Dirk Bogarde

Dirk Bogarde
Dirk Bogarde
Born Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde
28 March 1921(1921-03-28)
West Hampstead, London, England
Died 8 May 1999(1999-05-08) (aged 78)
Chelsea, London, England
Occupation Actor, novelist
Years active 1939—90
Website
dirkbogarde.co.uk (Dirk Bogarde Estate)

Sir Dirk Bogarde (28 March 1921 – 8 May 1999) was an English actor and novelist. Initially a matinee idol in such films as Doctor in the House (1954) and other Rank Organisation pictures, Bogarde later acted in art-house films like Death in Venice (1971). He also wrote several volumes of autobiography.

Contents

Early years

Bogarde was born Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde in a nursing home at 12 Hemstal Road,[1] West Hampstead, London, of mixed Flemish, Dutch and Scottish ancestry, and baptised on 30 October at St. Mary's Church, Kilburn.[1] His father, Ulric van den Bogaerde (born in Perry Barr, Birmingham; 1892-1972), was the art editor of The Times and his mother, Margaret Niven (1898-1980), was a former actress;his grand niece is the singer Birdy. He attended University College School,[2] the former Allan Glen's School in Glasgow (a time he described in his autobiography as unhappy, although others have disputed his account)[3] and later studied at the Chelsea College of Art and Design.

War service

Bogarde served in World War II, being commissioned into the Queen's Royal Regiment in 1943. He reached the rank of captain and served in both the European and Pacific theatres, principally as an intelligence officer. He claimed to have been one of the first Allied officers in April 1945 to reach the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, an experience that had the most profound effect on him and about which he found it difficult to speak for many years afterward. As John Carey has summed up with regard to John Coldstream's authorised biography however, "it is virtually impossible that he (Bogarde) saw Belsen or any other camp. Things he overheard or read seem to have entered his imagination and been mistaken for lived experience."[4] Coldstream's analysis seems to conclude that this was indeed the case.[5] Nonetheless, the horror and revulsion at the cruelty and inhumanity that he claimed to have witnessed still left him with a deep-seated hostility towards Germany; in the late-1980s he wrote that he would disembark from a lift rather than ride with a German.[6] Nevertheless, three of his more memorable film roles were as Germans, one of them as a former SS officer in The Night Porter.[7]

He was most vocal, towards the end of his life, on the issue of voluntary euthanasia, of which he became a staunch proponent after witnessing the protracted death of his lifelong partner and manager Anthony Forwood (the former husband of actress Glynis Johns) in 1988. He gave an interview to John Hofsess, London executive director of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society:

"My views were formulated as a 24-year-old officer in Normandy ... On one occasion the jeep ahead hit a mine ... Next thing I knew, there was this chap in the long grass beside me. A bloody bundle, shrapnel-ripped, legless, one arm only. The one arm reached out to me, white eyeballs wide, unseeing, in the bloody mask that had been a face. A gurgling voice said, 'Help. Kill me.' With shaking hands I reached for my small pouch to load my revolver ... I had to look for my bullets -- by which time somebody else had already taken care of him. I heard the shot. I still remember that gurgling sound. A voice pleading for death" ... "During the war I saw more wounded men being 'taken care of' than I saw being rescued. Because sometimes you were too far from a dressing station, sometimes you couldn't get them out. And they were pumping blood or whatever; they were in such a wreck, the only thing to do was to shoot them. And they were, so don't think they weren't. That hardens you: You get used to the fact that it can happen. And that it is the only sensible thing to do".

