Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor as the treacherous female foil. Bogart's sharp timing and facial expressions were praised by the cast and director as vital to the quick action and rapid-fire dialogue. The film was a huge hit in theaters and a major triumph for Huston. Bogart was unusually happy with it, remarking, "it is practically a masterpiece. I don't have many things I'm proud of ... but that's one". Bogart gained his first real romantic lead in 1942's "Casablanca", playing Rick Blaine, a hard-pressed expatriate nightclub owner hiding from a shady past while negotiating a fine line among Nazis, the French
Humphrey Bogart Christmas Day couldn't really be as villainous as he appeared to be on screen". The "corrected" January birthdate subsequently appeared—and in some cases, remains—in many otherwise authoritative sources. Biographers A.M. Sperber and Eric Lax documented, however, that Bogart always celebrated his birthday on December 25, and consistently listed it as such on official records, such as his marriage license. Lauren Bacall confirmed in her autobiography that his birthday was always celebrated on Christmas Day, adding that he joked that he was cheated out of a present every year because of it. Sperber and Lax also noted that a birth announcement,