymore. When was the last time you saw someone trying to impersonate Brad Pitt, or Sean Connery. It just doesn't happen because the unique egos that occupied the screen in generations passed have now been supplanted by publicists who create the modern screen legends. In the case of Bogart he has transcended them all by having the American Film Institute name him the greatest male legend in movie history.

In almost the first 30 movies of his career, he gets killed in the movie, or as he likes to say, he spent more time lying down and dying, then standing up and acting. At 42 years of age, he breaks through, and Hollywood was changed forever. He is probably the only actor that was bigger after he died than during his own lifetime. The public simply could not get enough of him. It was 1957 when Bogie died, and here we are 50 plus years later, and he's still going strong. The man was born to privilege. His family was New York high society, his father a prominent surgeon in three hospitals, while his mother was an art prodigy who sold her first drawings at age 16. Humphrey could have easily become a doctor like his father, but chose a rough and tumble life, and created some pain for the family, and then the acting bug bit him, and thus began the life we have come to know.

In 1946 he was the highest paid actor in the world earning $467,000. He had just signed a contract with Warner Brothers. He would do one studio project per year and they would pay him $200,000. He would approve the director and the script. He had written permission to do one project outside the studio each year, and this would go on for 15 years per the contract. This meant he would not have to worry about money until he was 61 years, being 47 at the time. He had already worked in 53 films, and before that 19 plays.

It's all here in 255 pages of easy to read, entertaining, and informative narrative. The author Kanfer takes you through the highs and lows of Bogies career. He compares him to other stars of his time, and to the stars today. He takes you through how Bogart would help other actors who were to follow him form their careers based on his persona. He was in fact the real deal. No one today is compared to him and no one will be.

They broke the mold when he died in 1957. He helped other actors when they were in need like Peter Lorre, and Fanny Arbuckle. He lent a helping hand to Gene Tierney and Joan Bennett. Unlike his movie persona, he was an absolute gentleman with women. With men, his word was his bond, a handshake as good as a contract. For those who were blacklisted during the communist scare of the 1950's, he sought employment for them. His gifts to charity were enormous, and he did not seek publicity for his good works. He was as they say a man's man.

Legendary director John Huston says that Bogart was endowed with the greatest gift a person can have. That gift is talent, and the whole world came to recognize it. Read the book. Have a great time exploring the life of this extraordinarily influenetial actor and icon, and thank you for reading this review.

Richard C. Stoyeck

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Very smart book, only one drawback February 6, 2011

By Glenn Hopp VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The main strength of Stefan Kanfer's Bogart biography is its intelligence. Kanfer synthesizes cultural trends, long-term changes in the film industry, and arcs in Bogart's life and smoothly moves from presenting details about the subject to bringing out an intelligent context in which to understand the man. The impression I gathered from reading his book is that Kanfer has been thinking about these ideas for the better part of his life (the importance of Bogart and what he represents, such as for one thing, the importance of character and professionalism) and that Kanfer's insights on Bogart have been deepening and resonating for decades. He is effortless at showing their importance. A good example can be found on page 36, where Kanfer presents background for understanding Bogart's last stage vehicle, The Petrified Forest, by alluding to recent literature (paragraphs on Hemingway, Dos Passos, and Fitzgerald) and politics (the Tea Pot Dome scandal) to place Robert Sherwood's jaded play in its cultural context. The high ratio of ideas to words on this page reflects the tack of the whole book: it's a somewhat brief biography but consistently rich in food for thought.

I have also read the long biography of Bogart by Sperber and Lax and the Bogart biography by Jeffrey Meyers. The 700-page (or so) book by Ann Sperber and Eric Lax is better than Kanfer's on details, weaker on the ideas they illustrate. That book, if it is still in print, would make a great companion to Kanfer's.

The one drawback about Kanfer's book is the lack of endnotes or footnotes, which may sound unimportant but isn't. He includes an acknowledgment listing libraries and people and includes a bibliography, but there is no section of endnotes pairing the quotes and facts on a specified page with their source(s). The curious reader wanting the source of some detail is often at a loss. For example, Kanfer, as expected, quotes Bogart every page or two throughout the book with his various reactions, but whether these comments come from letters, interviews, a diary, or what is not revealed. On the other hand, Kanfer does put attribution in the text for many other sources (e.g., "As Jeanine Basinger notes in The Star Machine, 'The effect of World War II on shaping the new hero . . .'"), so this lapse is not as frustrating as it might have been. In the fine print, Kanfer thanks his two editors at Knopf (Peter Gethers and Claudia Herr) for being "alert and demanding," but in at least this one way, they (or the author) could--should--have gone further.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating look at one of Hollywood's most beloved stars February 9, 2011

By Bookreporter

Format:Hardcover

I've been wracking my brain to see who among the movie stars of the last 50 years has anywhere near the cinematic gravitas of Humphrey Bogart. And I'm coming up empty. As Stefan Kanfer details in his new biography, TOUGH WITHOUT A GUN, no one has had the presence of the actor who played such memorable roles as Rick Blaine, Roy "Mad Dog" Earle, Charlie Allnut, and Lt. Cmdr. Queeg in The Caine Mutiny, among many others, any one of which could be said to be career-defining.

TOUGH WITHOUT A GUN contains the standard information (dare I compare it to the "usual suspects"?). Bogart was born into a privileged childhood, growing up in Manhattan, attending the "correct" schools for a person of his station, becoming bored and falling short of academic expectations. He became somewhat lost and rudderless until he found the theater, beginning as a stagehand.

His first experiences behind the scenes and on stage were less than noteworthy. One could easily imagine early performances of stiffly delivered lines and awkward body language. But over the years, Bogart overcame some perceived handicaps, including less-than-movie-star looks and that famous lisp. The roles became increasingly important, and he delivered, perpetuating the demand for his services.

Like many in his Hollywood circle, Bogart suffered for his fame --- early on in his failed marriages before he fell in love with teenaged co-star Lauren Bacall, later in his political difficulties during the Communist scares of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Yet the author doesn't dish too much dirt, thankfully, although his insights into the competitiveness between the leading men of the era as they vied for prized roles is fascinating. Could one really imagine Ronald Reagan as Rick or another actor as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon? Bogart is depicted as a recreational drunk whose judgment was sometimes clouded by the alcohol, which gave him that "bad boy" persona among the studios' heads. At those times he might seek refuge on one of his beloved boats.

Bogart's long illness --- the result of a lifetime of smoking --- is painfully reported as the actor withers from esophageal cancer. But his death at the age of 57 actually served to open a new chapter, which one might say is the real heart of the book: his lasting legacy. Where previous biographies might end with his "final curtain," Kanfer discusses the cinephiles who still point to Bogart as the prototypical movie tough guy who women desire and men aspire to be like. Forget the withered looks, his lack of height, his age; there was an undeniable magnetism about Bogie that remains the subject of serious research and reference through books, plays, movies, and even song. His characters' lines are often quoted, with a "Here's looking at you, kid" here and an "I stick out my neck for no one" there. Bogart still demands the attention of movie lovers, even without the gun.

--- Reviewed by Ron Kaplan