Everything about Dirk Bogarde totally explained
Sir Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde (
28 March,
1921 –
8 May,
1999), better known by his
stage name Dirk Bogarde, was an
actor and
author.
Early years and war service
Bogarde was born in
West Hampstead,
London, of mixed
Flemish,
Dutch and
Scottish ancestry. His father, Ulric van den Bogaerde (born in Perry Barr, Birmingham), was the art editor of
The Times and his mother
Margaret Niven was a former actress. He attended the former
Allan Glen's School in Glasgow, a time he described in his autobiography as unhappy, although others have disputed his account
(External Link
). Bogarde served in
World War II, being commissioned into the
Queen's Royal Regiment in 1943. He reached the rank of
Major and served in both the European and Pacific theatres, principally as an intelligence officer. In April 1945, he claimed he was one of the first
Allied officers 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. His horror and revulsion at the cruelty and inhumanity that he witnessed in Belsen left him with a deep-seated hostility towards Germany; he wrote in the 1990s that he'd disembark from an elevator rather than ride with a German. Nevertheless, three of his more memorable film roles were as Germans, one of them as a former
SS officer (
The Night Porter (External Link)). He was most vocal, toward 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 partner and manager Anthony Forwood 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'd 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's the only sensible thing to do."
Film career
After the war, Bogarde's good looks helped him begin a career as a
film actor, contracted to The
Rank Organisation. His 1950 appearance as the criminal, Tom Riley, who shoots
Police Constable George Dixon in
The Blue Lamp launched him as a lead player, but it was the comedy,
Doctor in the House (1954), produced by
Betty Box, directed by
Ralph Thomas and co-starring
Kenneth More,
Donald Sinden, and
James Robertson Justice as his crabby mentor, which made Bogarde a star.
During the
1950s, he also starred as a murderer who befriends a young boy in
Hunted (aka
The Stranger in Between) (1952);
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
Sir Michael Redgrave;
The Sleeping Tiger (1954), playing a neurotic criminal with co-star
Alexis Smith in fine form, 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 kills them;
The Spanish Gardener (1956), co-starring
Cyril Cusack and
Bernard Lee;
Doctor at Large (1957), another entry in the "Doctor series", co-starring
Shirley Eaton;
A Tale of Two Cities (1958), a faithful retelling of
Charles Dickens' classic;
The Doctor's Dilemma (1959), by George Bernard Shaw and co-starring
Leslie Caron and
Robert Morley, not a part of the "Doctor series"; and
Libel (1959), playing three 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
1960, Bogarde abandoned his heart-throb image for more challenging parts, such as barrister Melville Farr in
Victim (1961); decadent valet Hugo Barrett in
The Servant (1963) (directed by Joseph Losey); television reporter Robert Gold in
Darling (1965); Stephen, a bored Oxford University professor, in
Accident (1967); German industrialist Frederick Bruckman in
Luchino Visconti's
The Damned (1969); the ex-Nazi, Max, 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 Luchino Visconti, now probably his best-remembered role.
In some of his other roles during the
1960s and
1970s, Bogarde played opposite renowned stars, yet some 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 film made under the direction of American director
George Cukor in Bogarde's only foray into Hollywood;
The Singer Not the Song (1961), as a Mexican bandit and co-starring
Sir John Mills as a priest;
HMS 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 8 3/4) (1964), a James Bond-type spy spoof;
King And Country (1964), playing an army lawyer reluctantly defending deserter
Tom Courtenay;
Modesty Blaise (1966), a camp spy send-up playing archvillain Gabriel;
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, Sir
Laurence Olivier and directed by
Sir 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;
Providence (1977), co-starring Sir John Gielgud;
Despair (1978); and
Daddy Nostalgie (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, to be directed by
Anthony Asquith. 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. Bogarde's most serious friendship with a woman was with the
bisexual French actress
Capucine. For many years he shared his homes, first in Amersham, England, then in France with his manager
Anthony Forwood (a former husband of the actress
Glynis Johns and the father of her only child, actor Gareth Forwood), but repeatedly denied that their relationship was anything other than friendship. These denials were understandable, mainly given that homosexual acts were illegal during most of his career, and also given his following among female admirers which he was loath to jeopardise. His brother Gareth Van den Bogaerde confirmed in a 2004 interview that Bogarde was engaging in homosexual sex at a time when such acts were illegal, and also that his long-term relationship with Tony Forwood was more than simply that of a manager and friend.
Many people believed Bogarde's refusal to enter into a marriage of convenience in order to cover up his homosexuality 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 could never come out as gay in later life, after his movie stardom had ended, because he wouldn't have been able to deal with the fact that he'd been forced to live a lie during his career.
Bogarde starred in the landmark
1961 film Victim, playing a prominent homosexual barrister in London who fights the blackmailers of a young man with whom he'd an emotional relationship. The young man commits suicide after being arrested for embezzlement, rather than ruining the attorney's reputation. In the process of exposing the ring of extortionists, Bogarde's character puts at risk his successful legal career and marriage in order to see that justice is served.
Victim was the first mainstream British film to treat the subject of homosexuality seriously and the film helped lead to the
changing of the law.
As Britain's leading box-office star of the 1950s, Bogarde displayed enormous personal courage in appearing in such a controversial film as
Victim, which could have destroyed his career at that time. However, his performance opened a path to more challenging roles that gained him respect as one of the leading actors in the intellectual ("art house") film genre. Bogarde's decision to appear in
Victim appears even more daring today, given that many contemporary film stars are afraid to portray a serious gay character because of the perceived public reaction and effect on their career that such a role could have.
Despite the stereotyping his performance in
Victim could have brought him, during his career Bogarde portrayed heterosexual single or married men in the majority of his films, with the exception of his roles in
Victim,
The Servant,
Modesty Blaise, and
Death in Venice, although even those roles could be considered as being more bisexual than homosexual in nature.
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, 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 ever to serve in that capacity, and this represented an immense honor for Bogarde. He was
knighted in 1992 for services to acting, and was the recipient of several honorary doctorates, including from
St Andrews and
Sussex universities.
Formerly a heavy smoker, Bogarde suffered a minor stroke in November 1987 while Anthony Forwood was dying of
liver cancer and
Parkinson's disease. Never afraid of voicing his opinion, after witnessing Forwood's protracted death he became active in promoting
voluntary euthanasia for terminally ill patients in Britain and toured the UK giving lectures and answering questions from live audiences on the subject. It was a cause, he stated, that had been important to him since the war, during which he'd witnessed severely injured men pleading to be put out of their misery.
In September 1996, he underwent
angioplasty to widen arteries leading to his heart and suffered a
pulmonary embolism following this operation. For the final three years of his life Bogarde was paralyzed on one side of his body, which affected his speech. He managed, however, to complete a final volume of autobiography, which covered the stroke and its effect on him. He spent some time the day before he died with his good friend
Lauren Bacall. Sir Dirk Bogarde died in London from a heart attack on
May 8,
1999, aged 78. His ashes were scattered at his former beloved estate of "Le Haut Clermont" in Grasse, Southern France.
Filmography
Titles preceded by an asterisk (*) are
films made for television.
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
- Dirk Bogarde: The Complete Career Illustrated with Robert Tanitch
Novels
A Gentle Occupation, 1980
Voices in the Garden, 1981
West of Sunset, 1984
Jericho, 1991
A Period of Adjustment, 1994
Closing Ranks, 1997
Biography
Dirk Bogarde, Rank Outsider, by Sheridan Morley, appeared in 1996.
Dirk Bogarde, The Authorised Biography, by John Coldstream, appeared in 2004.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Dirk Bogarde'.
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