His performances in classic Hollywood cinema made him an American cultural icon. Bogart began acting in Broadway shows. Debuting in film in The Dancing Town , he appeared in supporting roles for more than a decade, regularly portraying gangsters.
His breakthrough came in High Sierra , and he catapulted to stardom as the lead in John Huston 's The Maltese Falcon , considered one of the first great noir films. In , he played a war hero in another noir , Dead Reckoning , tangled in a dangerous web of brutality and violence as he investigates his friend's murder, co-starring Lizabeth Scott.
Blaine was ranked as the fourth greatest hero of American cinema by the American Film Institute, and Blaine and Lund's romance the greatest love story in American cinema , also by the American Film Institute.
Raymond Chandler , in a letter, wrote that "Like Edward G. Robinson when he was younger, all he has to do to dominate a scene is to enter it. In , a few months after principal photography for The Big Sleep , their second film together, he divorced his third wife and married Bacall.
After their marriage, they played each other's love interest in the mystery thrillers Dark Passage and Key Largo Bogart's performances in Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Nicholas Ray 's In a Lonely Place are now considered among his best, although they were not recognized as such when the films were released.
