Dirk Bogarde: Difference between revisions

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'''Sir Dirk Bogarde''' (born '''Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde'''; 28 March 1921 – 8 May 1999) was an English actor, novelist and screenwriter. Initially a [[matinée idol]] in films such as ''[[Doctor in the House (film)|Doctor in the House]]'' (1954) for the [[Rank Organisation]], he later acted in [[Art film|art house]] films, evolving from "heartthrob to icon of edginess".<ref name="BBC">{{Cite news |last=Monks Kaufman |first=Sophie |date=23 March 2021 |title=Why Dirk Bogarde was a truly dangerous film star |work=BBC |url=https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210322-why-dirk-bogarde-was-a-truly-dangerous-film-star |access-date=13 October 2022}}</ref>
'''Sir Dirk Bogarde''' (born '''Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde'''; 28 March 1921 – 8 May 1999) was an English actor, novelist and screenwriter. Initially a [[matinée idol]] in films such as ''[[Doctor in the House (film)|Doctor in the House]]'' (1954) for the [[Rank Organisation]], he later acted in [[art house]] films, evolving from "heartthrob to icon of edginess".<ref name="BBC">{{Cite news |last=Monks Kaufman |first=Sophie |date=23 March 2021 |title=Why Dirk Bogarde was a truly dangerous film star |work=BBC |url=https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210322-why-dirk-bogarde-was-a-truly-dangerous-film-star |access-date=13 October 2022}}</ref>


In a second career, Bogarde wrote seven best-selling volumes of memoirs, six novels, and a volume of collected [[journalism]], mainly from articles in ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]''. He saw active military duty during [[World War II]], and over the course of five years reached the rank of major and was awarded seven medals. His poetry has been published in war anthologies, and a grey ink brush drawing, "Tents in Orchard. 1944", is in the collection of the [[British Museum]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1945-1208-60|title=Drawing - 1945,1208.60|work=British Museum|access-date=23 November 2023}}</ref><!--- with many more in the [[Imperial War Museum]].<ref name="Military">{{Cite web |date=16 March 2021 |title=The MILITARY MAN BEHIND The MATINEE IDOL |url=https://www.keymilitary.com/article/military-man-behind-matinee-idol |access-date=31 October 2022 |website=KeyMilitary.com}}</ref>--->
In a second career, Bogarde wrote seven volumes of memoirs, six novels, and a volume of collected [[journalism]], mainly from articles in ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]''. He fought in the [[Second World War]] and over the course of five years reached the rank of major and was awarded seven medals. His poetry has been published in war anthologies, and a grey ink brush drawing, "Tents in Orchard. 1944", is in the collection of the [[British Museum]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1945-1208-60|title=Drawing - 1945,1208.60|work=British Museum|access-date=23 November 2023}}</ref><!--- with many more in the [[Imperial War Museum]].<ref name="Military">{{Cite web |date=16 March 2021 |title=The MILITARY MAN BEHIND The MATINEE IDOL |url=https://www.keymilitary.com/article/military-man-behind-matinee-idol |access-date=31 October 2022 |website=KeyMilitary.com}}</ref>--->


Having come to prominence in films including ''[[The Blue Lamp]]'' in the early 1950s, Bogarde starred in the successful ''[[Doctor (film series)|Doctor]]'' film series (1954–1963). He twice won the [[BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role]], for ''[[The Servant (1963 film)|The Servant]]'' (1963) and ''[[Darling (1965 film)|Darling]]'' (1965). His other notable film roles included ''[[Victim (1961 film)|Victim]]'' (1961), ''[[Accident (1967 film)|Accident]]'' (1967), ''[[The Damned (1969 film)|The Damned]]'' (1969), ''[[Death in Venice (film)|Death in Venice]]'' (1971), ''[[The Night Porter]]'' (1974), ''[[A Bridge Too Far (film)|A Bridge Too Far]]'' (1977) and ''[[Despair (film)|Despair]]'' (1978). He was appointed a [[Ordre des Arts et des Lettres|Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters]] in 1990 and a [[Knight Bachelor]] in 1992.
Having come to prominence in films including ''[[The Blue Lamp]]'' in the early 1950s, Bogarde starred in the popular ''[[Doctor (film series)|Doctor]]'' film series (1954–1963). He twice won the [[BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role]], for ''[[The Servant (1963 film)|The Servant]]'' (1963) and ''[[Darling (1965 film)|Darling]]'' (1965). His other notable film roles included ''[[Victim (1961 film)|Victim]]'' (1961), ''[[Accident (1967 film)|Accident]]'' (1967), ''[[The Damned (1969 film)|The Damned]]'' (1969), ''[[Death in Venice (film)|Death in Venice]]'' (1971), ''[[The Night Porter]]'' (1974), ''[[A Bridge Too Far (film)|A Bridge Too Far]]'' (1977) and ''[[Despair (film)|Despair]]'' (1978). He was appointed a [[Ordre des Arts et des Lettres|Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters]] in 1990 and a [[Knight Bachelor]] in 1992.


==Early years and education==
==Early years and education==
Bogarde was the eldest of three children born to Ulric van den Bogaerde (1892–1972) and Margaret Niven (1898–1980). Ulric was born in [[Perry Barr]], [[Birmingham]], of [[Flemish people|Flemish]] ancestry, and was art editor of ''[[The Times]]''. Margaret Niven, a former actress, was [[Scottish people|Scottish]], from [[Glasgow]]. Dirk Bogarde was born in a nursing home at 12 Hemstal Road,<ref name=coldstream>Coldstream 2004, p. 24.</ref> [[West Hampstead]], London, and was baptised on 30 October 1921, at St. Mary's Church, [[Kilburn, London|Kilburn]].<ref name=coldstream/> He had a younger sister, Elizabeth (born 1924), and a brother, Gareth Ulric Van Den Bogaerde, an advertising film producer, born in July 1933 in [[Hendon]].<ref name="telegraph.co.uk">Moir, Jon. [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3623221/Dirk-could-be-cruel-but-I-know-why.html "Dirk could be cruel – but I know why."] ''The Daily Telegraph'' (London), 2 September 2004. Retrieved: 29 March 2015.</ref>
Bogarde was the eldest of three children born to Ulric van den Bogaerde (1892–1972) and Margaret Niven (1898–1980). Ulric was born in [[Perry Barr]], [[Birmingham]], of [[Flemish people|Flemish]] ancestry, and was art editor of ''[[The Times]]''. Margaret Niven, a former actress, was [[Scottish people|Scottish]], from [[Glasgow]]. Dirk Bogarde was born in a nursing home at 12 Hemstal Road,<ref name=coldstream>Coldstream 2004, p. 24.</ref> [[West Hampstead]], London, and was baptised on 30 October 1921, at St. Mary's Church, [[Kilburn, London|Kilburn]].<ref name=coldstream/> He had a younger sister, Elizabeth (born 1924), and a brother, Gareth Ulric Van Den Bogaerde, an advertising film producer, born in July 1933 in [[Hendon]].<ref name="telegraph.co.uk">Moir, Jon. [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3623221/Dirk-could-be-cruel-but-I-know-why.html "Dirk could be cruel – but I know why."] ''The Daily Telegraph'' (London), 2 September 2004. Retrieved: 29 March 2015.</ref>


