"Legends" - Dirk Bogarde, actor and author

he conveyed with thought and people just read his thoughts and and they were engaged by his performance he was for me a good and great man but he wasn't a goody-goody that's for sure he was wicked such an extraordinarily rare man I will never know his mystery look all this muck and slime it makes you it makes you feel sick no it's not I can't show yous what brains you've got sister virtue dirt Bogaerts career went through several extraordinary changes he transformed himself from a matinee idol to serious actor and acclaimed writer born in Hampstead in 1921 he spent a needle excited in London and in Sussex he made his first forays into the theatre in 1939 for the cue in Richmond and Amersham rep but his acting career was interrupted by the second world war in 1940 Dirk left his family to serve in Europe and the Far East his war lasted for five years during which time he rose to the rank of major in intelligence Dirk had been deeply affected by the war but he didn't reveal this until later on in life after the war Dirk returned to acting and by 1948 had been offered his first starring role in the film Esther waters you know once upon a time the lectures owned a lot do you know what I'm gonna put the ledges back where they belong and you know why because I'm lucky whilst making Esther Waters Dirk was signed up by rank on a seven-year contract they set about perfecting a matinee idol image casting him in a series of roles that played on his good looks typical of these was the role of war hero in the film appointment in London Dirk played alongside a young actor Tony forward seen here addressing the troops you will then set course for the Dutch cursed Tony soon gave up acting to become Dirk's manager and lifelong companion his son Gareth spent much of his childhood in Dirk's company Dirk was always the one who came on my side when things got rough he was the kind of very good uncle stripe Godfather who if my par was giving me a rough time about the School Report for good reason I should think dirt were trying to alleviate it by give me a bottle of Guinness or something which I liked in 1954 Dirk could have parting doctor in the house a hugely successful film made by the producer Betty box and director Rafe Thomas one of you could tell me where the students go please well certainly not in here what are you looking for well actually I'm new and I just wonder if you're good perhaps tell me where I ought to go oh you want the medical school that's right over the other side we had to try and find people who make a comedy who were good actors no we're going to make it funny funny because the first doctor we tried to make into a real picture that had some sort of integrity and wouldn't frighten people about hospitals people they frightened about Hospital pictures there and so we cast Dirk because he is wonderful straight man he was tattoo yeah okay just some acute appendicitis I have no idea I'm looking for the chest was that film that made him certainly in terms of the UK a real big pop superstar I mean he was mobbed wherever he went Dirk Bogarde John Mills and Glynis John's drove run together they were pursued by an eager crowd and in order to avoid the roughhouse they kept on the move why is there perhaps for anything can happen when film stars meet their fans he was too almost too good-looking in those early days to do the sort of things he wanted to do and which he eventually did later how would you describe your looks to a blind person scrawny good eyes cuz that's my mother average I'd say a little more than average because I've got a quality inside me which alters the face and I've had a long long business training with that oh it's just some taste for us isn't you truly delightful a pretty little doll in 1958 dirt played Sydney Carton in Rafe Thomas's version of A Tale of Two Cities dirt later credited the camera operator Bob Thompson with a piece of very sound advice they finished shooting for the day and he notices the camera man watching him and he says to them and why are you watching me and the man says and I'm fascinated because you really don't know anything do you you're not really an actor you have no idea where the camera is you have no idea about lighting you have no idea about sound I'm amazed you've become a star and rather than getting insulted as many would have said all right if that's true teach me it is a far far better thing I do and I have ever done it is a far far better rest I go to and I have ever known yeah I think he was very good as Sydney Carton I think he was the ideal casting and I think it was perhaps for me he was the second best performance he ever gave in 1960 Doug decided to try his luck in Hollywood he tested the waters with some without end a biopic about the composer Franz Liszt Hollywood was a total disaster because again you would think it would have been alright he looked good he had a good English following he went out to do a film about lists and it was just awful the screenplay was awful the it was you know hello Beethoven house Mozart have you seen Varga this morning it was a real shocker his co-star was the model turned actress Kapoor scene that was very very much another that I think so as I as a benefactor he he's sort of better chance than me and said went on and I think that he did propose to and I think that had she said yes he would have married her and and possibly then had children which i think is absent underlying sadness in his life although Dirk has written that he fell in love with several women during his life he never marry [Music] [Applause] first of all the films were by and large pretty terrible although there are exceptions and secondly he was trapped in this image of the J Arthur rank handsome fighting era and