Humphrey Bogart Warner Bros. wanted to cast the then much better known Edward G. Robinson for the film adaptation; however Leslie Howard, who played the protagonist in both the play and the film, insisted on Bogart being given the part. His breakthrough came in 1941 when his performances in "High Sierra" and "The Maltese Falcon" made him a star. His first true romantic lead role came in 1942's "Casablanca", breaking his typecasting as a gangster. He and Lauren Bacall starred together in "To Have and Have Not" (1944). After they married, she also played his love interest in "The Big Sleep" (1946),
Humphrey Bogart final film for Bogart and John Huston. Co-written by Truman Capote, the eccentrically filmed tale follows an amoral group of rogues chasing an unattainable treasure. Bogart sold his interest in Santana to Columbia for over $1 million in 1955. Working outside of his own Santana Productions, Bogart starred with Katharine Hepburn in the John Huston directed "The African Queen" in 1951. The C.S. Forester novel on which it was based was overlooked and left undeveloped for fifteen years until producer Sam Spiegel and Huston bought the rights. Spiegel sent Katharine Hepburn the book and she suggested Bogart for the male