Conditions in the family home in north London became cramped, so Bogarde was moved to [[Glasgow]] to stay with relatives of his mother. He stayed there for more than three years, returning at the end of 1937.<ref name="telegraph.co.uk"/> He attended [[University College School]] and the former [[Allan Glen's School|Allan Glen's High School of Science]] in Glasgow, a time he described in his autobiography as an unhappy one. Having secured a scholarship at Chelsea College of Art, Bogarde completed his two year course, and landed "a back-stage job as tea-boy at seven shillings and sixpence per week".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Film Review – 1962-63 |url=https://dirkbogarde.co.uk/magazine/film-review-1962-63/ |access-date=13 October 2022 |website=DirkBogarde.co.uk}}</ref> A chance to act as a stand-in convinced Bogarde that "he needed some additional basic training, and he joined a provincial [[repertory]] group". His first on-screen appearance was as an uncredited extra in the [[George Formby]] comedy, ''[[Come On George!]]'' (1939).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://dirkbogarde.co.uk/bio/biography/|title=Dirk Bogarde: Biography|website=dirkbogarde.co.uk}}</ref>
Conditions in the family home in north London became cramped, so Bogarde was moved to Glasgow to stay with relatives of his mother. He stayed there for more than three years, returning at the end of 1937.<ref name="telegraph.co.uk"/> He attended [[University College School]] and the former [[Allan Glen's School|Allan Glen's High School of Science]] in Glasgow, a time he described in his autobiography as an unhappy one. Having secured a scholarship at [[Chelsea College of Art]], Bogarde completed his two year course, and landed "a back-stage job as tea-boy at seven shillings and sixpence per week".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Film Review – 1962-63 |url=https://dirkbogarde.co.uk/magazine/film-review-1962-63/ |access-date=13 October 2022 |website=DirkBogarde.co.uk}}</ref> A chance to act as a stand-in convinced Bogarde that "he needed some additional basic training, and he joined a provincial [[repertory]] group". His first on-screen appearance was as an uncredited extra in the [[George Formby]] comedy, ''[[Come On George!]]'' (1939).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://dirkbogarde.co.uk/bio/biography/|title=Dirk Bogarde: Biography|website=dirkbogarde.co.uk}}</ref>


==War service==
==War service==
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===D-Day and aftermath===
===D-Day and aftermath===
Bogarde served as an intelligence officer with [[Field Marshal]] [[Bernard Montgomery]]'s 21st Army Group as it liberated Europe.<ref name="Military">{{Cite web |date=16 March 2021 |title=The Military Man behind the Matinee Idol |url=https://www.keymilitary.com/article/military-man-behind-matinee-idol |access-date=31 October 2022 |website=KeyMilitary.com}}</ref> Taylor Downing's book, ''Spies in the Sky'', tells of Bogarde's work in photo-reconnaissance in the aftermath of [[Operation Overlord|D-Day]], moving through [[Normandy]] with [[Royal Canadian Air Force]] units. By July 1944, they were located at the [[Advanced Landing Ground#Royal Air Force ALGs|"B.8"]] airfield at [[Sommervieu]], near [[Bayeux]]. As an air photographic interpreter with the rank of [[Captain (British Army and Royal Marines)|captain]], Bogarde was later attached to the [[Second Army (United Kingdom)|Second Army]], where he selected ground targets in France, Holland and Germany for the [[RAF Second Tactical Air Force|Second Tactical Air Force]] and [[RAF Bomber Command]].<ref name="Above The Title 1986">''Above The Title'', Yorkshire Television interview, 1986.</ref> Villages on key routes were heavily bombed to prevent the [[Wehrmacht]]'s [[Tank|armour]] from reaching the invasion [[lodgement]] areas.<ref> Bogarde states that before a village was bombed by the RAF they would always drop leaflets warning the inhabitants but that sometimes the leaflets were blown away by the wind. Other air forces allocated to these same tasks, he states, "didn't drop leaflets, they just bombed everything that moved".</ref> In a 1986 [[Yorkshire Television]] interview with [[Russell Harty]], Bogarde recalled going on [[Watercolor painting|painting]] trips, sometimes to see the villages which he had selected as targets:
Bogarde served as an intelligence officer with the [[21st Army Group]] (Field Marshal [[Bernard Montgomery]]) as it liberated Europe.<ref name="Military">{{Cite web |date=16 March 2021 |title=The Military Man behind the Matinee Idol |url=https://www.keymilitary.com/article/military-man-behind-matinee-idol |access-date=31 October 2022 |website=KeyMilitary.com}}</ref> Taylor Downing's book, ''Spies in the Sky'', tells of Bogarde's work in photo-reconnaissance in the aftermath of [[Operation Overlord|D-Day]], moving through [[Normandy]] with [[Royal Canadian Air Force]] units. By July 1944, they were at the [[Advanced Landing Ground#Royal Air Force ALGs|"B.8"]] airfield at [[Sommervieu]], near [[Bayeux]]. As an air photographic interpreter with the rank of [[Captain (British Army and Royal Marines)|captain]], Bogarde was later attached to the [[Second Army (United Kingdom)|Second Army]], where he selected ground targets in France, Holland and Germany for the [[Second Tactical Air Force]] and [[RAF Bomber Command]].<ref name="Above The Title 1986">''Above The Title'', Yorkshire Television interview, 1986.</ref> Villages on key routes were heavily bombed to prevent the [[Wehrmacht]]'s [[Tank|armour]] from reaching the invasion [[lodgement]] areas.<ref> Bogarde states that before a village was bombed by the RAF they would always drop leaflets warning the inhabitants but that sometimes the leaflets were blown away by the wind. Other air forces allocated to these same tasks, he states, "didn't drop leaflets, they just bombed everything that moved".</ref> In a 1986 [[Yorkshire Television]] interview with [[Russell Harty]], Bogarde recalled going on [[Watercolor painting|painting]] trips, sometimes to see the villages which he had selected as targets,
 
{{blockquote|I found what I had thought in the rubble were a whole row of [[Ball (association football)|footballs]], and they weren't footballs ... they were children's heads ... A whole school of kids, a [[convent]], had been pulled out of school, and lined up in this little narrow alleyway between the buildings to save them from the bombing, and the whole thing had come in on top of them.<ref name="Above The Title 1986"/>}}
{{blockquote|I found what I had thought in the rubble were a whole row of [[Ball (association football)|footballs]], and they weren't footballs ... they were children's heads ... A whole school of kids, a [[convent]], had been pulled out of school, and lined up in this little narrow alleyway between the buildings to save them from the bombing, and the whole thing had come in on top of them.<ref name="Above The Title 1986"/>}}


