Bogart: In Search of My Father.

Humphrey Bogart once said, "I'm not the greatest actor in the world. Gary Cooper is not a great actor. But when he comes on the screen you watch him. And I have that quality. That's what they call a star."

Perhaps Bogart did have some innate quality, a combination of coolness and lack of pretension that drew audiences to him. Or perhaps his appeal came from his concentration and dedication to his craft. In any case, his roles in such films as Casablanca and The Big Sleep earned him lasting fame, fame that was difficult for the offspring raised in its shadow. In Bogart: In Search of My Father (Dutton, 304 pp.), son Stephen Humphrey Bogart tells what it was like to be "Bogie's boy."

Bogart died when Stephen was eight years old, leaving him with few concrete memories to measure against the huge shadow cast by the screen legend. In some sense the world knew Humphrey Bogart better than Stephen Bogart did. (The author recalls flubbing trivia questions about his father's films). So the younger Bogart embarked on a quest for paternal and self knowledge, resulting in a somewhat secondhand but often touching portrait of the famous man.

The author is conflicted over the brief time he spent with his father; though he felt loved, his father was often out making movies or carousing with friends. Stephen was Humphrey Bogart's first child. When he was born, Bogart was 49, on his fourth marriage and set in his ways. He had never expected to have a child, and he seemed at a loss as to what to do with one. A few years earlier, he had offered to take his godson out to lunch, but panicked at the last minute, asking the child's mother, "For God's sake, what do you talk to a 13-year-old boy about?" "Well," she replied, "you're his godfather. That means you're supposed to be in charge of his religious instruction." When the boy returned home, his mother asked what the two of them had talked about. "Not much," replied the boy. "Mr. Bogart said, 'Listen, kid, there are 12 commandments,' and then he ordered a drink."

Bogart was a heavy drinker, and his son doesn't sidestep the facts. Stephen describes the movie star as "the kind of guy who could be happy in two rooms, as long as one of them had a bar in it." The times were different, and Bogie counted drinking, smoking and talking with friends among life's greatest pleasures. But there is no doubt that he also drank to ease pain and insecurity. He knew that his rough personality put people off, and he sometimes felt that no one liked him. He had been through several marriages, including a violent one to a mentally ill actress, Mayo Methot, who stabbed him with a kitchen knife. Stephen's mother, Lauren Bacall, reports that sometimes when Bogart was drunk he didn't know who she was. But by all accounts, Bogart found true love and security in this last marriage and drank a great deal less when he was with Bacall.

Bogart had a sharp tongue and was merciless with people he didn't like. He loved a good argument; a favorite prank was to say something outrageous to a group of people, wait until everyone was fighting and slip out of the room. He was opinionated and exceptionally well-educated for Hollywood; contrary to his tough guy image, he came from a wealthy New York family and had attended an exclusive prep school. Says Stephen, "The press ... loved the fact that Bogie was outspoken and irreverent. They found him very quotable because he didn't dish out the pablum they were used to."

Bogart was also extremely professional, and took the time to be a mentor to younger actors. He felt that the key to acting was simple concentration; he warned his proteges not to do a dinner scene with method actors because they'd spit all over you. Bogart was also something of a visionary. In 1947 he founded his own production company, Santana Pictures Corporation. At the time, such a move was unheard of, but Bogart said that some day all major stars would have their own production companies in order to control the quality of their projects.

Stephen Bogart's first confrontation with his father's fame came at age eight, when he saw the hordes of people at Bogie's funeral: "it felt to me that if thousands of people could cry at my father's funeral, then I had no special relationship with him." Feeling excluded and jealous, Stephen rejected his father's memory. Often during his troubled adolescence and early adulthood - which were plagued by substance abuse and insecurity that mirrored his father's - Stephen would deny that he was related to Bogie.

Bogart: In Search of My Father is a reconciliation, an attempt to reclaim a father stolen away by death and the public eye. While researching the book, Stephen Bogart grew to know the man behind the image, filling in an empty part of his own identity.

At the time of his death Bogie was just beginning to grow accustomed to fatherhood and was looking forward to teaching his son to sail. Says Stephen Bogart, "I am sure now that if my father had lived a full life we would have had the kind of relationship that fathers and sons dream of."