Humphrey DeForest Bogart (December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957), nicknamed Bogie, was an American film and stage actor. His performances in Classical Hollywood cinema films made him an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Bogart as the greatest male star of classic American cinema.
Bogart began acting in Broadway shows, beginning his career in motion pictures with Up the River (1930) for Fox and appeared in supporting roles for the next decade, regularly portraying gangsters. He was praised for his work as Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936), but remained cast secondary to other actors at Warner Bros. who received leading roles. Bogart also received positive reviews for his performance as gangster Hugh "Baby Face" Martin, in Dead End (1937), directed by William Wyler.
His breakthrough from supporting roles to stardom was set in motion with High Sierra (1941) and catapulted in The Maltese Falcon (1941), considered one of the first great noir films. Bogart's private detectives, Sam Spade (in The Maltese Falcon) and Philip Marlowe (in 1946's The Big Sleep), became the models for detectives in other noir films. His most significant romantic lead role was with Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca (1942), which earned him his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. 44-year-old Bogart and 19-year-old Lauren Bacall fell in love during filming of To Have and Have Not (1944). In 1945, a few months after principal photography for The Big Sleep, their second film together, he divorced his third wife and married Bacall. After their marriage, they played each other's love interest in the mystery thrillers Dark Passage (1947) and Key Largo (1948).
Bogart's performances in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and In a Lonely Place (1950) are now considered among his best, although they were not recognized as such when the films were released. He reprised those unsettled, unstable characters as a World War II naval-vessel commander in The Caine Mutiny (1954), which was a critical and commercial hit and earned him another Best Actor nomination. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of a cantankerous river steam launch skipper opposite Katharine Hepburn's missionary in the World War I African adventure The African Queen (1951). Other significant roles in his later years included The Barefoot Contessa (1954) with Ava Gardner and his on-screen competition with William Holden for Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina (1954). A heavy smoker and drinker, Bogart died from esophageal cancer in January 1957.
Ingrid Bergman (29 August 1915 – 29 August 1982) was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films, television movies, and plays. With a career spanning five decades, she is often regarded as one of the most influential screen figures in cinematic history.
According to the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, upon her arrival in the U.S. Bergman quickly became "the ideal of American womanhood" and a contender for Hollywood's greatest leading actress. David O. Selznick once called her "the most completely conscientious actress" he had ever worked with. In 1999, the American Film Institute recognised Bergman as the fourth greatest female screen legend of Classic Hollywood Cinema.
She won numerous accolades, including three Academy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, four Golden Globe Awards, BAFTA Award and a Volpi Cup. She is one of only four actresses to have received at least three acting Academy Awards (only Katharine Hepburn has four).
Born in Stockholm to a Swedish father and a German mother, Bergman began her acting career in Swedish and German films. Her introduction to the U.S. audience came in the English-language remake of Intermezzo (1939). Known for her naturally luminous beauty, she starred in Casablanca (1942) as Ilsa Lund, her most famous role, opposite Humphrey Bogart. Bergman's notable performances in the 1940s include the dramas For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), Gaslight (1944), The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), and Joan of Arc (1948), all of which earned her nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress; she won for Gaslight. She made three films with Alfred Hitchcock: Spellbound (1945), with Gregory Peck, Notorious (1946), opposite Cary Grant and Under Capricorn (1949), alongside Joseph Cotten.
In 1950, she starred in Roberto Rossellini's Stromboli, released after the revelation she was having an affair with Rossellini; that and her pregnancy prior to their marriage created a scandal in the U.S. that prompted her to remain in Europe for several years. During this time she starred in Rossellini's Europa '51 and Journey to Italy (1954), now critically acclaimed, the former of which won her the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. She had a successful return to working for a Hollywood studio in Anastasia (1956), winning her second Academy Award for Best Actress. Soon after, she co-starred with Grant in the romance Indiscreet (1958). In 1969, she starred in the acclaimed and highly successful film Cactus Flower. In later years, Bergman won her third Academy Award, this one for Best Supporting Actress, for her role in Murder on the Orient Express (1974). In 1978, she starred in Ingmar Bergman's (no relation) Swedish Autumn Sonata receiving her sixth Best Actress nomination. Bergman spoke five languages – Swedish, English, German, Italian and French – and acted in each.
In her final role, she portrayed the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the television miniseries A Woman Called Golda (1982) for which she posthumously won her second Emmy Award for Best Actress. In 1974, Bergman discovered she was suffering from breast cancer but continued to work until shortly before her death on her sixty-seventh birthday.