===Bergen-Belsen concentration camp===
===Bergen-Belsen concentration camp===
Bogarde said he was one of the first [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] officers to reach the [[Bergen-Belsen concentration camp]] in Germany on 20 April 1945, an experience that had the most profound effect on him and about which he had difficulty speaking for many years afterward.<ref>{{cite book|last=Celinscak|first=Mark|title=Distance from the Belsen Heap: Allied Forces and the Liberation of a Concentration Camp|year=2015|publisher=University of Toronto Press|location=Toronto|isbn=9781442615700}}</ref>
Bogarde said he was one of the first [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] officers to reach the [[Bergen-Belsen concentration camp]] in Germany on 20 April 1945, an experience that had the most profound effect on him and about which he had difficulty speaking for many years afterwards.<ref>{{cite book|last=Celinscak|first=Mark|title=Distance from the Belsen Heap: Allied Forces and the Liberation of a Concentration Camp|year=2015|publisher=University of Toronto Press|location=Toronto|isbn=9781442615700}}</ref>


[[File:The Liberation of Bergen-belsen Concentration Camp, April 1945 BU4274.jpg|thumb|Women survivors in Bergen-Belsen collecting their bread ration after their liberation, April 1945]]
[[File:The Liberation of Bergen-belsen Concentration Camp, April 1945 BU4274.jpg|thumb|Women survivors in Bergen-Belsen collecting their bread ration after their liberation, April 1945]]
{{blockquote|The gates were opened, and then I realised that I was looking at [[Dante]]'s [[Inferno (Dante)|''Inferno'']]. And a girl came up who spoke English, because she recognised one of the badges, and she&nbsp;... her breasts were like, sort of, empty purses, she had no top on, and a pair of man's pyjamas, you know, the prison pyjamas, and no hair ... and all around us there were mountains of dead people, I mean mountains of them, and they were slushy, and they were slimy.<ref name="Above The Title 1986"/>}}
{{blockquote|The gates were opened, and then I realised that I was looking at [[Dante]]'s [[Inferno (Dante)|''Inferno'']]. And a girl came up who spoke English, because she recognised one of the badges, and she&nbsp;... her breasts were like, sort of, empty purses, she had no top on, and a pair of man's pyjamas, you know, the prison pyjamas, and no hair ... and all around us there were mountains of dead people, I mean mountains of them, and they were slushy, and they were slimy.<ref name="Above The Title 1986"/>}}


[[File:Bergen Belsen Liberation 03.jpg|thumb|A [[British Army]] [[bulldozer]] pushes bodies into a [[mass grave]] at Belsen, 19 April 1945]]
[[File:Bergen Belsen Liberation 03.jpg|thumb|A [[British Army]] [[bulldozer]] pushes bodies into a [[mass grave]] at Belsen, 19 April 1945]]
There was some doubt as to whether he really visited Belsen, although, more than a decade after publishing his biography, and following additional research, John Coldstream concluded that "it is now possible to state with some authority that he did at least set foot inside the camp".<ref>{{cite web | url=https://dirkbogarde.co.uk/dirk-bogarde-and-belsen/ | title=Dirk Bogarde » Dirk Bogarde and Belsen }}</ref>
There was some doubt as to whether he really visited Belsen, although, more than a decade after publishing his biography, and following additional research, John Coldstream concluded that "it is now possible to state with some authority that he did at least set foot inside the camp".<ref>{{cite web | url=https://dirkbogarde.co.uk/dirk-bogarde-and-belsen/ | title=Dirk Bogarde » Dirk Bogarde and Belsen }}</ref>
===India===
Bogarde disclosed in a 1966 interview with Woman's Mirror that he was at fault in a multiple fatality car-crash on VJ Day in India, "I don't drive-I killed some people once, in a car crash, and I'll never drive again, not even on a film set. It was a long time ago, on VJ day, actually, in India, and they were all soldiers."<ref>{{cite web | url=https://dirkbogarde.co.uk/magazine/womans-mirror-dec-24-1966/ |author=Lee Langley |title=Woman's Mirror, 24 December 1966}}</ref>


===Long-term effects===
===Long-term effects===
The horror and revulsion at the cruelty and inhumanity that he said he witnessed left him with a deep-seated hostility towards Germany; in the late 1980s, he wrote that he would disembark from a [[Elevator|lift]] rather than ride with a German of his generation.<ref>Bogarde, Dirk. "Out of the Shadows of Hell". ''For the Time Being''. London: [[Penguin Books|Penguin]], 1988.</ref> Nevertheless, three of his more memorable film roles were as Germans, one of them as a former [[SS]] officer in ''[[The Night Porter]]'' (1974).<ref>{{IMDb title|id=0071910|title=The Night Porter (1974)}}</ref>
The horror and revulsion at the cruelty and inhumanity that he said he witnessed left him with a deep-seated hostility towards Germany; in the late 1980s, he wrote that he would disembark from a [[Elevator|lift]] rather than ride with a German of his generation.<ref>Bogarde, Dirk. "Out of the Shadows of Hell". ''For the Time Being''. London: [[Penguin Books|Penguin]], 1988.</ref> Nevertheless, three of his more memorable film roles were as Germans, one of them as a former [[SS]] officer in ''[[The Night Porter]]'' (1974).<ref>{{IMDb title|id=0071910|title=The Night Porter (1974)}}</ref>


Bogarde was most vocal towards the end of his life on [[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 [[Dignity in Dying|Voluntary Euthanasia Society]]:
Bogarde was most vocal towards the end of his life on [[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]],
 
{{blockquote|My views were formulated as a 24-year-old officer in Normandy&nbsp;... On one occasion, the [[jeep]] ahead hit a mine&nbsp;... Next thing I knew, there was this chap in the long grass beside me. A gurgling voice said, "Help. Kill me." With shaking hands I reached for my small pouch to load my revolver&nbsp;... 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.}}
{{blockquote|My views were formulated as a 24-year-old officer in Normandy&nbsp;... On one occasion, the [[jeep]] ahead hit a mine&nbsp;... Next thing I knew, there was this chap in the long grass beside me. A gurgling voice said, "Help. Kill me." With shaking hands I reached for my small pouch to load my revolver&nbsp;... 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.}}


