Mayo Methot
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| Mayo Methot | |
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| Born | March 3, 1904 Portland, Oregon, United States |
| Died | June 9, 1951 (aged 47) Multnomah, Oregon, United States |
| Years active | 1920s-1940s |
| Spouse(s) | Humphrey Bogart (1938-1945) |
Mayo Methot (March 3, 1904 – June 9, 1951), also known as Mayo Methot Bogart, was an American film and theater actress.
[edit] Biography
Methot was born in Portland, Oregon. A petite brunette, she became a popular actress on Broadway during the 1920s where she was admired for both her acting and singing ability. She moved to Hollywood in the early 1930s and began an association with Warner Brothers Studios. She found herself most usually cast as unsympathetic second leads, and tough talking "dames" of Warner's contemporary crime melodramas such as Jimmy the Gent and Marked Woman, where she met Humphrey Bogart. They married in 1938. Prior to this she had married twice. First at age 19 to Cosmopolitan Productions cameraman Jack La Mond, whom she divorced in 1927. She then came to Hollywood in 1930 and married Percy T. Morgan (the co-owner, with his brother, of the well-known Cock n' Bull restaurant on Hollywood's Sunset Boulevard). They divorced shortly after she re-acquanited with Bogart in 1936.
Methot and Bogart became a couple of high profile Hollywood celebrities, but it was not a smooth marriage. Both drank heavily, and Methot gained a reputation for her violent excesses when under the influence of alcohol. They became known as "The Battling Bogarts" with Methot's nickname widely known, for her combativeness, as "Sluggy." Bogart later named his motor yacht Sluggy, in her honor. During World War II, the Bogarts traveled Europe, entertaining the troops. But the troops weren't the only ones who were entertained. Most of the time during their travels, they stayed in officers quarters. They had no trouble borrowing guns, and many times, were caught "shooting up the place" in the middle of the night. Afterwards, the army banned married couples from entertaining the troops for the remainder of the war.
At one point, in their travels during the war, they linked up with director John Huston in Italy. During a night of heavy drinking, Mayo insisted that everyone listen to her perform a song. Though, they told her no, she sang anyway. The performance was so bad and embarrassing, Huston and Bogart remembered it years later and based a scene in "Key Largo" on the incident. It was the scene in which the alcoholic girlfriend of the mobster (played by Edward G. Robinson) sang a number off key and while intoxicated. The performance won an Oscar for the actress in the film,Claire Trevor.
Numerous battles took place at the Hollywood residence of the famous couple including one in which Mayo actually stabbed Bogart in the shoulder. The incident was kept out of the press by the publicity department of Warner Bros. Actress Gloria Stuart recalled in her later years, a dinner party at which Methot produced a pistol and threatened to shoot Bogart. At one point, when Mayo was depressed, she slashed her wrists (again, played down by the press thanks to their studio). Methot's career went into a rapid decline as a result of her drinking, and her marriage to Bogart ended in 1945, when he left her to marry Lauren Bacall.
Methot was unable to renew her career and settled into a pattern of alcoholism and depression. Following her divorce from Bogart, she moved back to Oregon where her mother helped take care of her. Struggling to support herself and ill from years of alcoholism, she died in a motel room in Multnomah, Oregon, an outlying suburb of Portland in 1951. Her body laid undiscovered for several days. When Bogart heard the news (while shooting The African Queen) his comment was "such a waste".
[edit] External links
- Mayo Methot at the Internet Movie Database
- Biographical sketch at the University of Oregon
- Find a Grave
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Methot, Mayo |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Actress |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 3, 1904 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Portland, Oregon, United States |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 9, 1951 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Multnomah, Oregon, United States |
