Bogie Gets Star Billing Once Again Hollywood Premieres Stamp Of Film Legend

Five decades after Humphrey Bogart left his foot and hand prints in the wet cement of Mann’s Chinese Theater’s courtyard here, sticky homage was paid to him again in the same spot Thursday.

With Bogie’s widow and children in attendance, the Bogart postage stamp was unveiled in a red-carpet ceremony.

The third issue in the U.S. Postal Service’s highly successful “Legends of Hollywood” commemorative series, the first-class stamp features a pensive Bogart and is slated for a print run of 195 million.

The crowd of stamp collectors, tourists and postal officials was no doubt tamer than the crowd that turned out in August 1946 when Bogart left his prints.

Instead of rushing for autographs, the philatelists rushed to nearby post office tables where they could buy first-day Bogie stamp sheets and have them hand-canceled.

“I’ve got Elvis, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe,” explained Barbara Swenson after getting a batch of Bogart stamps.

Not a serious collector, her interest was piqued by the Elvis Presley and Hollywood issues. Swenson grew up in Los Angeles and finds something irresistible about the tiny visages of her hometown stars, which she frames and places on her den wall.

The Postal Service is blissfully aware of the allure - as happy to cash in on Hollywood legends as any studio. With 500 million Elvis stamps snapped up, that issue is the Postal Service’s all-time best seller, bringing in $36 million.

Actress Lauren Bacall, Bogart’s widow and 1940s co-star, joked after the ceremony that she would plaster her entire house with the stamps.

Gamely granting brief, individual interviews to reporters after the unveiling, Bacall said Bogart would have been surprised at finding himself on a stamp.

“He was not a man who sought attention or affection,” she said.

“He was a man who cared about the quality of his work and the quality of his life,” she added. “He just didn’t think in terms of his notoriety or receiving honors or awards.”