occasionally he gets into the black leather and doesn't move his like singer not the song and you can see you know he is clearly moving towards Pasolini or Fellini desperately trying to break this awful little England of J Arthur rank in 1961 he seized an opportunity to shatter his clean-cut image when we were married we had no secrets from each other he played a gay barrister in the film victim at a time when homosexuality was illegal he was getting too fond of me are you sure you weren't getting too fond of him answer me they'd asked a lot of actresses to do the part but most people were terrified at the subject it was very pretty in those days frightfully middle-class the film industry so I was quite late on the scene and I jumped at the Charles since many of those friends were gay and so on darling darling come home it's cold I know that Dirk fought a lot for the scene that happens between the wife and the husband and in fact I think he had something to do with the writing of it when he actually says I put him out of the car because I wanted him and it's very sexual and it's a tremendous shock for her all right you want to know actually tell you he won't be content internet with you till you ripped it out of me I stopped seeing him because I wanted him do you understand because I wanted him people have speculated that Dirk was himself gay but this was a subject he refused to be drawn on however he did make it clear that although he lived with Tony forward their relationship was platonic as I saw it this was a profound friendship based both in a professional way and a personal way and I I think that was the only important factor of it and I would suggest that that was the only factor on it anyway when you and forward to here at home in the evening and everybody well certainly when we've gone do you have post-mortems on how the day is but if you're Anthony we might sit down knitting and pulling rugs forget it that doesn't happen I wasn't inferring that I was asking no there are no post-mortems in a part of backed off you say this the hermit crab syndrome was firmly fixed I dread and still do bread possession mm-hmm nobody's ever possessed you know I think you have to have someone to talk to but I don't talk very much I get loquacious on aeroplane but I'm certainly in the shell and you haven't cracked it yet honey in 1962 dirt acted in the first great film of his career the servant directed by Joe Losey and written by Harold Pinter the servant was a masterful allegory of changing attitudes in the sixties you had experience of this kind of work ever I've been in service for the last 13 years the last few years acted as personal man sent to various members of the peerage oh I was with background barons without far weeks ago hola I think he loved playing Barrett I think he loved that kind of um Queenie [ __ ] side that dominating side very much and and and the chemistry with me was very good I think think he liked that and and I I liked what he was doing he transformed himself into Barrett he was a spooky little guy just a modulation a good [Applause] good what butler he was the first actor to make the camera see him think before der actors reacted on screen they simply did films like photographed plays what Dirk said was no no we start with the camera and we went and we let the camera watch us not doing anything it was so good to be around him because he knew what he was good at he knew about his looks and his reactions and he knew how to coach you to do things that was so by that time second nature to him now look man don't you forget your place you're nothing but a servant in this house I send I'm nobody's servant he'll fetch the old place for you he'll painted it for you Oh does the cooking watch is your pants so please the bathhouse after you I do I know all about you look listen I am grateful honestly don't be daft you know I believe you know I don't know what I'd do without you what happens with the servant is you suddenly get dark Dirk you suddenly see that's what he would have done had he been European had he been Scandinavian he would have done a lot of that and then of course from the servant on he starts to work more and more with really good directors Dirk went on to make three more films with Joe Losey but by 1969 he'd had enough of the British film industry he moved to Italy where he met the great film director Luciana Visconti who cast him in death in Venice Visconti fell in love with that face and I mean it's a it's a wonderful part for Dirk and I mean the whole thing of ashen blackened Dirk's career and ironically he never got the Oscar but he should have done [Music] [Music] Durkin Visconti showed the film to its american sponsors they were met by what they thought was an awestruck silence but they were so horrified they're appalled even believed what they'd seen and so the lights went up and Visconti thought he'd better say I do have any questions nothing silence and they all just looked at each other and everybody wasn't crouched with aura they spent $100,000 on what they called an old man chasing a kids backside that was exactly the phrase they used but one man is now I won't mentioned was the domestic distributor at the time for America he felt it incumbent upon himself to say something so he got up and he said I have to say that I think that the score was just great who did the theme music mr. Visconti and disconsolate rather delighted that somebody had spoke to him at least with kindness and said the music is by Gustav Mahler and mr. X Y Zed said well gentlemen I think we should sign him exhausted by the filming of death in Venice he and Tony forward decided to settle down in France where they were often visited by Charlotte Rampling it was no Bastide up in the hills above the class beautiful or Bastide