Bogart and the Anti-Hero

In 1935, a young actor named Humphrey Bogart (his real name) got his first starring role on Broadway in a play called "Petrified Forest" with costar Leslie Howard at the Broadhurst Theater.  Lance Goss directed the play at Millsaps several times, with the last one in the 90s with Paul Hough as Duke Mantee.  It would be Bogar's last major role on stage.

Bogart played a few small roles in films, some so small they were uncredited, but in 1936 he returned to Hollywood with a triumphant contract with Warner Brothers and shot "The Petrified Forest," again with Leslie Howard and introducing Bette Davis as Gabby, a role played by Christine Swannie at Millsaps.

Over the next five years, Bogart made almost fifteen films, all variations on the criminal he played in Petrified Forest, including his stint as a crooked lawyer in "Angels with Dirty Faces," and the Science Fiction thriller "The Return of Doctor X."  Bogart never doubted his abilities and fought with Warner Brothers to let him try roles that weren't criminals.  

In 1941, Bogart received the big break he wanted playing a new kind of character, dubbed the "anti-hero" he played the hard-boiled detective in "The Maltese Falcon" based on the hit novel by the same name by  Dashiell Hammett and also introduced Sydney Greenstreet who would act against Bogart again.  

Sam Spade reinvented Bogart as an actor and reinvented the entire genre of crime drama.  There are just a few films you can point to and say, "This changed the direction of the art form,"  "The Maltese Falcon" is one of those.  Again, Bogart would spend the next several films mostly typecast again, this time as the anti-hero detective, but his career was starting to be on his own terms. 

The success of Sam Spade did allow Bogart his first chance to really act against type.  In 1942, a small play called "Everybody Comes to Ricks" was the subject of the rising patriotism and anti-fascism in America as a result of the Pearl Harbor invasion.  Bogart was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for playing Rick Blaine in "Casablanca."

In 1944, Bogart won the role of Harry "Steve" Morgan in the screen adaptation of Hemmingway's "To Have and To Have Not."  Hemmingway refused to write the script himself, so director Howard Hawks hired Jules Furthman to pen the first script.  Not pleased with the final product, Hawks hired Mississippi novelist William Faulkner to mend the script.  This film is perhaps most notable for introducing a nineteen-year-old Lauren Bacall to the world as Slim.  In his forties, a spark between Bacall and Bogart struck up that became a  Hollywood legend.  Humphrey Bogar and Lauren "Baby" Bacall made an unlikely love affair for the ages.

Bogart went on to play many more anti-heroes, but 1951's "African Queen" with John Houston and Katharine Hepburn, shot on location in Africa, remains one of Bogar's most memorable films.  Bogart finally got his Best Actor statue for playing Charlie Allnut.

In 1955, Bogart released "We're No Angles,"  still playing an anti-hero, but this time a comedy.  Co-starring Aldo Ray, Peter Ustinov, and Basil Rathbone, "We're No Angles" has been one of my Christmas tradition films since I first saw it on TNT in 1980.  

Bogart would make three more films, but a heavy smoker and a heavy drinker, he would die of esophageal cancer in 1957.  

Baby Bacall was thirty-two when Bogart died.  Bogart was fifty-seven.  Bacall bore Bogart two children.  A son named Stephen, named for Bogart's character in "To Have and To Have Not." and a daughter named Leslie Howard for Bogart's co-star and friend.  Hepburn and Spencer Tracy would visit Bogart in his final days.

Bogart and Bacall were both liberal democrats and fiercely anti-fascists.  Like many Hollywood liberals, Bogart was called before the Committee on Unamerican Activities to defend his political viewpoints.  Afterward, he wrote an article entitled "I'm No Communist," defending not only himself but those found in contempt of the hearings.

I've profiled a lot of actors, but Bogart is one of my favorites.  His is a very American story.

The Donor Wall

 Sometimes I feel like I've lived too long, like I've seen too much, like I've passed by too much.  

Today I went to the Two Mississippi Museums to attend a lecture on a book by Carolyn Brown and Carla Wall about the life of Thalia Mara.  

On the way in, I noticed the Donor Wall for the museum.  Anytime you see a non-profit structure, there's usually one of these.  I was early, so I scanned the names.  As you can see in the photo, it's a pretty wide wall.  I knew every name.  Some I haven't seen in a while because it says "foundation" after their name, and they've been dead for thirty years, but I knew them, Horatio, every one. 

About half were Millsaps people, either graduates or board members, or both.  If you ever question the influence Millsaps has had, look at the names on pretty much any donor wall in Mississippi.   A good portion of the were from Galloway too.  

Mississippi is like a big heavy barge trying to make its way up a slow river.  It takes an awful lot of people pushing on one side to make it change direction just a little.  That's what signs like these are.  They're a whole bunch of people pushing in one direction, trying to make things a little better.

Sometimes, it takes just one person to show a bigger bunch where to push.  Thalia Mara was a tiny lady, the daughter of Russian Immigrants, who showed up in Mississippi out of the blue like the Circus of Dr. Lao, and she taught us we could do better.  Because of her, we've been doing better since 1975, next week, we begin the twelfth iteration of the US International Ballet Competition right here in Jackson because of her.  

