Mayo Methot (
March 3, 1904 -
June 9, 1951) was an
American film and
theater actress.
Methot was born in
Portland, Oregon. A petite brunette, she became a popular actress on
Broadway during the 1920s where she was admired for both her acting and singing ability. She moved to
Hollywood in the early 1930s and began an association with
Warner Brothers Studios. She found herself most usually cast as unsympathetic second leads, and tough talking "dames" of Warner's contemporary crime melodramas such as
Jimmy the Gent and
Marked Woman, where she met
Humphrey Bogart. They married in 1938.
The couple became high profile Hollywood celebrities, but it was not a smooth marriage. Both Bogarts drank heavily, and Methot gained a reputation for her violent excesses when under the influence of alcohol. They became known as "The Battling Bogarts" with Methot's nickname widely known, for her combativeness, as "Sluggy." Actress
Gloria Stuart recalled in her later years, a dinner party at which Methot produced a pistol and threatened to shoot Bogart. Methot's career went into a rapid decline as a result of her drinking, and her marriage to Bogart ended in 1945, when he left her to marry
Lauren Bacall.
Methot was unable to renew her career and settled into a pattern of
alcoholism and
depression. Struggling to support herself and ill from years of alcoholism, she died in a motel room in
Portland, Oregon. 
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