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===Film stardom===
===Film stardom===
Bogarde was 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 [[matinée idol]] image.<ref name=MorleyS-DBRO>Morley 1999, pp. 8–9.</ref>  
Bogarde was 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 [[matinée idol]] image.<ref name=MorleyS-DBRO>Morley 1999, pp. 8–9.</ref> His Rank contract began following his appearance in ''[[Esther Waters (film)|Esther Waters]]'' (1948), his first credited role, replacing [[Stewart Granger]].<ref name="Hinxman">{{cite news|last=Hinxman|first=Margaret|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/1999/may/10/guardianobituaries|title=Sir Dirk Bogarde|work=The Guardian|date=10 May 1999|access-date=25 July 2017}}</ref> Another early role of his was in ''[[The Blue Lamp]]'' (1950), playing a hoodlum who shoots and kills a police constable ([[Jack Warner (actor)|Jack Warner]]), whilst in ''[[So Long at the Fair]]'' (1950), a [[film noir]], he played a handsome artist who comes to the rescue of [[Jean Simmons]] during the World's Fair in Paris. He also had roles as an accidental murderer in ''[[Hunted (1952 film)|Hunted]]'' (or ''The Stranger in Between'', 1952), a young [[wing commander]] in [[RAF Bomber Command|Bomber Command]] in ''[[Appointment in London]]'' (1953), and in ''[[Desperate Moment]]'' (1953), a wrongly imprisoned man who regains hope of clearing his name when he learns his sweetheart, [[Mai Zetterling]], is still alive.
 
His Rank contract began following his appearance in ''[[Esther Waters (film)|Esther Waters]]'' (1948), his first credited role, replacing [[Stewart Granger]].<ref name="Hinxman">{{cite news|last=Hinxman|first=Margaret|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/1999/may/10/guardianobituaries|title=Sir Dirk Bogarde|work=The Guardian|date=10 May 1999|access-date=25 July 2017}}</ref> Another early role of his was in ''[[The Blue Lamp]]'' (1950), playing a hoodlum who shoots and kills a police constable ([[Jack Warner (actor)|Jack Warner]]), whilst in ''[[So Long at the Fair]]'' (1950), a [[film noir]], he played a handsome artist who comes to the rescue of [[Jean Simmons]] during the World's Fair in Paris. He also had roles as an accidental murderer in ''[[Hunted (1952 film)|Hunted]]'' (or ''The Stranger in Between'', 1952), a young [[Wing commander (rank)|wing commander]] in [[RAF Bomber Command|Bomber Command]] in ''[[Appointment in London]]'' (1953), and in ''[[Desperate Moment]]'' (1953), a wrongly imprisoned man who regains hope of clearing his name when he learns his sweetheart, [[Mai Zetterling]], is still alive.


Bogarde featured as a medical student in ''[[Doctor in the House (film)|Doctor in the House]]'' (1954), a film that made him one of the most popular British stars of the 1950s. The film co-starred [[Kenneth More]] and [[Donald Sinden]], with [[James Robertson Justice]] as their crabby mentor. The production was initiated by Betty Box, who had picked up a copy of the book at [[Crewe]] during a long rail journey and had seen its possibility as a film. Box and [[Ralph Thomas]] had difficulties convincing Rank executives that people would go to a film about doctors and that Bogarde, who up to then had played character roles, had sex appeal and could play light comedy. They were allocated a modest budget and were allowed to use only available Rank contract artists. The film was the first of the [[Doctor (film series)|''Doctor'']] film series based on the books by [[Richard Gordon (English author)|Richard Gordon]].
Bogarde featured as a medical student in ''[[Doctor in the House (film)|Doctor in the House]]'' (1954), a film that made him one of the most popular British stars of the 1950s. The film co-starred [[Kenneth More]] and [[Donald Sinden]], with [[James Robertson Justice]] as their crabby mentor. The production was initiated by Betty Box, who had picked up a copy of the book at [[Crewe]] during a long rail journey and had seen its possibility as a film. Box and [[Ralph Thomas]] had difficulties convincing Rank executives that people would go to a film about doctors and that Bogarde, who up to then had played character roles, had sex appeal and could play light comedy. They were allocated a modest budget and were allowed to use only available Rank contract artists. The film was the first of the [[Doctor (film series)|''Doctor'']] film series based on the books by [[Richard Gordon (English author)|Richard Gordon]].


In ''[[The Sleeping Tiger]]'' (1954), Bogarde played a neurotic criminal with co-star [[Alexis Smith]]. It was Bogarde's first film for American expatriate director [[Joseph Losey]].<ref name="one">{{cite magazine|magazine=Filmink|date=12 January 2025|access-date=12 January 2025|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/forgotten-british-moguls-nat-cohen-part-one-1905-56/|title=Forgotten British Moguls: Nat Cohen – Part One (1905-56)}}</ref>  
In ''[[The Sleeping Tiger]]'' (1954), Bogarde played a neurotic criminal with co-star [[Alexis Smith]]. It was Bogarde's first film for American expatriate director [[Joseph Losey]].<ref name="one">{{cite magazine|magazine=Filmink|date=12 January 2025|access-date=12 January 2025|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/forgotten-british-moguls-nat-cohen-part-one-1905-56/|title=Forgotten British Moguls: Nat Cohen – Part One (1905-56)}}</ref>


