- Mayo Methot
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Mayo Methot Born March 3, 1904
Portland, Oregon, U.S.Died June 9, 1951 (aged 47)
Multnomah, Oregon, U.S.Occupation Actress Years active 1920s–1940s Spouse John M. La Mond
(1921-1927)
Percy T. Morgan Jr.
(1930?-1936)
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.
Contents
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. While on Broadway she originated a role in the Vincent Youmans / Billy Rose musical Great Day (1929), introducing the standard "More Than You Know" and several others. 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. It was her third marriage, first having wed at age 19 to Cosmopolitan Productions cameraman Jack La Mond, whom she divorced in 1927. After the death of her father, Captain Jack Methot, on December 20, 1929, she came to Hollywood in 1930 and soon 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-acquainted 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. 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, Methot 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 (Claire Trevor) of the mobster (played by Edward G. Robinson) sang a number off key and while intoxicated. The performance won Trevor an Oscar.
Numerous battles took place at the Hollywood residence of the famous couple including one in which Methot 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 Methot 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.
Final years and death
Methot was unable to renew her career and settled into a pattern of alcoholism and depression. Following her divorce from Bogart in May 1945 (Bogart married actress Lauren Bacall two weeks later), she moved back to Oregon where her mother helped take care of her. By the early 1950s, struggling to support herself and ill from years of alcoholism, she died in a motel room in Multnomah, Oregon, an outlying suburb of Portland, on June 9, 1951. Her body lay undiscovered for several days. When Bogart heard the news (while shooting The African Queen) his comment was "Such a waste". Mayo Methot's mother, Evelyn W. Methot, survived her daughter by five and a half years and died November 27, 1956. The Methot family members are all interred together at the Portland Memorial Mausoleum in Portland, Oregon.
Filmography
Film Year Title Role Notes 1930 Taxi Talks 1931 Corsair Sophie 1932 The Night Club Lady Lola Carewe 1932 Vanity Street Fern 1932 Virtue Lil Blair 1932 Afraid to Talk Marge Winters Alternative title: Merry-Go-Round 1933 The Mind Reader Jenny 1933 Lilly Turner Mrs. Durkee Uncredited 1933 Goodbye Love Sandra Hamilton 1933 Counsellor at Law Zedorah Chapman 1934 Jimmy the Gent Gladys Farrell 1934 Registered Nurse Nurse Gloria Hammond 1934 Harold Teen Sally LaSalle Alternative title: Dancing Fool 1934 Side Streets Maizie Roach Alternative title: A Woman in Her Thirties 1934 Mills of the Gods Sarah 1935 The Case of the Curious Bride Mrs. Florabelle Lawson 1935 We're in the Money Scenes deleted 1935 Dr. Socrates Muggsy, Red's Moll 1936 Mr. Deeds Goes to Town Mrs. Semple Uncredited 1936 The Case Against Mrs. Ames Cora 1937 Marked Woman Estelle Porter 1938 Women in Prison Daisy Saunders 1938 Numbered Woman Alternative title: Private Nurse 1938 The Sisters Blonde 1939 Should a Girl Marry? Betty Gilbert 1939 Unexpected Father Ethel Stone Alternative title: Sandy Takes a Bow 1939 A Woman Is the Judge Gertie 1940 Brother Rat and a Baby Girl in Bus Alternative title: Baby Be Good External links
Categories:- 1904 births
- 1951 deaths
- American film actors
- American stage actors
- People from Portland, Oregon
- Actors who committed suicide
- Drug-related suicides in Oregon
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