People I Would Like To Buy A Beer, part 9

Humphrey DeForrest Bogart.


Now here is a man that deserves a beer, although I think he was more of a bourbon or scotch kind of guy. Born to a wealthy east coast family and raised with a silver spoon, unlike most of the gangsters and the "close to the bone" characters that he played. He was fond of playing chess, and was said to be a very tough opponent. He liked his camel cigarettes too much, and in the end, that was what did him in. But I would love to sit down to a cold beer with him and Mrs. Bogart, Lauren Becall, and while away an evening playing chess and hearing insider tales of Hollywood in it's heyday.

When Sen. McCarthy convened his commitee on Unamerican activities and began blacklisting honest people in the entertainment industry, Bogey led a group of A-list actors to Washington to try and convince them to stop ruining the lives of some of America's best talent. Sadly, it didn't stop "Red Huntin' Joe", but it did shine a light on one of America's blackest moments, when your only choice before the commitee was to admit to some trumped up charge of being a communist and lose whatever life you may have had, or turn in your every friend, and hope against hope that you could come through this with some small shred of dignity.

So, thank you Sir for some of the greatist movies of all time, and thank you for being a true American, even when it was unpopular to do so, but it was the right thing to do.

Here's to you, Humphrey DeForrest Bogart! I hope God remembers you're a bourbon man.

Doc