He did his second ''Doctor'' film, ''[[Doctor at Sea (film)|Doctor at Sea]]'' (1955), co-starring [[Brigitte Bardot]] in one of her first film roles; played a returning [[British Empire|colonial]] who fights the [[Mau-Mau]] with [[Virginia McKenna]] and [[Donald Sinden]] in ''[[Simba (1955 film)|Simba]]'' (1955); ''[[Cast a Dark Shadow]]'' (1955), as a man who marries women for money and then murders them; ''[[The Spanish Gardener (film)|The Spanish Gardener]]'' (1956), with [[Michael Hordern]], [[Jon Whiteley]] and [[Cyril Cusack]]; ''[[Doctor at Large (film)|Doctor at Large]]'' (1957), again with Donald Sinden, another entry in the ''Doctor'' film series, with later [[Bond film series|Bond girl]] [[Shirley Eaton]]; the [[Powell and Pressburger]] production ''[[Ill Met by Moonlight (film)|Ill Met by Moonlight]]'' (1957) co-starring [[Marius Goring]] as German [[General Kreipe]], kidnapped on [[Crete]] by [[Patrick Leigh Fermor|Patrick "Paddy" Leigh Fermor]] (Bogarde) and [[W. Stanley Moss]] (David Oxley), and a fellow band of Cretan resistance fighters based on [[W. Stanley Moss]]' real-life account (''[[Ill Met by Moonlight]]'') of the Second World War [[Kidnap of General Kreipe|abduction]]<ref name="seven">{{cite magazine|magazine=Filmink|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/forgotten-british-film-studios-rank-organisation-films-1957/|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|access-date=14 June 2025|date=14 June 2025|title=Forgotten British Film Studios: Rank Organisation Films – 1957}}</ref>; ''[[A Tale of Two Cities (1958 film)|A Tale of Two Cities]]'' (1958), a faithful retelling of [[Charles Dickens]]' classic; as a [[flight lieutenant]] in the [[Far East]], who falls in love with a beautiful Japanese teacher [[Yoko Tani]] in ''[[The Wind Cannot Read]]'' (1958);''[[The Doctor's Dilemma (film)|The Doctor's Dilemma]]'' (1959), based on a play by [[George Bernard Shaw]] and co-starring [[Leslie Caron]] and [[Robert Morley]]; and ''[[Libel (film)|Libel]]'' (1959), playing three separate roles and co-starring [[Olivia de Havilland]]. Bogarde was called "Rank's jewel in the crown."<ref name="st john">{{cite magazine|magazine=Filmink|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|date=20 April 2025|access-date=20 April 2025|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/forgotten-british-moguls-earl-st-john/|title=Forgotten British Moguls: Earl St John}}</ref>
He did his second ''Doctor'' film, ''[[Doctor at Sea (film)|Doctor at Sea]]'' (1955), co-starring [[Brigitte Bardot]] in one of her first film roles; played a returning [[British Empire|colonial]] who fights the [[Mau-Mau]] with [[Virginia McKenna]] and [[Donald Sinden]] in ''[[Simba (1955 film)|Simba]]'' (1955); ''[[Cast a Dark Shadow]]'' (1955), as a man who marries women for money and then murders them; ''[[The Spanish Gardener (film)|The Spanish Gardener]]'' (1956), with [[Michael Hordern]], [[Jon Whiteley]] and [[Cyril Cusack]]; ''[[Doctor at Large (film)|Doctor at Large]]'' (1957), again with Donald Sinden, another entry in the ''Doctor'' film series, with later [[Bond film series|Bond girl]] [[Shirley Eaton]]; the [[Powell and Pressburger]] production ''[[Ill Met by Moonlight (film)|Ill Met by Moonlight]]'' (1957) co-starring [[Marius Goring]] as German [[General Kreipe]], kidnapped on [[Crete]] by [[Patrick Leigh Fermor|Patrick "Paddy" Leigh Fermor]] (Bogarde) and [[W. Stanley Moss]] (David Oxley), and a fellow band of Cretan resistance fighters based on [[W. Stanley Moss]]' real-life account (''[[Ill Met by Moonlight]]'') of the Second World War [[Kidnap of General Kreipe|abduction]];<ref name="seven">{{cite magazine|magazine=Filmink|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/forgotten-british-film-studios-rank-organisation-films-1957/|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|access-date=14 June 2025|date=14 June 2025|title=Forgotten British Film Studios: Rank Organisation Films – 1957}}</ref> ''[[A Tale of Two Cities (1958 film)|A Tale of Two Cities]]'' (1958), a faithful retelling of [[Charles Dickens]]' classic; as a [[flight lieutenant]] in the [[Far East]], who falls in love with a beautiful Japanese teacher [[Yoko Tani]] in ''[[The Wind Cannot Read]]'' (1958);''[[The Doctor's Dilemma (film)|The Doctor's Dilemma]]'' (1959), based on a play by [[George Bernard Shaw]] and co-starring [[Leslie Caron]] and [[Robert Morley]]; and ''[[Libel (film)|Libel]]'' (1959), playing three roles and co-starring [[Olivia de Havilland]]. Bogarde was called "Rank's jewel in the crown."<ref name="st john">{{cite magazine|magazine=Filmink|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|date=20 April 2025|access-date=20 April 2025|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/forgotten-british-moguls-earl-st-john/|title=Forgotten British Moguls: Earl St John}}</ref>


===Art house and European cinema===
===Art house and European cinema===
After leaving the Rank Organisation in the early 1960s, Bogarde abandoned his heart-throb image and "chose roles that challenged received morality and that pushed the scope of cinema".<ref name="BBC"/> He starred in the film ''[[Victim (1961 film)|Victim]]'' (1961), playing a London [[barrister]] who fights the blackmailers of a young man with whom he has had a deeply emotional relationship. The young man commits suicide after being arrested for embezzlement, rather than ruin his beloved's career. In exposing the ring of extortionists, Bogarde's character risks his reputation and marriage to see that justice is done. ''Victim'' was the first British film to portray the humiliation to which gay people were exposed via discriminatory law and as a victimised minority; it is said to have had some effect upon the later [[Sexual Offences Act 1967]] ending, to some extent, the illegal status of male homosexual activity.
After leaving the Rank Organisation in the early 1960s, Bogarde abandoned his heart-throb image and "chose roles that challenged received morality and that pushed the scope of cinema".<ref name="BBC"/> He starred in the film ''[[Victim (1961 film)|Victim]]'' (1961), playing a London [[barrister]] who fights the blackmailers of a young man with whom he has had a deeply emotional relationship. The young man commits suicide after being arrested for embezzlement, rather than ruin his beloved's career. In exposing the ring of extortionists, Bogarde's character risks his reputation and marriage to see that justice is done. ''Victim'' was the first British film to portray the humiliation to which gay people were exposed via discriminatory law and as a victimised minority; it is said to have had some effect upon the later [[Sexual Offences Act 1967]] ending, to some extent, the illegal status of male homosexual activity.
[[File:Dirk Bogarde Jane Birkin Cannes.jpg|thumb|Bogarde with [[Jane Birkin]], co-star in ''[[Daddy Nostalgie]]'' at the [[1990 Cannes Film Festival]]]]
[[File:Dirk Bogarde Jane Birkin Cannes.jpg|thumb|Bogarde with [[Jane Birkin]], co-star in ''[[Daddy Nostalgie]]'' at the [[1990 Cannes Film Festival]]]]
He again teamed up with Joseph Losey to play Hugo Barrett, a decadent valet, in ''[[The Servant (1963 film)|The Servant]]'' (1963), with a script by [[Harold Pinter]], and which garnered Bogarde a [[BAFTA]] Award. That year also saw the release of ''[[The Mind Benders (1963 film)|The Mind Benders]]'', in which he played a professor conducting [[sensory deprivation]] experiments at [[University of Oxford|Oxford University]] (and which anticipates ''[[Altered States]]'' (1980)). The following year saw another collaboration with Losey in the antiwar film ''[[King and Country]]'', in which Bogarde played an army officer at a [[court-martial]], reluctantly defending deserter [[Tom Courtenay]]. He won a second BAFTA for his role as a television broadcaster-writer Robert Gold in ''[[Darling (1965 film)|Darling]]'' (1965), directed by [[John Schlesinger]]. Bogarde, Losey and Pinter reunited for ''[[Accident (1967 film)|Accident]]'' (1967), which recounted the travails of Stephen, a bored Oxford University professor.
He again teamed up with Joseph Losey to play Hugo Barrett, a decadent valet, in ''[[The Servant (1963 film)|The Servant]]'' (1963), with a script by [[Harold Pinter]], and which garnered Bogarde a [[BAFTA]] Award. That year also saw the release of ''[[The Mind Benders (1963 film)|The Mind Benders]]'', in which he played a professor conducting [[sensory deprivation]] experiments at [[Oxford University]] (and which anticipates ''[[Altered States]]'' [1980]). The following year saw another collaboration with Losey in the anti-war film ''[[King and Country]]'', in which Bogarde played an army officer at a [[court-martial]], reluctantly defending deserter [[Tom Courtenay]]. He won a second BAFTA for his role as a television broadcaster-writer Robert Gold in ''[[Darling (1965 film)|Darling]]'' (1965), directed by [[John Schlesinger]]. Bogarde, Losey and Pinter reunited for ''[[Accident (1967 film)|Accident]]'' (1967), which recounted the travails of Stephen, a bored Oxford University professor.


