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 (1945). Though he submitted to Jack Warner on it, he successfully turned down "God is My Co-Pilot" (1945). Riding high in 1947 with a new contract which provided limited script refusal and the right to form his own production company, Bogart reunited with John Huston for "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", a stark tale of greed played out by three gold prospectors in Mexico. Without either a love interest or happy ending it was deemed a risky project. Bogart later said of co-star (and John Huston's father) Walter Huston, "He's probably the only performer in Hollywood to whom I'd