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 married Mary Philips, whom he'd met when they appeared in the play "Nerves" during its very brief run at the Comedy Theatre in September 1924, at her mother's apartment in Hartford, Connecticut. After the stock market crash of 1929, stage production dropped off sharply, and many of the more photogenic actors headed for Hollywood. Bogart's film debut was with Helen Hayes in the 1928 two-reeler "The Dancing Town", of which a complete copy has never been found. He also appeared with Joan Blondell and Ruth Etting in a Vitaphone short, "Broadway's Like That" (1930) which was re-discovered in 1963. Bogart