Bogart

With a dozen biographies under his belt, the veteran Jeffrey Meyers took a round-up-the-usual-suspects approach to research, unlike the more comprehensive Sperber/Lax collaboration (see above). His much briefer book has more attitude and more gossip--claiming, for example, that Bogart's wife, Lauren Bacall, had an affair with Frank Sinatra while Bogart lay dying. It also boasts a stronger point of view: Meyers opens by drawing parallels between Bogart and Ernest Hemingway, and closes with a consideration of what the posthumous "Bogart cult" says about American values.