Bogart’s memory lingers 55 years on

“I didn’t do anything I’ve never done before, but when the camera moves in on that Ingrid Bergman face, and she’s saying she loves you, it would make anybody feel romantic.”

This is one of the quotes for which gangster actor Humphrey Bogart is best remembered for.

The actor died in his sleep at his Hollywood home following surgeries and a battle with throat cancer, 55 years ago today.

After more than half a century, his son Stephen describes his father as “an international icon, the epitome of class-tough, cool and sophisticated.

Stephen maintains that dad Boggie was being more celebrated and more respected today than even during the height of his stardom.

My father has “always been a pro on the set, and a Hollywood renegade off it… a man’s man and a ladies’ gentleman.”

Bogart had his breakthrough role in The Petrified Forest (1936) from Warner Bros, after five years of stage and minor film roles.

The film was a major success and led to a long-term contract with Warner Bros. From 1936 to 1940, Bogart appeared in 28 films, usually in the role of a gangster, twice in Westerns and even a horror film.

His landmark year was 1941 with roles in classics such as High Sierra (1941) and as Sam Spade in one of his most fondly remembered films, The Maltese Falcon (1941).

These were followed by Casablanca (1942), The Big Sleep (1946), and Key Largo (1948).

He won the best actor Academy Award for The African Queen (1951) and was nominated for Casablanca (1942) and as Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny (1954), a film made when he was already seriously ill.

Off the set, he and Ingrid Bergman hardly spoke during the filming of Casablanca. She said later, “I kissed him, but I never knew him”.

Film critics describe Casablanca as one of the most famous movies in which Bogart was the protagonist.

Casablanca is an American romantic drama directed by Michael Curtiz. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in the words of one character, love and virtue.

He must choose between his love for a woman and helping her and her Czech resistance leader husband escape from the vichy-controlled Moroccan city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Nazis.

Years later, after Ingrid Bergman had become involved with Italian director Roberto Rossellini, and borne him a child, he bawled her out for it.

Decades after his death, Bogie made a guest appearance on the TV horror series Tales from the Crypt (1989).

Footage from several movies was computer enhanced and combined with a voice and body double to allow Bogart to receive top billing for the episode You, Murderer.

He was a close friend of Richard Burton, and once confessed to the Welsh actor that his ambition had always been to act in a Shakespearean play on stage.

He regretted that the public probably would not be able to take him seriously in such a role, due to his screen image as the tough guy.