Film career

His London West End theatre-acting debut was in 1939, with the stage name 'Derek Bogaerde', in J. B. Priestley's play Cornelius. After the war his agent renamed him 'Dirk Bogarde' and his good looks helped him begin a career as a film actor, contracted to The Rank Organisation under the wing of the prolific independent film producer Betty Box, who produced most of his early films and was instrumental in creating his matinee-idol image.[8]

During the 1950s, Bogarde came to prominence playing a hoodlum who shoots and kills a police constable in The Blue Lamp (1950) co-starring Jack Warner and Bernard Lee; by portraying a murderer who befriends a young boy played by Jon Whiteley in Hunted (aka The Stranger in Between) (1952); in Appointment in London (1953) as a young airman in Bomber Command who, against orders, joins a major offensive against the Germans; The Sea Shall Not Have Them (1954), playing a flight sergeant trapped in a dinghy with Michael Redgrave; Doctor in the House (1954), as a medical student, in a film that made Bogarde one of the most popular British stars of the 1950s, and co-starring Kenneth More, Donald Sinden and James Robertson Justice as their crabby mentor; The Sleeping Tiger (1954), playing a neurotic criminal with co-star Alexis Smith, and Bogarde's first film for American expatriate director Joseph Losey; Doctor at Sea (1955), co-starring Brigitte Bardot in one of her first film roles; Cast a Dark Shadow (1955), as a man who marries women for money and then murders them; The Spanish Gardener (1956), co-starring Cyril Cusack, Jon Whiteley and Bernard Lee; Doctor at Large (1957), another entry in the "Doctor series", co-starring later Bond girl Shirley Eaton; A Tale of Two Cities (1958), a faithful retelling of Charles Dickens' classic; The Doctor's Dilemma (1959), based on a play by George Bernard Shaw and co-starring Leslie Caron and Robert Morley, (not a part of the "Doctor series"); and Libel (1959), playing two separate roles and co-starring Olivia de Havilland. Bogarde quickly became a matinee idol and was Britain's number one box office draw of the 1950s, gaining the title of "The Matinee Idol of the Odeon".

After leaving the Rank Organisation in the early 1960s, Bogarde abandoned his heart-throb image for more challenging parts, such as barrister Melville Farr in Victim (1961), directed by Basil Dearden; decadent valet Hugo Barrett in The Servant (1963), directed by Joseph Losey and written by Harold Pinter; television reporter Robert Gold in Darling (1965), directed by John Schlesinger; Stephen, a bored Oxford University professor, in Losey's Accident, (1967) also written by Pinter; German industrialist Frederick Bruckman in Luchino Visconti's The Damned (1969); the ex-Nazi, Max Aldorfer, in the chilling and controversial The Night Porter (1974) directed by Liliana Cavani; and, most notably, as Gustav von Aschenbach in Death in Venice (1971) also directed by Visconti.

In some of his other roles during the 1960s and 1970s, Bogarde played opposite renowned stars, yet several of the films were of uneven quality. Some of these movies included The Angel Wore Red (1960), playing an unfrocked priest who falls in love with cabaret entertainer Ava Gardner during the Spanish Civil War; Song Without End (1960), playing Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist Franz Liszt, a flawed film made under the initial direction of Charles Vidor (who died during shooting), and completed by Bogarde's friend George Cukor, in Bogarde's only disappointing foray into Hollywood; the campy The Singer Not the Song (1961), as a Mexican bandit co-starring John Mills as a priest; H.M.S. Defiant (aka Damn the Defiant!) (1962), playing sadistic Lieutenant Scott-Padget, in which Bogarde practically steals the movie from his co-star Sir Alec Guinness; I Could Go On Singing (1963), co-starring Judy Garland in her final screen role; The Mind Benders (1963), an off-beat film where Bogarde plays an Oxford professor conducting sensory deprivation experiments at Oxford University (precursor to Altered States (1980)); Hot Enough for June, (aka "Agent 8¾") (1964), a James Bond-type spy spoof co-starring Robert Morley; King & Country (1964), playing an army lawyer reluctantly defending deserter Tom Courtenay; Modesty Blaise (1966), a campy spy send-up playing archvillain Gabriel opposite Monica Vitti and Terence Stamp; Our Mother's House (1967), an off-beat film playing an estranged father of seven children, directed by Jack Clayton; The Fixer (1968), based on Bernard Malamud's novel, co-starring Alan Bates; Sebastian (1968), playing a former Oxford professor heading the all-female decoding office of British Intelligence, co-starring Sir John Gielgud, Susannah York and Lilli Palmer; Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), co-starring Sir John Gielgud and Sir Laurence Olivier and directed by Richard Attenborough; Justine (1969), directed by George Cukor; Le Serpent (1973), co-starring Henry Fonda and Yul Brynner; A Bridge Too Far (1977), in a rather controversial performance as Lieutenant General Frederick "Boy" Browning, also starring Sean Connery and an all-star cast; Providence (1977), directed by Alain Resnais and co-starring Sir John Gielgud; Despair (1978) directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder; and Daddy Nostalgie, (aka These Foolish Things) (1991) co-starring Jane Birkin as his daughter, Bogarde's final film role.

