Humphrey Bogart Ate The Same Meal Every Day

Like many of us, celebrities can develop some pretty persistent habits when it comes to their meals. For instance, Willie Nelson eats the same breakfast every day: a bowl of oatmeal. John Legend's go-to meal every time he goes onstage is a plate of roast chicken and steamed vegetables. In many cases, these habits are formed because of health concerns, to get a boost of energy, or, in the case of some athletes, out of superstition rituals.

For Humphrey Bogart, however, it was a classic case of indecision. In a 1942 interview with Photoplay (via Click Americana), the movie star talked about being unable to order anything other than bacon, eggs, and toast for lunch. "And every day, mind you, I make up my mind in the morning I'm going to have something different for lunch, see. All morning while I'm strangling some actor to death I think to myself, 'Shall I have a salad or lamb chops?' What do I end up with? Eggs and bacon," he said.

In the same interview, Bogart admitted to being difficult when it came to his food. He preferred his meals plain, without any gravy or sauce, and often stuck to just steaks or chops for dinner. He also wasn't a fan of dessert, especially the sort that was gussied up for fun. Bacon, eggs, and toast certainly fits the bill of a no-frills meal, which is just the way Bogie liked it.

This wasn't the only meal Humphrey Bogart was known to stick with as part of a habit. In a 2002 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Phil Gersh — his agent in the 1950s — shared that the star would always order a different, yet similarly brunchy, meal at Romanoff's, one of Bogart's favorite Beverly Hills brunch spots. "He had the same lunch every day between films at Mike Romanoff's: two scotch and sodas, an omelet, French toast, some milk, and then, at the end, coffee and a brandy," Gersh said. The coffee, in particular, is an interesting addition to the meal, considering Bogart said he couldn't take a mouthful of the stuff "without heaving" in the Photoplay interview (via Click Americana).

There was also the routine meal Bogart jokingly claimed saved him from dysentery while filming 1951's "The African Queen." "All I ate was baked beans, canned asparagus, and Scotch whisky. Whenever a fly bit [John] Huston or me, it dropped dead," he once said (via The Guardian). Three years later, while filming in Italy for 1954's "The Barefoot Contessa," Bogart said he subsisted on Scotch and minestrone, mainly because he didn't eat spaghetti (via Scotch Whisky).

Going by these meals, you might have noticed that, if there was ever a constant in Humphrey Bogart's diet, it would be Scotch. Not only was the spirit his go-to drink while filming, it was pretty much a core part of his life. In fact, according to a 2003 story in Modern Drunkard Magazine, he drank so much of the stuff that Jack Warner — one of the four founding Warner Brothers — once told him that he spent more on Scotch than some studio employees earned on their paychecks.

To say that Bogart cared more about Scotch than food isn't hyperbole, either. According to the story on Scotch Whisky, Mike Romanoff once said that Bogart didn't really enjoy food at all, and that he ate it only because he had to. Bogart himself said that Scotch was a "very valuable part" of his life, and it was so evident to everyone that after his death in 1957, more than a few people genuinely believed that his last words were, "I should have never switched from Scotch to martinis." The quote is most likely a fabrication, but the fact that folks to this day still accept it as fact is a testament to Bogart's love for the liquor. It might not be actual food, but Bogie would probably joke that Scotch was his go-to meal every day if he were still around.