Icon no 11: Humphrey Bogart (part B)

(Actor, 1899-1957)

Warning: this post contains references to trauma, violence, abuse and neglect

A soon-to-be famous artist with her newborn Humphrey (1900)

In part A, I explored how, alongside finding performance and persona as a strategy for managing his life, Humphrey Bogart was known for some other strategies that are named in psychiatric textbooks under the heading of narcissism. Bogart was experienced by both children and adults as emotionally distant. There was a pattern of him judging or denigrating those around him. He drank heavily, had an impulsive and indiscriminate sex life and took up lone intellectual pursuits. In part B, I go back to his childhood in a prestigious family home and take a closer look.

A most respectable family

The Bogart family lived in “a world of fine furniture, expensive rugs, polished silver, servants, celebrities and modern conveniences.”¹ When they announced they would buy a summer house at Lake Canandaigua, the local mayor proudly announced that “from what I hear the Bogarts are a most respectable family.”² We can if we want to, think of wealth and privilege as something that leaves in children a sense of self-esteem and identity. But theories about childhood psychological development are not concerned with money. Money does not meet the emotional needs of children.

If we were to go back to the year 1913, and this summer residence of the Bogart family in Lake Canandaigua, we might find a 13-year-old Humphrey with a neighbour, Mary Hamlin, making cookies. Mary is a writer of religious musical plays, and she is telling Humphrey stories of the theatre. She can see something in Humphrey. We don’t know what she sees in this particular boy – she has after all children of her own. But she tells him he should try acting. Humphrey responds that his father wants him to be a surgeon and his mother a lawyer. He though, wants to be a sailor. Despite this, Mary will soon appoint Humphrey as director, producer and lead in a production of ‘Sunset in the Old West’. On the lakeshore with his friends, young Humphrey will put on theatrical productions as the Seneca Point Players. The summer house will create some good childhood memories for Humphrey. And Mary Hamlin clearly has an eye for what works on stage. In 1931, Warner Bros will buy the rights to her play, Hamilton, which is still in production today. And in 1936, this boy Humphrey will be signed to the same studios as a contract actor.

Here is performance being encouraged in the child. This sounds something like the opposite of traumatic – the finding of affirmation and admiration in performance. But when we find this childhood discovery of performance in narcissism theory, it is discovered because there is a void. Performance, and the focussing on external appearance become not just a pastime but an escape. According to theory, the child needs escape specifically from repeated negative judgment or condemnation, and from emotional neglect. The child’s own individual feelings and wishes are not seen and respected. So how much did Humphrey need this kind of escape? These chats over cookie baking with a friend’s mother did not happen in isolation. And the young Bogart was in the house of another mother for a reason. In the respected home where he slept, there was little peace, and never a smell of cookies. Let’s look at the Bogarts.

Belmont

Belmont, Humphrey’s father was a 6 feet tall cardiopulmonary surgeon with a prestigious patient list and a number of investments on Wall Street. He came from a privileged background, via his mother. The story that was later told about Belmont’s gradually worsening addiction to morphine, involved a horse and cart accident. Today’s morphine addicts usually administer in the form of heroin. And the prevalence of childhood trauma in the lives of those addicted to this pain medication is high. Belmont’s mother died when he was one years old of a mysterious illness. In her will, she stipulated two things: one that her money go to Belmont, not her husband. The other thing that she insisted, was that Belmont no longer be in the custody of his father. That she should make such a demand about her baby son’s care at a time when he had just lost his mother is shocking. But there are no further details. Ultimately, Belmont’s father fought this in court and regained custody of his boy - for better or worse. But here is a condemnation of Belmont’s father’s right to parent – or else evidence of an acrimonious or vindictive parental relationship.

What kind of man was Dr Belmont Bogart? It was said that he could “choose the right words and say them in just the right tone to sting people, tickle them, or just make them look ridiculous.”¹

Maud

Maud was described as an elegant Edwardian red-haired beauty whose father was a wealthy shoe manufacturer. She was also described as a snob.¹ She owned 30 pairs of high heeled high buttoned shoes, always with a lavender ribbon. By 1913, Maud was a commercial illustrator and had probably the largest salary of any woman in the US: $50,000 (more than double that of her husband). She had studied art in Paris with artist James Whistler, with whom it was rumoured she had had an affair.