While a contract performer at the Rank Organisation, Bogarde was considered for a screen version of Lawrence Of Arabia (1962), to be directed by Anthony Asquith.[citation needed] The role of Lawrence eventually went to Peter O'Toole and was directed by David Lean. Not getting the role of Lawrence of Arabia was Bogarde's greatest screen disappointment.[8] Bogarde was also reportedly considered for the title role in MGM's Doctor Zhivago (1965).[citation needed] Earlier, he declined Louis Jourdan's role as Gaston in MGM's Gigi (1958).[citation needed].

In addition, Bogarde was in 1961 offered a stage role at the recently founded Chichester Festival Theatre by artistic director Sir Laurence Olivier, however he had to decline due to film commitments.[9] Bogarde later said that he regretted declining Olivier's offer, and with it the chance to "really learn my craft".[10]

Bogarde was nominated six times as Best Actor by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), winning twice, for The Servant in 1963, and for Darling in 1965. He also received the London Film Critics Circle Lifetime Award in 1991. He made a total of 63 films between 1939 and 1991.

Later career and personal life

Bogarde with Jane Birkin at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.

In 1977, Bogarde embarked on his second career as an author. Starting with a first volume A Postillion Struck by Lightning, (a title derived from a French-to-English travel phrase book ) he wrote a series of autobiographical volumes, novels and book reviews. As a writer Bogarde displayed a witty, elegant, highly literate and thoughtful style.

Bogarde was a life-long bachelor and, during his life, was reported to be homosexual.[11] Bogarde's most serious friendship with a woman was with the bisexual[citation needed] French actress Capucine. For many years he shared his homes, first in Amersham, then in France with his manager Anthony Forwood (a former husband of actress Glynis Johns and the father of her only child, actor Gareth Forwood), but repeatedly denied that their relationship was anything but platonic. Such denials were understandable, mainly given that homosexual acts were illegal during most of his career, and also considering his appeal to women, which he was loath to jeopardise. His brother Gareth Van den Bogaerde in a 2004 interview with Jan Moir stated that Bogarde engaged in homosexual sex at a time when such activity was illegal, and also claimed that the relationship with Forwood went beyond that of a manager and friend.[12]

Many believed Bogarde's refusal to enter into a marriage of convenience was a major reason for his failure to become a star in Hollywood, together with the critical and commercial failure of Song Without End. His friend Helena Bonham Carter believed Bogarde would not have been able to come out as gay during later life, since this might too unambiguously have demonstrated that he had been forced to camouflage his real sexual orientation during his film career.[13]

Bogarde starred in the film Victim (1961), playing a homosexual London barrister who fights the blackmailers of a young man with whom he has had an emotional relationship. The young man commits suicide after being arrested for embezzlement, rather than ruin his friend's reputation. In exposing the ring of extortionists, Bogarde's character risks his career and marriage in order to see that justice is done. Victim was the first mainstream British film to treat homosexuality convincingly; and it had some effect upon a contemporary change in English law which decriminalized consensual homosexual acts.

He was also a shareholder in Pressdram Ltd, the company that owned the satirical magazine Private Eye. Upon his death his shares passed on to Brock van der Bogaerde.

