Tough Without a Gun: The life and extraordinary afterlife of Humphrey Bogart by Stefan Kanfer

Well known for his roles in The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and Key Largo, Humphrey Bogart, 50 years after his death, is still an American icon. With big-studio glamour, Bogart was a superstar with integrity, style and charisma making him one of the few enduring characters and many of his films classics today.
Read about his life, his movies, his love affairs and marriages. Bogart made films from 1930-1956, 75 in all. Bogart meets Lauren Bacall on the set of “To Have and Have Not,” in 1944. Bacall was 19 and Bogart was 25 years older and married. As soon as he was divorced, Bogart married Bacall in 1945 and they were together until his death in 1957 of cancer. Forty years after his death, The American Film Institute ranked Humphrey Bogart the Greatest Male Star in cinema history.
One of his last great movies, The African Queen, also starred Katharine Hepburn. Filmed in Africa, adversity plagued the set: the boat sank, most of the crew became ill with dysentery from contaminated water including Hepburn while Bogart stuck to whiskey and remained healthy. "In theory, The African Queen was an epic drama writ small, a story of human endurance against the formidable odds of weather, topography, and war. In practice, it was all that and more; it was a human comedy, a bright look at the battle of the sexes. The film wasn't planned that way, but the Bogart-Hepburn chemistry surprised everyone - most of all themselves." (Kanfer)