Maud was described as “totally incapable of showing affection.”¹ Humphrey Bogart would later say: “if, when I was grown up, I sent my mother one of those Mother’s Day telegrams or said it with flowers, she would have returned the wire and flowers to me collect.”¹ He said “I can’t say that I loved my mother. I admired her” – later describing this to a friend as an understatement. Bogart would grow up to say that “She loved work, to the exclusion of everything else. She never had a confident, never was truly intimate with anyone, and, I am certain, never wanted to be.”¹

Like her husband, Maud was known for her “razor -tongued wit.” Both Belmont and Maud could “take each other down with biting sarcasm” and they “passed this dubious characteristic on to their son Humphrey.”² Together, Humphrey’s parents “eschewed all manner of physical or verbal affection, keeping a cold distance from him that would never grow more intimate, even after their son rose to fame.”³

These were parents who stood out not only by wealth, but by emotional coldness, a focus on status and career, and a heavy use of denigration and attack. These are not necessary features of wealth. But they are central to narcissism. Over time, their arguments would get worse, so that Humphrey would later remember “we kids would pull the covers over our ears to keep out the sound of fighting.”¹

Humphrey Bogart: the original Maud Humphrey baby

The Maud Humphrey baby

“The Maud Humphrey baby had long curls and was ridiculously over-dressed.”² This famous baby picture was at one time to be found in magazines on every news stand across America. This was the face of Mellins Baby Food and made Maud a celebrity illustrator. The Maud Humphrey Baby was, of course, one year old Humphrey Bogart, a model of Maud’s very own making, and a reflection of her likeness. Why was this celebrity baby called the Maud Humphrey baby? Because Maud Humphrey was Maud’s maiden and business name. When she chose a name for her first child, she chose her own. It was as if he was part of Maud’s brand. Naming a child ‘parent’s name junior’ and child modelling do not have to cause harm. But in this case, it seems that Humphrey was seen less as an individual and more as a reflection of two socially powerful adults. Having set her baby, Humphrey, up as the face of the brand, Maud actually took to calling him ‘Hump’ at home. Perhaps she was worried about him feeling too special.

At school, this seventh cousin to the future Princess of Wales was called names and bullied - sometimes because of the name Humphrey, sometimes because he was the Maud Humphrey baby, and sometimes because of how he was dressed – by his mother sometimes in white gloves. When he got his nose broken by the toughest boy in the block his father, on the way to the hospital, blamed two people: Humphrey for being weak, and Maud for giving him a “sissy name”.

In these articles I am exploring the childhood experiences of those who go on to iconic fame. It is not often that there was a sketch made of experience actually happening. One Monday, when Humphrey was 13, Maud told him she was taking him to Artists & Models Studio on West 28^th Street, Manhattan, where she was leading an art class. When Humphrey asked why she said it would become clear later. On arrival at the life drawing class, Maud explained that the nude model was sick, and that Humphrey would be filling in. I wonder if the art class students were reminded that this teenager was the original ‘Maud Humphrey baby’. I have a feeling they were.

A surviving sketch of Humphrey posing for his mother at Artists & Models Studio (cropped).

At this point in his life, Humphrey had apparently not seen his own father naked. It is difficult to imagine what this experience was like for him. One biographer wrote “his only thought was that Maud was there, along with all the others, looking at her son in all his shame.”² Maud asked him to come back each day that week. It was ok, because he would be earning good money. Humphrey headed home alone, whilst his mother visited a “sick friend” – an explanation he took as code for a man she was seeing (Belmont, it seems, had a sailor drinking friend called Lars who would stay at the family home).

For Humphrey, the humiliation of this experience is almost visible still in the surviving sketch. This kind of experience carries a double-edged sword that seems central to the childhood experiences on the map of narcissism⁴. Humphrey was being exploited and humiliated for the sake of his mother’s status. His emotional needs or wishes were of no consequence. At the same time, he was, in a very external performative way, being valued by this same mother who was so difficult to feel valued by. The priming conditions for narcissism are this combination of recognition of the external, and a disregarding of the internal. The external visible strategy grows to cover over the void within.

What was Maud’s response to her ‘Hump’ becoming a movie icon? After imposing on her son his first experiences of performance, Maud ultimately disapproved of acting. She never went to see him perform. It seems that performance in her son, without it being a direct reflection on her, was seen as worthless.

There is a report that Bogart as a teenager at Andover School escaped at night to sleep with a woman. This woman, in return, was permitted to sketch him naked, as she did with other boys, for the porn market.² This relationship would make a sad trajectory from infant exploitation through teenage humiliation to teenage porn model. The headteacher expelled Bogart with the words, “I predict you will be a miserable failure in life and have so informed Dr Bogart”². Performance had led round to condemnation once again.