on two floors with the line going down in steps with olive trees on it and there was something quite magical about it they had a wonderful way of making beautiful homes Tony and Dirk this was the time when dirt started writing and I wonder if that would have ever have happened in the same way if he if he hadn't been there because this turned into then his main professional interest really for the rest of his life Dirk had entered a whole new phase of his career in which he wrote a number of autobiographies and novels the very first of the books is concerned apostille Ian struck by lightning and there's no doubt about it that it surprised an enormous number of people who did not expect such a wonderfully evocative book about childhood he was really insistent that people described him as a a writer and a former actor but he was enticed to make the occasional film one of these was night porter a strange and dark film in which he played an ex nazi officer who meets one of his former prisoners played by charlotte rampling it always intrigued me normally that somebody who has been in the war could play the character like you played in that water I found that really very bizarre we never talked about it because it was just too bizarre I didn't really want to talk to him about it yeah design reasons for doing it the Second World War had left an indelible mark he'd been among the first of the Allied troops to witness the horror of belsen I think was on the 13th of April not quite over that I would import when we opened up Belson camp which is the first concentration camp any obviously seen we didn't even know what they were we'd heard vague rumors that there were I mean nothing could be worse than that the gates were open and then I realized that I was looking at Dante's Inferno I mean I really I I still haven't seen anything as dreadful I never will I can't really describe it very well I don't really want to I went through some of the hearts and they were tears and tears of rotting people but some of them were alive underneath the rot and we're lifting their heads and trying you shouldn't make me blunt trying to do the victory thing that was the worst sorry Dirk had to leave his beloved France in 1986 Toni forward had contracted Parkinson's and cancer and had to be taken to England for treatment anyone who lived such ever had the good fortune to live in such a place would never really want to leave it at all for any reason at all until of course many years later though they were there for 17 years and in the end of course had to leave it through illness many Dirk wrote about forwards death in his biography a short walk from Harrods one night helping Anna to turn him he made signs that he wanted to speak and when I pressed by faced his chest it was to say that if we'd done such a thing to a dog we'd have been arrested the pie had gone the final burst of furious strength ebbed away he never spoke again Dirk had witnessed suffering and death both during the war and with the death of friends Wells incidents together confirmed to Dirk that it was vital to introduce a voluntary euthanasia and have it legalized in this country so the people who wanted to die should be enabled to die we took an advancement with him giving a message and it was so effective that we always had several applications for membership from new people so he was a tremendous asset to us as a society in general in the movement in general in 1990 Dirk made his last film these foolish things with Jane Birkin dirt plays a man who is dying of cancer he saw the rough cut of the film and he felt he could give more and he added a scene that was a personal scene about being in such pain that he ripped up the the cushion and the and the feathers flew this scene that was really practically written by were was written by Dirk where he obviously wanted to express himself fully about the solitude of dying in the last years of his life he wrote for The Telegraph his first article was a review of Russell hottyz book a grand tour after a short while back came and notification from Vega that indeed he might be interested in writing a piece by this book and in shortly after that came an extraordinary piece of wonderfully exciting reviewing and it was exciting because it seemed to have apart from one or two rather immediately obvious things like atrocious spelling and words all over the place it had that great thing which was honesty and truth and had this smack and the sound of this rose and around the building for in 1996 Dirk suffered a stroke john Coldstream was one of a few visitors you know I did see him at the very very worst of times there was there was no despair there was kind of a raging against dying of the light as it were but there was no despair what was I suppose it was always told you to piss off when you got fed up with you I used to visit him in London and then he used to fidget after but now he's got for that one said oh well off you go then he's very discerning sort of man he could he could see you into you he knew what made you tick he knew he had rather quick judgments about people and very intuitive and insightful on May the 8th 1999 Dirk died of a heart attack in his home in Chelsea he had this and her eternally young spirit like some some people do I mean he he he didn't he never grew old even when he was old never old he's not to be violated he's somebody where prizes takes a very great part of his of his life which is why when people misinterpret then you feel cross because because the mysterious man he will always be the series continues next week with Frankie Howard you

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Keywords: Dirk Bogarde

Id: zWDIiXwJJbM

Length: 23min 35sec (1415 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 27 2018