Humphrey Bogart and christmas spin

It was a well known Hollywood tactic to change actors’ biographical information for publicity purposes.  Even back in the silent era, names were changed to make them sound snappier, more attractive or less ethnic.  Ages were changed to make actors appear younger and older.  Height, weight and even birthdays were manipulated by the studios.  One renowned case of shifting a birthday to add some kind of symbolism was that of Humphrey Bogart. Throughout his film career, Bogart’s birth date was listed as Christmas Day 1899.  Later the truth came out that Humphrey had in fact been born on the more humble date of 23rd January 1899.  Clifford McCarty wrote in The Complete Films of Humphrey Bogart that his birthday had been changed to “foster the view that a man born on Christmas Day couldn’t really be as villainous as he appeared to be on screen”. However in very strange case of reverse legendry, the so called “real” explanation turned out to be false.  If Bogart had been born on 23rd January, it was certainly news to him.  He had always celebrated his birthday on Christmas Day and believed his birth date to be 1899.  Bogart’s official biographers, Serber and Lax noted that while Bogart’s birth certificate had been lost, the Ontario Times announced that a son was born to Dr. and Mrs Belmont DeForest Bogart on 25th December 1899 in New York, in its issue on January 10th 1900. Even if the newspaper documentation was absent, a birth date of January 23rd 1899 would have been totally unlikely as the couple had only been married six months before.  Both Humphrey’s parents were prominent members of Manhattan society, his father a rich New York doctor and his mother a nationally famous illustrator.  In those surroundings a three month pregant bride at the altar would have become the subject of public gossip.  So for once, Tinseltown lore demonstrates that on some occasions, fiction can really be stranger than truth.