Humphrey Bogart (1 August SUTS)

This post is written in conjunction with the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon hosted by Sittin' on a Backyard Fence and Scribe Hard on Film. Full listings for SUTS programming on Turner Classic Movies can be found HERE. This post can also be found on my website margaretperry.org.

"What an odd fellow. Very generous and thoughtful. Sweet to me. And I found myself being very proud of him... What an odd man. So - how shall I put it - so pure. Like a little kid. Dear Bogie. I'll never forget that close-up of him after he kisses Rosie, then goes back around in back of the tank and considers what has happened. His expression - the wonder of it all - life." (Katharine Hepburn, The Making of the African Queen)

Lauren Bacall: TCM's Star of the Month for September

Every Wednesday night this September, Turner Classic Movies will be airing a series of Lauren Bacall movies, documentaries, and interviews. For more information and scheduling details, visit the TCM webpage.

Background and Education
Lauren "Betty" Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske in New York City in 1924. Her parents divorced when she was five and she would remain very close to her mother throughout her career. Bacall began dancing as a child but became interested in acting and modelling as a teenager. After graduating high school , she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and worked as a theatre usher and model.

Film Career
Bacall was first noticed by the wife of directer Howard Hawks, Nancy "Slim" Hawks, on the cover of "Harper's Bazaar." Hawks cast the 19-year-old Bacall for a part in TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (1944), a film loosely based on the Hemingway novel and starring Humphrey Bogart. In 1953, Bacall made her first comedy, HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE, co-starring Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable. Bacall's career spans several decades and includes performances in film, and on stage, television, and radio. She co-starred with a bevvy of stars in Agagtha Chrstie's MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1974), and a couple years later she appeared with John Wayne in his final picture,  THE SHOOTIST (1976).

Poll: Who's your favorite of Hepburn's leading men?

Hepburn and the Anti-HUAC Brigade

Hollywood A-Listers, heading by Humphrey Bogart and his  wife Lauren Bacall
head to Washington to protest the HUAC Hollywood report.

On 8 June, 1949, the House Un-American Activities Committee published a report labeling more than 300 film industry individuals Communists. Aurora of The Cinementals writes about it in her recent post.

Although Hepburn always claimed that she wasn’t political, she did tend to follow her parents’ liberal example. Very early on in the McCarthy era, Hepburn took a stand against the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). At a mass rally at Gilmore Stadium in May 1947 featured Progressive Party presidential candidate Henry Wallace, Hepburn, clad in a stunning red dress, delivered a speech written by screenwriter Dalton Trumbo in which she declared "Silence the artist, and you silence the most articulate voice the people have. Destroy culture and you destroy one of the strongest sources of inspiration from which a people can draw strength to fight for a better life" (Mann, 345).

John Huston, then vice president of the Directors Guild, met with director William Wyler and screenwriter Philip Dunne to create a group called the Committee for the First Amendment. CFA organized Hollywood's liberals and left to resist HUAC, and lyricist Ira Gershwin hosted a star-studded anti-witch-hunt party that included Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Edward G. Robinson, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Burt Lancaster, Danny Kaye, Billy Wilder and others. Their position was that the impending inquisition had nothing to do with communism per se but was about civil liberties, especially free speech. Some 500 people signed an anti-HUAC petition.

The woman whose mother threw a party to celebrate
the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917