''[[Our Mother's House]]'' (1967) is an off-beat film noir and the British entry at the [[Venice Film Festival]], directed by [[Jack Clayton]], in which Bogarde plays a ne'er-do-well father who descends upon "his" seven children on the death of their mother. In his first collaboration with [[Luchino Visconti]] in ''La Caduta degli dei'' (''[[The Damned (1969 film)|The Damned]]'', 1969), Bogarde played German industrialist Frederick Bruckmann alongside [[Ingrid Thulin]]. Two years later Visconti was back at the helm when Bogarde portrayed Gustav von Aschenbach in ''Morte a Venezia'' (''[[Death in Venice (film)|Death in Venice]]'').<ref name="bbc2021">{{cite news |last1=Kaufman |first1=Sophie Monks |title=Why Dirk Bogarde was a truly dangerous film star |url=https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210322-why-dirk-bogarde-was-a-truly-dangerous-film-star |access-date=2 April 2021 |publisher=BBC Culture |date=22 March 2021}}</ref> In 1974, the controversial ''Il Portiere di notte'' (''[[The Night Porter]]'') saw Bogarde cast as an ex-Nazi, Max Aldorfer, co-starring [[Charlotte Rampling]], and directed by [[Liliana Cavani]]. He played Claude, the lawyer son of a dying, drunken writer ([[John Gielgud]]) in the well-received, multidimensional French film ''[[Providence (1977 film)|Providence]]'' (1977), directed by [[Alain Resnais]], and industrialist Hermann Hermann, who descends into madness in ''[[Despair (film)|Despair]]'' (1978) directed by [[Rainer Werner Fassbinder]]. "It was the best performance I've ever done in my life," he later recounted. "Fassbinder... really screwed the film up. He tore it to pieces with a scissors."<ref>{{Cite web |date=9 October 1992 |title=About Face: Sir Dirk Bogarde |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/search?q=dirk+bogarde |access-date=13 October 2022 |website=BBC}}</ref> This led to Bogarde going on an extended hiatus. "And I thought, 'OK. Give it up'. So I gave it up and I didn't do another film for fourteen years." He returned one last time, as Daddy in Bertrand Tavernier's ''[[Daddy Nostalgie]]'', (or ''These Foolish Things'') (1991), co-starring [[Jane Birkin]] as his daughter.
''[[Our Mother's House]]'' (1967) is an off-beat film noir and the British entry at the [[Venice Film Festival]], directed by [[Jack Clayton]], in which Bogarde plays a ne'er-do-well father who descends upon "his" seven children on the death of their mother. In his first collaboration with [[Luchino Visconti]] in ''La Caduta degli dei'' (''[[The Damned (1969 film)|The Damned]]'', 1969), Bogarde played German industrialist Frederick Bruckmann alongside [[Ingrid Thulin]]. Two years later Visconti was back at the helm when Bogarde portrayed Gustav von Aschenbach in ''Morte a Venezia'' (''[[Death in Venice (film)|Death in Venice]]'').<ref name="bbc2021">{{cite news |last1=Kaufman |first1=Sophie Monks |title=Why Dirk Bogarde was a truly dangerous film star |url=https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210322-why-dirk-bogarde-was-a-truly-dangerous-film-star |access-date=2 April 2021 |publisher=BBC Culture |date=22 March 2021}}</ref> In 1974, the controversial ''Il Portiere di notte'' (''[[The Night Porter]]'') saw Bogarde cast as an ex-Nazi, Max Aldorfer, co-starring [[Charlotte Rampling]], and directed by [[Liliana Cavani]]. He played Claude, the lawyer son of a dying, drunken writer ([[John Gielgud]]) in the well-received, multidimensional French film ''[[Providence (1977 film)|Providence]]'' (1977), directed by [[Alain Resnais]], and industrialist Hermann Hermann, who descends into madness in ''[[Despair (film)|Despair]]'' (1978) directed by [[Rainer Werner Fassbinder]]. "It was the best performance I've ever done in my life," he later recounted. "Fassbinder... really screwed the film up. He tore it to pieces with a scissors."<ref>{{Cite web |date=9 October 1992 |title=About Face: Sir Dirk Bogarde |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/search?q=dirk+bogarde |access-date=13 October 2022 |website=BBC}}</ref> This led to Bogarde going on an extended hiatus. "And I thought, 'OK. Give it up'. So I gave it up and I didn't do another film for fourteen years." He returned one last time, as Daddy in Bertrand Tavernier's ''[[Daddy Nostalgie]]'', (or ''These Foolish Things'') (1991), co-starring [[Jane Birkin]] as his daughter.


===Other later career roles===
===Other later career roles===
In the 1960s and 1970s Bogarde played opposite many renowned stars. ''[[The Angel Wore Red]]'' (1960) saw Bogarde playing an unfrocked priest who falls in love with cabaret entertainer [[Ava Gardner]] during the [[Spanish Civil War]]. The same year, in ''[[Song Without End]]'' he portrayed Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist [[Franz Liszt]], a film initially directed by [[Charles Vidor]] (who died during shooting) and completed by Bogarde's friend [[George Cukor]], which was the actor's only foray into Hollywood. The campy ''[[The Singer Not the Song]]'' (1961) starred Bogarde as a Mexican bandit alongside [[John Mills]] as a priest.
In the 1960s and 1970s Bogarde played opposite many renowned stars. ''[[The Angel Wore Red]]'' (1960) saw Bogarde playing an unfrocked priest who falls in love with cabaret entertainer [[Ava Gardner]] during the [[Spanish Civil War]]. The same year, in ''[[Song Without End]]'' he portrayed Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist [[Franz Liszt]], a film initially directed by [[Charles Vidor]] (who died during shooting) and completed by Bogarde's friend [[George Cukor]], which was the actor's only foray into Hollywood.<ref name="cap">{{cite magazine|date=23 August 2025|access-date=23 August 2025|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|magazine=Filmink|title=Not Quite Movie Stars: Capucine|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/not-quite-movie-stars-capucine/}}</ref> The campy ''[[The Singer Not the Song]]'' (1961) starred Bogarde as a Mexican bandit alongside [[John Mills]] as a priest.


