(1899-1957) a famous
American actor and one of the most popular
motion-
picture "tough
guys" from the
late 1930s to the 1950s. He began his career on the
stage in the 1930s with his first notable
role being the gangster and murderer Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest. The re-creation of this
role on film in 1936 brought him fame and thereafter followed a string of memorable performances, such as the
private detective Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1941), the cynical nightclub owner Rick Blaine in
Casablanca (1942), the greedy prospector
Fred C. Dobbs in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), and the
psychotic captain Queeg in The
Caine Mutiny (1954).