Jackson and Austin

Austin, Texas, is a progressive, arts-intensive enclave in the middle of one of the most conservative states in America.  It sounds like they'd be under siege, but it works for them, and it has worked for as long as I can remember.  That might be a model we can use in Jackson.  I think it's a model we're already using, even if it's not consciously so.

I'm aware that most of the city government looks at the whole Capitol Police and HB1020 thing as a bunch of peckerwoods trying to make them look bad.  There might even be something to that philosophy.  

Here's me out, though.  They're not gonna stop.  Getting mad about it is just gonna make them do it more because, to them, there are political points to be made by making Jackson progressives angry.  

Instead of fighting it, what I would do is I would lean into it.  I'd play up how the state of Mississippi has sent us all these shiny new police cars and all the shiny new policemen (that we don't have to pay for) and then really, really sell the idea that they're going to make our high profile areas, mainly the Fondren Entertainment District, The Downtown Entertainment and Museum District and the LeFleurs Bluff entertainment district as safe as your momma's pantry--and then hold them to that.  

In an area with a reputation for crime, having a bunch of new police, even if they were forced on you by people who hate you, is an absolute selling point, and a big selling point that we don't have to pay for can be a genius plan if you sell it right.

Of course, if you act like you appreciate what the white, conservative legislature is doing, they may quit doing it because they hate us and their constituents hate us, but there are ways around that.  It might even be a step toward making it so they don't score points by beating up on Jackson.

Squaring off against the governor and the speaker and whatever yay-who's are in the legislature isn't a sustainable plan.  Jackson ends up losing every time, and they win points with their people by beating up on us, even though it's hardly a fair fight since they have all the power.

If you finesse these people, though, if you can manage to maybe not show your entire hand and act like you really want to work with them, then Jackson can work its way into more control of these efforts, which will help assuage some of the legitimate concerns there are about over-policing.  

The current mayor comes from a culture of radical protests and combative cultural language.  His father was a master of that.  Radicalism works best when you have no power.  Radicalism becomes your power.  It gives you a voice that you otherwise wouldn't have.  Once you're in positions of power and shared power, radicalism starts to work against you because it makes other people not want to work with you.

I think it's possible for the Mayor to honor the work his father did and honor the alliances that come with that but really push forward with the idea that this is a new day.   Push forward the idea that a Black Jackson now shares power with their white neighbors, and as a good neighbor, wants to work with all the programs that come with being neighbors, including things like the Capitol Police, but also forge better and stronger relationships between all the metro police departments so you don't have this conflict that you see now between Jackson and Pearl, Brandon and Madison police.

We're so close to having the best of both worlds.  All we have to do is grab it.  Until we learn to grasp the concept of and live with the idea of our being a new, conjoined community, then we're gonna suffer a lot of the things we've been suffering.  

Working with somebody doesn't have to make you look subservient to them.  Think about Thalia Mara.  She was this tiny little woman with a weird accent and a whole bunch of gay friends who somehow figured out a way to make all these backwoods sons-a-bitches do exactly what she wanted, and she made it look like it was their idea.  I think that can happen again.  It just takes a change of perspective.

The Morning

When I was very little, I was always the first one awake, the first one out of bed and out of my room.  I got to turn the coffee pot on and hear the morning farm report that came on at six and started the broadcast day.  Sometimes I saw the static that preceded it and the national anthem tape that was probably made in the fifties.  

Then things started to change.  My father didn't have time for breakfast anymore.  Once I was introduced to the concept of homework, I was also introduced to the idea that if it involved reading, writing, or math, mine was probably wrong.  Eventually, if I couldn't get somebody to check my homework before school, I just didn't turn it in.  I'd rather have a zero for not trying than to be told all the places I was wrong.  

Eventually, my brother down the hall began to change into something very different from what he was before.  One of the reasons I write about him, and try to be really very honest about it, is because there are lots of people who never knew him before he became ill.  I'd like for there to be more to his legacy than what became of him.

Before I learned how broken I was, how broken the world around me could be, how people who don't mean any harm to anyone can suffer for no reason, before all that, I was the first one to get up in the morning.  I loved the morning.  I loved the rising sun and the opportunity of a new day.  

Sometimes, I get all that back.  Sometimes feist-dog pulls the covers off me, and I'm out of bed before the alarm goes off.  Sometimes, I go into the sun thinking, "Boy, I'm lucky!"  But not every day.  Not anymore.  

The world wore on me pretty roughly.  If it was just on me, I think it'd be ok, but when I look around, a lot of people who never did anyone any harm got it a lot worse.  Somedays, the world is a blank canvas ready for opportunity.  Some days the world is a gauntlet testing how much you can take.  

I was a pretty timid boy.  Especially when it came to talking to strangers.  It wasn't so bad with grownups.  I think I was expecting them to understand that I stuttered, maybe even be amused by it.  I always loved the world though, and loved getting out in it.  There are days when I get all that back, and then there are days when I just want to keep the door closed and the lights out as long as I can.  

Mississippi is full of wonders when you're little.  It's full of doubts and fears when you're old enough to see the world as it is.  That glimmer of childhood optimism never really dies, though.  If it didn't die after all the things I did to it, then it's immortal.

The world starts when you turn on the lights and open the door.  The world is filled with challenges but even more opportunities.  There's an imaginary dog that tells me this when I remember to listen to him.