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 Mankiewicz's 1954 film, "The Barefoot Contessa", was filmed in Rome. In this Hollywood back-story Bogart is again a broken-down man, the cynical director-narrator who saves his career by making a star of a flamenco dancer modeled on real life film sex goddess Rita Hayworth. Bogart was uneasy with Ava Gardner in the female lead, as she had just split from close "Rat Pack" buddy Frank Sinatra and was carrying on an affair with bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín. Bogart told her, "Half the world's female population would throw themselves at Frank's feet and here you are flouncing around with guys who