Bogarde's controversial film choices later in his career led him to have something of a cult following. The singer Morrissey was a fan and, according to Charlotte Rampling,[14] Bogarde was approached in 1990 by Madonna to appear in her video for Justify My Love, citing The Night Porter as an inspiration. Bogarde declined the offer.

In 1984, Bogarde served as president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival. He was the first Briton to serve in this capacity. He was knighted in 1992 for services to acting, and was the recipient of honorary doctorates from St Andrews and Sussex.

Bogarde suffered a minor stroke in November 1987, at a time when his partner, Anthony Forwood, was dying of liver cancer and Parkinson's disease. In September 1996, he underwent angioplasty to unblock arteries leading to his heart and suffered a pulmonary embolism following the operation. Bogarde was paralyzed on one side of his body, which affected his speech and left him in a wheelchair. He managed, however, to complete a final volume of autobiography, which covered the stroke and its effects. He spent some time the day before he died with his friend Lauren Bacall. Bogarde died in London from a heart attack on 8 May 1999, aged 78. His ashes were scattered at his former estate of "Le Haut Clermont" in Grasse, Southern France.[citation needed]

Filmography

Titles preceded by an asterisk (*) are films made for television.

Year Film Role Notes
1939 Come on George! Extra (uncredited)
1947 Dancing with Crime Policeman
1948 Esther Waters William Latch
Once a Jolly Swagman Bill Fox
1949 Boys in Brown Alfie Rawlins
Quartet George Bland (segment "The Alien Corn")
Dear Mr. Prohack Charles Prohack
1950 The Woman in Question R.W. (Bob) Baker
The Blue Lamp Tom Riley
Blackmailed Stephen Mundy
So Long at the Fair George Hathaway
1952 Appointment in London Wing Commander Tim Mason
Hunted Chris Lloyd
Penny Princess Tony Craig
The Gentle Gunman Matt Sullivan
1954 They Who Dare Lt. Graham
The Sea Shall Not Have Them Flight Sgt. MacKay
For Better, for Worse Tony Howard
Doctor in the House Dr Simon Sparrow
The Sleeping Tiger Frank Clemmons
1955 Simba Alan Howard
Doctor at Sea Dr. Simon Sparrow
1956 The Spanish Gardener Jose
1957 Cast a Dark Shadow Edward "Teddy" Bare
Ill Met by Moonlight Maj. Patrick Leigh Fermor aka Philedem
Doctor at Large Dr. Simon Sparrow
Campbell's Kingdom Bruce Campbell
1958 A Tale of Two Cities Sydney Carton
The Wind Cannot Read Flight Lt. Michael Quinn
The Doctor's Dilemma Louis Dubedat
1959 Libel Sir Mark Sebastian Loddon/Frank Welney/Number Fifteen
1960 Song Without End Franz Liszt Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
The Angel Wore Red Arturo Carrera
1961 Victim Melville Farr Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
The Singer Not the Song Anacleto
1962 We Joined the Navy Cameo appearance (Dr. Simon Sparrow)
H.M.S. Defiant 1st Lt. Scott-Padget
The Password Is Courage Sergeant Major Charles Coward
1963 The Mind Benders Dr. Henry Longman
I Could Go On Singing David Donne
The Servant Hugo Barrett BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Doctor in Distress Dr. Simon Sparrow
1964 King & Country Capt. Hargreaves
Hot Enough for June Nicholas Whistler
The High Bright Sun Maj. McGuire
1965 Darling Robert Gold BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1966 Modesty Blaise Gabriel
*Blithe Spirit Charles Condomine
1967 Accident Stephen Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Our Mother's House Charlie Hook Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1968 Sebastian Sebastian
The Fixer Bibikov
1969 La Caduta degli dei (The Damned) Frederick Bruckmann
Oh! What a Lovely War Stephen
Justine Pursewarden
1970 *Upon This Rock Bonnie Prince Charlie
1971 Morte a Venezia (Death in Venice) Gustav von Aschenbach Nominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1973 Night Flight from Moscow Philip Boyle
1974 Il Portiere di notte (The Night Porter) Maximilian Theo Aldorfer
1975 Permission to Kill Alan Curtis
1977 A Bridge Too Far Lt. Gen. Frederick 'Boy' Browning
Providence Claude Langham
1978 Despair Hermann Hermann
1981 *The Patricia Neal Story Roald Dahl
1986 *May We Borrow Your Husband? William Harris
1988 The Vision James Marriner
1990 Daddy Nostalgie Daddy

