New Humphrey Bogart doc managed to surprise his son, Stephen: His story has ‘never been told in this way’

Stephen Bogart, son of the late actor Humphrey Bogart, had seen a lot of movies about his famous father but none like the documentary that director Kathryn Ferguson proposed.

“I was hesitant about another doc being made if it was going to be the same old, same old,” he told Yahoo Entertainment. “I didn’t want it to be movie, movie, movie, movie. Oh, here it says they got married, blah, blah, he died. That wasn’t what I was looking for.”

When Ferguson said she was going to frame the documentary, Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes, around the women in the Casablanca actor’s life, including Humphrey’s mother and four wives — the last being Stephen’s mother, Lauren Bacall — the writer-producer and reluctant son changed his mind.

“I thought, well, maybe it’s going to be kind of boring and blah, blah, blah — but it was anything but that,” he said.

The arc involving the various women in his father’s life was something Stephen said he “never would have thought of” and credited Ferguson, director of the 2022 documentary Nothing Compares about singer Sinead O’Connor, with the unique perspective. After that, “there was no hesitation,” he said.

Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes explains how the New York-born Humphrey was influenced not only by his mother — a magazine illustrator and suffragette — but also by the actresses he married during his surprisingly unsteady rise on the big screen, starting with Broadway actress Helen Menken and ending with Bacall, who he met on the 1944 film To Have and Have Not.

“The whole thing surprised me because I never really had looked into that aspect of his life, about how did marrying Helen or Mary [Philips] or Mayo [Methot] affect his life?” Stephen said. “Everything about it was a surprise, or almost everything about it was a surprise.”

In addition to diving into The African Queen star’s personal relationships and the ups and downs of his acting career, Ferguson and writer Eleanor Emptage enlisted Stephen’s point of view about his famous father.

“He was distant, but he died when I was 8, and he was sick for a year before that. So I didn’t really know him,” Stephen, whose voice sounds vaguely similar to Humphrey’s, said. “He would go to work, and he’d come home, and he’d want to have dinner with my mother alone, so the kids were put to bed.”

Referring to himself and his younger sister, Leslie, he added: “Back then, it was, you know, kids are to be seen and not heard.”

On the weekends, his father would “go out to the boat alone, so he wasn’t around that much,” he said. Stephen explained that he “didn’t have time to think about [the distance] because I was being basically raised by a nanny and my mother when she was there, but she was with him a lot too. So it was just part of my life.”

While voice actor Kerry Shale recreates Humphrey’s words in the documentary, Stephen’s voice acts as somewhat of an echo during the film as well — although he says he can’t hear the similarities between him and his father.

“Some people tell me that, but I don’t know because I don’t hear myself,” he said. “To me, I sound like me and he sounds like him.”

The film, much of which is taken from Bogart’s own words through archival interviews and letters, shows the actor’s relationship with fellow actors and his friction with studios, particularly Warner Bros. studio head Jack Warner.

Stephen calls his father “an activist before his time,” recalling when his father “wouldn’t play a part” without Lena Horne being involved because Hollywood was “blackballing her because she was Black.”

Humphrey died at 57 in 1957. Stephen said that people probably knew more about his mother, who died in 2014 at 89 and whom he affectionately called “a tough old bird.”

When it comes to which parent he most resembles, Stephen said people tell him he looks more like Bacall than Bogart, something that he hasn’t always been exactly excited about.

“I didn’t really like that, actually. When I was growing up, when I was in my 20s, [people would say], ‘Oh, you look like your mother,’” he explained. “That’s as bad as someone coming up and saying how good-looking my mother was. You know, it’s like, no, she’s not. She’s my mother. You can’t say that about her.”

As far as his father goes, Stephen said he hopes that Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes will be the final word on the actor, at least when it comes to documentaries.

“How much more can you do, really?” he asked. “The story’s been told time and time and time and time again, but it’s never been told in this way. And if this is the last one, it would really be a great way to end it.”

Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes is now playing in select theaters.

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