The mouth unmoved

If we were to go back to a school dance, at Humphrey Bogart’s senior school, we might see Humphrey going to the bar whilst his date is in the bathroom. In the bar, two senior year students bump into him and one of them says, “still dressing like a girl?” We don’t see much of a response from the teenager. But he leaves the bar. In fact, he is going to his locker, and he is taking out the Daisy air rifle that his father gave him a few weeks earlier. Humphrey is heading outside the school hall. He is firing the gun. He’s shooting the red lanterns outside one by one. But now he has been seen and is being chased of grounds.

The significance of this story comes later. As a famous Hollywood actor, part of Bogart’s distinctive persona – a part that worked well with the parts that he became known for, was his lisp and a scarred lip. When journalists asked about the story behind the scar, two different stories emerged – both taking place during Bogart’s time in the navy. In one story, Bogart is supervising a prisoner in handcuffs who attacks him, cutting his lip. Bogart manages to shoot the prisoner in the leg as he runs away. In the other story, Bogart is hit in the mouth by shrapnel or wood splinters under German shelling. Neither of these stories were credible. He joined the navy after German shelling was over.

If we go back to the aftermath of Humphrey getting his rifle out at the school dance, we might find Humphrey arriving home. His father, drunk, is waiting for him. The principle has called, to say that Humphrey was recognised with the gun. Without speaking, his father deals a series of blows to Humphrey’s face, loosening front teeth and tearing his lip. After Maud and a male servant arrive and stop it going further, the doctor has the boy taken to his office. There, drunk, Belmont does what his profession has taught him. He sews up the tear in his son’s lip.

Due to nerve damage, the lip will remain partially paralysed for the rest of his life, causing a lisp and a stiffness that will become part of a trademark persona. When Humphrey’s acting career begins to take off, his father will intervene again to remove some hanging scar tissue. This later gesture by a supportive surgeon father, will be made public, whilst the origin of the injury will stay covered up with a heroic navy story.

Bogart: the persona visible, the scar on his upper right lip covered

The “beautiful Mellins food boy”, with his starched white frills, may have been the “son of a prominent physician” as the advert said. But this prominent physician disfigured him. This prominent physician and his artist wife were opium addicts who led a household that was cold, exploitative, condemning and violent.

In part A, I referenced a kind of question about narcissism: how can it be a ‘post traumatic’ kind of phenomenon, when it sometimes grows, apparently, out of a comfortable home? When we dig deeper into this respectable wealthy home there are many uncomfortable events, including physical abuse. But psychological theory does not describe overt physical abuse as necessary for narcissism to develop. In theory, the primers for narcissism here are emotionally cold parenting, with its disregard for the child’s feelings, together with patterns of denigration and a judgmental focus on external performance. These kinds of experience are even more easily hidden within the story of a respectable upbringing in which reputations have to be maintained. Furthermore, the adult who grows out of such a household, may find it difficult themselves to identify events as emotionally traumatic.

For Bogart, I suspect that when he got a taste of performance and fame, he found a promise of relief: distance from vulnerability, shame and humiliation. But with the relief of fame and his other narcissistic strategies came costs: alcohol addiction, cancer of the oesophagus, volatile relationships, and being stabbed by his wife. And what of the little Stephen, left on the tarmac, watching his father’s success? He would later write about his three year old self; ”when my father brought home the Oscar, visible symbol of all that he had accomplished in Africa, I wanted to pick it up and hurl it at him”.¹ The accumulation of ornaments and symbols of status never did seem to make things better in the Bogart family.

No one could say that Humphrey Bogart’s performances were ever over-played. For cinema audiences still accustomed to the theatrical style, he was a revelation. On screen he was precise and clinical. Perhaps this should not surprise us, looking at Bogart’s childhood. If he had ever been given a choice, being the cold, numb, surgeon had always been the safer place to be.

Bogart on his yaught the Albatross in 1942 – a rare photo in which no make-up covers his scarred lip

Disclaimer: All views expressed are my own unless otherwise stated, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any institution I have been employed by. The content here is for information and should not be interpreted as advice.

*Ryle did not apply this approach only to narcissism. If this mapping approach has been used in your own therapy, this does not mean that you have narcissistic difficulties.

Notes

1.     Bogart, S. (1996). Humphrey Bogart: In Search of my Father. Pan Books

2.     Porter, D. (2003). The Secret Life of Humphrey Bogart. Georgia Literary Association.

3.     Charles River Editors (2014). Hollywood’s Gangster Icons: The lives and Careers of Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and Edwards G. Robinson. Charles River Editors.

4.     Ryle, A. & Kerr, I.B. (2002). Introducing Cognitive Analytic Therapy. Wiley.