ISSUE DATE: June 7, 1954
THE BUZZ:
Actor Bogart, now a hardy 54, is one of the most unactorish of his breed. He seems to take genuine delight in the marks of erosion that time and hard liquor have left on his face: once, after signing a long-term contract, he caused Producer Jack Warner to call for his lawyers by predicting in raucous triumph that both the Bogart hair and the Bogart teeth were sure to drop out before it ended. Prattle about theatrical art stirs him to open contempt. But he is full of surly pride in his own competence. “I don’t approve,” he says, “of the John Waynes and the Gary Coopers saying, ‘Shucks, I ain’t no actor —I’m just a bridge builder or a gas-station attendant.’ If they aren’t actors, what the hell are they getting paid for? I have respect for my profession. I worked hard at it.”
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