Billy Wilder’s contentious relationship with Humphrey Bogart: “He was a shit”

Posted On July 12, 2024July 12, 2024

In keeping with their reputations and track records, the first time Billy Wilder and Humphrey Bogart worked together, the end result was an Academy Award-winning classic.

The filmmaker found himself on the ‘Best Director’ shortlist for 1954’s Sabrina, which saw Edith Head win one of her eight Oscars for ‘Best Costume Design’. The romantic comedy starred Audrey Hepburn in the title role, who ends up caught in a love triangle between Bogart and William Holden.

The issues between the director and star arose fairly quickly and stemmed largely from the fact that ‘Bogie’ wasn’t Wilder’s first choice for the role of Linus Larrabee, and he was completely aware of it. The influential auteur had his eyes on Cary Grant first and foremost, and it proved to be an obstacle neither of them could overcome personally.

Wilder even admitted that he got on “very, very well with actors,” something that was quite clearly reflected in his work. However, there was a caveat, which came when he worked “with sons of bitches like Mr. Bogart”. Suffice it to say that initial tension between them never dissipated during production, with a game of one-upmanship unfolding when the need to be professional on set was no longer required.

“He did not like me because in the very beginning, after the shooting, there was a little bit of drinking, like two or three martinis, in Holden’s dressing room,” Wilder said, per Vanity Fair. “I forgot to invite him. He was all by himself, in the dressing room with the hairdresser who had to put that hairpiece on there. He was not part of the crowd. I finally went to invite him, and he said, ‘No, thank you very much’.”

Wilder even rewrote the part to tailor it closer to Bogart’s sensibilities, only for the actor to ask if the filmmaker’s seven-year-old daughter had scripted the fresh dialogue. Understandably, that didn’t go down well. “He was a shit,” he succinctly offered. “Because he knew that I wanted to have Cary Grant. And also because I did not invite him with a big flask of gin. He probably would not have come if I’d asked him, but the fact that I did not ask him, he never forgot.”

Bogart would only make five more features after Sabrina, with his cancer diagnosis ultimately claiming his life a little more than two years after his fractious collaboration with Wilder. Fortunately, he didn’t want to end their short-lived partnership on a sour note, reaching out to make amends before his passing.

Describing him as “absolutely wonderful” during their final encounter, Bogart told Wilder he fought with a lot of people, and the animosity between them was water under the bridge. They ended on good terms, then, but for a while the six-time Oscar winner would have been happy if he never saw him again.

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