In ''[[H.M.S. Defiant]]'' (or ''Damn the Defiant!'') (1962), he played the sadistic Lieutenant Scott-Padget, co-starring Sir [[Alec Guinness]]; ''[[I Could Go On Singing]]'' (1963), co-starring [[Judy Garland]] in her final screen role; ''[[Hot Enough for June]]'' (or ''Agent 8¾'') (1964), a [[James Bond]]-type spy spoof co-starring [[Robert Morley]]; ''[[Modesty Blaise (1966 film)|Modesty Blaise]]'' (1966), a campy spy send-up playing archvillain Gabriel opposite [[Monica Vitti]] and [[Terence Stamp]] and directed by Joseph Losey; ''[[The Fixer (1968 film)|The Fixer]]'' (1968), based on [[Bernard Malamud]]'s novel, co-starring [[Alan Bates]]; ''[[Sebastian (1968 film)|Sebastian]]'' (1968), as Sebastian, a mathematician working on code decryption, who falls in love with [[Susannah York]], a decrypter in the all-female decoding office he heads for [[British Intelligence]], also co-starring Sir John Gielgud and [[Lilli Palmer]], co-produced by Michael Powell; ''[[Oh! What a Lovely War]]'' (1969), co-starring Sir John Gielgud and Sir [[Laurence Olivier]] and directed by [[Richard Attenborough]]; ''[[Justine (1969 film)|Justine]]'' (1969), directed by George Cukor; ''[[Night Flight from Moscow|Le Serpent]]'' (1973), co-starring [[Henry Fonda]] and [[Yul Brynner]].
In ''[[H.M.S. Defiant]]'' (or ''Damn the Defiant!'') (1962), he played the sadistic Lieutenant Scott-Padget, co-starring Sir [[Alec Guinness]]; ''[[I Could Go On Singing]]'' (1963), co-starring [[Judy Garland]] in her final screen role; ''[[Hot Enough for June]]'' (or ''Agent 8¾'') (1964), a [[James Bond]]-type spy spoof co-starring [[Robert Morley]]; ''[[Modesty Blaise (1966 film)|Modesty Blaise]]'' (1966), a campy spy send-up playing arch villain Gabriel opposite [[Monica Vitti]] and [[Terence Stamp]] and directed by Joseph Losey; ''[[The Fixer (1968 film)|The Fixer]]'' (1968), based on [[Bernard Malamud]]'s novel, co-starring [[Alan Bates]]; ''[[Sebastian (1968 film)|Sebastian]]'' (1968), as Sebastian, a mathematician working on code decryption, who falls in love with [[Susannah York]], a decrypter in the all-female decoding office he heads for [[British Intelligence]], also co-starring Sir John Gielgud and [[Lilli Palmer]], co-produced by Michael Powell; ''[[Oh! What a Lovely War]]'' (1969), co-starring Sir John Gielgud and Sir [[Laurence Olivier]] and directed by [[Richard Attenborough]]; ''[[Justine (1969 film)|Justine]]'' (1969), directed by George Cukor; ''[[Night Flight from Moscow|Le Serpent]]'' (1973), co-starring [[Henry Fonda]] and [[Yul Brynner]].


''[[A Bridge Too Far (film)|A Bridge Too Far]]'' (1977), also starring [[Sean Connery]], and again directed by Richard Attenborough, saw Bogarde give a controversial performance as Lieutenant General [[Frederick Browning|Frederick 'Boy' Browning]]. Bogarde claimed he had known General Browning from his time on Field Marshal Montgomery's staff during the war, and took issue with the largely negative portrayal of the general whom he played in ''A Bridge Too Far''. Browning's widow, author Dame [[Daphne du Maurier]], ferociously attacked his characterisation and "the resultant establishment fallout, much of it [[homophobic]], wrongly convinced [Bogarde] that the newly ennobled Sir Richard [Attenborough] had deliberately contrived to scupper his own chance of a knighthood."<ref>Hawkins and Attenborough 2009, pp. 152–153.</ref> While several of his fellow actors were veterans, Bogarde was the only cast member to have served at the battles being depicted in the film, having entered Brussels the day after its liberation, and worked on the planning of Operation Market Garden.<ref name="Military"/>
''[[A Bridge Too Far (film)|A Bridge Too Far]]'' (1977), also starring [[Sean Connery]], and again directed by Richard Attenborough, saw Bogarde give a controversial performance as Lieutenant General [[Frederick Browning|Frederick 'Boy' Browning]]. Bogarde claimed he had known General Browning from his time on Field Marshal Montgomery's staff during the war, and took issue with the largely negative portrayal of the general whom he played in ''A Bridge Too Far''. Browning's widow, author Dame [[Daphne du Maurier]], ferociously attacked his characterisation and "the resultant establishment fallout, much of it [[homophobic]], wrongly convinced [Bogarde] that the newly ennobled Sir Richard [Attenborough] had deliberately contrived to scupper his chance of a knighthood."<ref>Hawkins and Attenborough 2009, pp. 152–153.</ref> While several of his fellow actors were veterans, Bogarde was the only cast member to have served at the battles being depicted in the film, having entered Brussels the day after its liberation, and worked on the planning of Operation Market Garden.<ref name="Military"/>


===Biographer and novelist===
===Biographer and novelist===
In 1977, Bogarde embarked on his second career as an author. Starting with a first volume ''A Postillion Struck by Lightning'' (an allusion to the phrase ''[[My postillion has been struck by lightning]]''), he wrote a series of 15 best-selling books—nine volumes of memoirs and six novels, as well as essays, reviews, poetry and collected journalism. As a writer, Bogarde displayed a witty, elegant, highly literate and thoughtful style.<ref name="bbc2021"/>
In 1977, Bogarde embarked on his second career as an author. Starting with a first volume ''A Postillion Struck by Lightning'' (an allusion to the phrase ''[[My postillion has been struck by lightning]]''), he wrote a series of 15 books—nine volumes of memoirs and six novels, as well as essays, reviews, poetry and collected journalism. As a writer, Bogarde displayed a witty, elegant, highly literate and thoughtful style.<ref name="bbc2021"/>


===Missed roles===
===Missed roles===
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==Personal life==
==Personal life==


