HUMPHREY BOGART
Humphrey Bogart (December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957) was an American screen and stage actor whose performances in 1940s films noir such as The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and The Big Sleep earned him status as a cultural icon. Bogart’s breakthrough as a leading man came in 1941 with High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon. The next year, his performance in Casablanca (1943; Oscar nomination) raised him to the peak of his profession and, at the same time, cemented his trademark film persona, that of the hard-boiled cynic who ultimately shows his noble side. During a film career of almost 30 years, Bogart appeared in more than 75 feature films. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star of Classic American cinema. Over his career, he received three Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, winning one (for The African Queen). (More from Wikipedia)
Remarkably, a movie about the Runaways was made in 2010 called The Runaways, starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning; it is based on Cherie Currie’s book, Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway. Michael Shannon appears in the film as Kim Fowley; about Shannon’s performance, Fowley told Chris Estey: “He’s a genius. He’s the new Christopher Walken. And I’m privileged that he was able to get enough of me to make it watchable. It transcended the printed page. He’s working with Martin Scorcese on his Broadway project, that’s what he’s doing now. This guy’s like John Garfield or Humphrey Bogart playing you. I mean, wouldn’t you like that?”
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Kim Fowley is the child of two relatively obscure actors; his father Douglas Fowley is a character actor who (as Wikipedia says) “is probably best remembered for his role as the frustrated movie director Roscoe Dexter in Singin’ in the Rain (1952).” As Kim put it, his mother Shelby Payne “was one of the two cigarette girls in The Big Sleep with [Humphrey] Bogart and [Lauren] Bacall”.
(January 2015/1)
