Humphrey Bogart publicity photo for Broadway production Invitation to a Murder 1934-2016 Toddler T-Shirt

This marked Bogie's second to last stage production. It ran for for 37 performances at the Masque Theater He followed it up the same year with "The Petrified Forest" which had a 181 performances run. Bogart never returned to Broadway. In all he acted in 19 plays.

"During the 1920's and '30's most leading actors got their starts in the theater. But few could approach Humphrey Bogart's long apprenticeship. He began working on broadway in 1922, broke sway for an unsatisfactory try at a film career in 1930, resumed stage work in 1931, and continued until 1936, when his cinematic career finally gained traction."

I first became obsessed with photography and motion pictures while growing up in post WW2 Manila in the Philippine Islands in the late 1940's/early 1950's. Film noirs were a particular influence. But my first love remains the theater. I acted in numerous amateur productions from 1958 to 1978. In 1979 I earned a MA in drama from the University of Arizona; earlier getting a BA in English from the University of Minnesota, where I co-founded the first film society on campus and ran it for four years. While at the U of A, I studied with the master black and white photo essayist W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978) the last year of his life. I am the last person cited in Jim Hughes' definitive biography of Gene, as I wrote about attending his final...