Showing posts with label Hollywood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hollywood. Show all posts

Friday, 14 June 2013

STYLE SETTERS: MR HUMPHREY BOGART!

A look at the Hollywood icon renowned for being economical with words, but never with style.
Laconic, effortless and the man who stole the heart of Ms Lauren Bacall, Mr Humphrey Bogart was the most insouciant actor of his time. In strong contrast to present-day Hollywood stars, he never ran towards the cameras with a fireball a feet or two behind him and he never used two words if one would do. In fact, most of Mr Bogart's great movie moments - and there were many - gained their strength from the fact that he said virtually nothing at all, capable as he was of saying everything necessary by the way he lit a cigarette or gazed ahead - nothing more overtly dramatic than that

"The expression 'laid-back' could have been invented for the one they called Bogie and the truth is they just don't make them like that any more."

But he wasn't entirely as he seemed. Although he became the archetype of the American tough guy and a symbol of US egalitarianism between the wars, Mr Bogart was not a man of the people. His family was comfortably off when he was young and he went to good schools - although he was expelled in 1918 in a scenario evocative of The Catcher in the Rye. Even though Mr Bogart's background wasn't entirely one of silver-spoon assurance, it was comfortable enough to give him the laid-back air that was to be the backbone of his performances on screen as well as in life. And that was the reason why Bogie had such a huge effect on men everywhere. Quite simply, they wanted to be like him because they loved his confidence and cool authority, and the effect they had on women, on and off the screen. In fact, Mr Bogart was the creator of a school of acting, influencing stars such as Messrs Jean-Paul Belmondo and Yves Montand, who admired the sexual charisma that came naturally to Mr Bogart but had to be learnt by others. 

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