The only actor who “scared the bejeezus” out of Humphrey Bogart: “Even when I had a gun”
Once he’d made a name for himself and cracked the Hollywood A-list, Humphrey Bogart settled into his groove as one of the industry’s favourite tough-guy actors, a persona he was very protective of.
It’s always been the case that once an actor escapes the doldrums of being a jobbing performer, or in the case of his era, being placed under the constraints of the studio system, they’ll make a point of playing various extensions of the same archetype to ensure their star continues to burn bright for as long as possible.
Think of any ‘Golden Age’ leading man, and the recurring theme is that they rarely strayed out of their wheelhouse: John Wayne was the no-nonsense face of the western, Cary Grant was the suave and debonair charisma machine, James Stewart was the endearing everyman, and ‘Bogie’ was the hardened, world-weary, cool, calm, and collected staple of film noir.
It served him well in a string of classics like High Sierra, The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Big Sleep, Key Largo, and many more, but long before he’d risen to the summit of Tinseltown in the 1940s, he crossed paths with the only co-star who was capable of leaving him quaking in his boots.
After first sharing an ensemble in 1931’s Bad Sister, which was also her feature debut, Bogart and Bette Davis would reunite in Three on a Match, The Petrified Forest, Kid Galahad, Marked Woman, and Dark Victory by the end of the decade, by which point she was a two-time Academy Award winner and her star power vastly outstripped his.
Davis was known for being a strong personality, and even though he was slightly more experienced than she was when they made their first picture together, with Bad Sister being his third big-screen credit, she made an impression. “Even when I had a gun,” he once remarked. “She scared the bejeezus out of me.”
She was known to be a confrontational figure on occasion, with Davis’ desire for perfection and commitment to her craft leading to several notable disagreements with filmmakers and fellow actors, and the more frequently he worked with her, the more Bogart discovered that she wasn’t someone to be trifled with, even when he was carrying a prop firearm around the set to burnish his hard-boiled image.
The intimidation factor may have dwindled the more time they spent together, but of all the people in the business that Bogart could have been scared of, Davis is one of the least likely. Yes, she was famously outspoken and had no issues speaking her mind to anyone she disagreed with, but he was still positioned as one of his generation’s definitive tough guys, yet he was shitting himself around her more often than not.
They weren’t exactly best friends, but having made so many films together, they were very familiar with each other and carried a mutual respect and appreciation for each other’s work, although it stands to reason that Davis was nowhere near as petrified of Bogart as he was of her.