Other works

Autobiographies and memoirs

  • A Postillion Struck by Lightning, 1977
  • Snakes and Ladders, 1978
  • An Orderly Man, 1983
  • Backcloth, 1986
  • A Particular Friendship, 1989
  • Great Meadow, 1992
  • A Short Walk from Harrods, 1993
  • Cleared for Take-Off, 1995
  • For the Time Being: Collected Journalism, 1998
  • Dirk Bogarde: The Complete Autobiography (contains the first four autobiographies only)

Novels

  • A Gentle Occupation, 1980
  • Voices in the Garden, 1981
  • West of Sunset, 1984
  • Jericho, 1991
  • A Period of Adjustment, 1994
  • Closing Ranks, 1997

Discography

Works about Bogarde

Biography

  • The Films of Dirk Bogarde by Margaret Hinxman & Susan d'Arcy, 1974
  • Dirk Bogarde: The Complete Career Illustrated with Robert Tanitch, 1988.
  • Dirk Bogarde, Rank Outsider, by Sheridan Morley, 1996.
  • Dirk Bogarde, The Authorised Biography, by John Coldstream, 2004.
  • Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters, by John Coldstream, 2008.

References

  1. ^ a b Coldstream, John (2004). Dirk Bogarde: The Authorised Biography. Weidenfeld & Nicolson(London). p. 24. ISBN 0-297-60730-8.
  2. ^ Who's Who 1987
  3. ^ Boztas, Senay (3 October 2004). "Bogarde's Schooldays 'Make-Believe'". Sunday Herald (via FindArticles). Accessed 18 November 2010.
  4. ^ Carey, John (10 August 2008). "Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters selected and edited by John Coldstream". The Sunday Times. p. 2.
  5. ^ Coldstream, John (2005). Dirk Bogarde: The Authorised Biography. Phoenix Books (London). pp. 20–21.
  6. ^ Bogarde, Dirk (1988). "Out of the Shadows of Hell" in For the Time Being. Penguin (London).
  7. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071910/
  8. ^ a b Morley, Sheridan (1999). Dirk Bogarde: Rank Outsider. Bloomsbury (London) (second edition). ISBN 9780747546986.
  9. ^ Coldstream, John (2005). Dirk Bogarde. Phoenix Books. pp. 361–362.
  10. ^ Bogarde, Dirk (1988). Snakes and Ladders. Penguin (Harmondsworth, Middlesex). p. 169. OCLC 441694311.
  11. ^ Review by Mansel Stimpson of Dirk Bogarde: The Authorised Biography, by John Coldstream
  12. ^ Moir, Jan (2 September 2004). "'Dirk Could Be Cruel — But I Know Why'" (Gareth Van den Bogaerde interview). The Telegraph . Accessed 18 November 2010.
  13. ^ Coldstream, John (2004). Dirk Bogarde: The Authorised Biography.
  14. ^ Interview (17 June 2006). The Culture Show. BBC Two.

External links


Awards and achievements
Preceded by
Peter O'Toole
for Lawrence of Arabia
BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1963
for The Servant
Succeeded by
Richard Attenborough
for Guns at Batasi & Séance on a Wet Afternoon
Preceded by
Richard Attenborough
for Guns at Batasi & Seance on a Wet Afternoon
BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1965
for Darling
Succeeded by
Richard Burton
for The Spy Who Came in from the Cold & Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

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