After his acting career had given him some success, Bogarde moved from London and rented a cottage on the Bendrose Estate in [[Little Chalfont]], [[Buckinghamshire]], the family home of his business manager and partner, [[Anthony Forwood|Anthony "Tote" Forwood]].<ref name = "Beel House">{{cite web|url=https://amershammuseum.org/history/little-chalfont/beel-house-and-dirk-bogarde/|title=Amersham's matinee idol and the intriguing history of Beel House|publisher=Amersham Museum|author=Alison Bailey|date=1 November 2021|accessdate=7 May 2024}}</ref> Bogarde subsequently lived in the area for some 40 years. After an unsuccessful attempt to gain planning permission to convert the estate into a housing development, Bogarde bought the adjoining [[Beel House]] and Park from William Lowndes for £4,000. After tearing down the servants' wing, Bogarde and Forwood had the main house redeveloped and refurbished "to bring more light" into the original 1700s core. They lived there until 1960, after the development of [[Dr Challoner's High School]] just 200 yards from Beel House. The couple subsequently moved to Drummer's Yard near [[Beaconsfield]]. Beel House was later owned by [[Ozzy Osbourne|Ozzy]] and [[Sharon Osbourne]], and [[Robert Kilroy Silk]], who sold it for £6.5m in the mid-2010s.<ref name = "Beel House"/>
After his acting career had given him some success, Bogarde moved from London and rented a cottage on the Bendrose Estate in [[Little Chalfont]], [[Buckinghamshire]], the family home of his business manager and partner, [[Anthony Forwood|Anthony "Tote" Forwood]].<ref name = "Beel House">{{cite web|url=https://amershammuseum.org/history/little-chalfont/beel-house-and-dirk-bogarde/|title=Amersham's matinee idol and the intriguing history of Beel House|publisher=Amersham Museum|author=Alison Bailey|date=1 November 2021|accessdate=7 May 2024}}</ref> Bogarde subsequently lived in the area for some 40 years. After an unsuccessful attempt to gain planning permission to convert the estate into a housing development, Bogarde bought the adjoining [[Beel House]] and Park from William Lowndes for £4,000. After tearing down the servants' wing, Bogarde and Forwood had the main house redeveloped and refurbished "to bring more light" into the original 1700s core. They lived there until 1960, after the development of [[Dr Challoner's High School]] just 200 yards from Beel House. The couple subsequently moved to Drummer's Yard near [[Beaconsfield]]. Beel House was later owned by [[Ozzy]] and [[Sharon Osbourne]], and [[Robert Kilroy Silk]], who sold it for £6.5m in the mid-2010s.<ref name = "Beel House"/>


Bogarde and Forwood later moved to [[Provence]], France, then Italy, before returning to France.  They moved back to London shortly before Forwood's death in 1988.<ref>Coldstream, John. Introduction to ''Ever Dirk, The Bogarde Letters.'' [[Weidenfeld & Nicolson]], London, 2008, p3.</ref>
Bogarde and Forwood later moved to [[Provence]], France, then Italy, before returning to France.  They moved back to London shortly before Forwood's death in 1988.<ref>Coldstream, John. Introduction to ''Ever Dirk, The Bogarde Letters.'' [[Weidenfeld & Nicolson]], London, 2008, p3.</ref>
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==Death==
==Death==
Bogarde, a heavy smoker, had a minor [[stroke]] in November 1987 while Forwood was dying of [[Hepatocellular carcinoma|liver cancer]] and [[Parkinson's disease]]. In September 1996, he underwent [[angioplasty]] to unblock arteries leading to his heart and suffered a massive stroke following the operation.<ref>[http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Sir+Dirk+reveals+%60living+will%27+wishes+after+stroke.-a060782611 "Sir Dirk reveals 'living will' wishes after stroke."] ''[[The Free Library]]''. Retrieved: 22 September 2013.</ref> He was paralysed on one side of his body, which affected his speech, and from then on used a wheelchair. He then completed the final volume of his [[autobiography]], which covered the effects of the stroke, and published an edition of his collected [[journalism]], mainly from ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]''.
Bogarde, a heavy smoker, had a minor [[stroke]] in November 1987 while Forwood was dying of [[Hepatocellular carcinoma|liver cancer]] and [[Parkinson's disease]]. In September 1996, he underwent [[angioplasty]] to unblock arteries leading to his heart and suffered a massive stroke following the operation.<ref>[http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Sir+Dirk+reveals+%60living+will%27+wishes+after+stroke.-a060782611 "Sir Dirk reveals 'living will' wishes after stroke."] ''[[The Free Library]]''. Retrieved: 22 September 2013.</ref> He was paralysed on one side of his body, which affected his speech, and from then on used a wheelchair. He then completed the final volume of his [[autobiography]], which covered the effects of the stroke, and published an edition of his collected [[journalism]], mainly from ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]''. Bogarde spent some time with his friend [[Lauren Bacall]] the day before he died at his home in London from a heart attack on 8 May 1999, aged 78. His ashes were scattered at his former estate Le Pigeonnier in [[Grasse]], [[southern France]].<ref>[http://www.thisisannouncements.co.uk/5849157 "Obituary: Sir Dirk Bogarde."] ''This is announcements''. Retrieved: 22 September 2013.</ref>
 
Bogarde spent some time with his friend [[Lauren Bacall]] the day before he died at his home in London from a heart attack on 8 May 1999, aged 78. His ashes were scattered at his former estate Le Pigeonnier in [[Grasse]], [[southern France]].<ref>[http://www.thisisannouncements.co.uk/5849157 "Obituary: Sir Dirk Bogarde."] ''This is announcements''. Retrieved: 22 September 2013.</ref>


==Honours and awards==
==Honours and awards==
Bogarde was nominated five times as Best Actor by [[BAFTA]], winning twice, for ''The Servant'' in 1963 and for ''[[Darling (1965 film)|Darling]]'' in 1965. He also received the [[London Film Critics Circle Awards 1991|London Film Critics Circle Lifetime Award in 1991]]. He made a total of 63 films between 1939 and 1991. In 1983, he received a special award for service to the cinema at the [[Cannes Festival]]. He was awarded the [[British Film Institute Fellowship]] in 1987. In 1988, Bogarde was honoured with the first BAFTA Tribute Award for an outstanding contribution to cinema.
Bogarde was nominated five times as Best Actor by [[BAFTA]], winning twice, for ''The Servant'' in 1963 and for ''[[Darling (1965 film)|Darling]]'' in 1965. He also received the [[London Film Critics Circle Awards 1991|London Film Critics Circle Lifetime Award in 1991]]. He made a total of 63 films between 1939 and 1991. In 1983, he received a special award for service to the cinema at the [[Cannes Festival]]. He was awarded the [[British Film Institute Fellowship]] in 1987. In 1988, Bogarde was honoured with the first BAFTA Tribute Award for an outstanding contribution to cinema.


Bogarde was created a Knight Bachelor in the United Kingdom in 1992, awarded the ''Commandeur de l'[[Ordre des Arts et des Lettres]]'' by the French government in 1990, an honorary doctorate of literature on 4 July 1985 by [[St Andrews University]] in Scotland, and an honorary [[Doctor of Letters|doctorate of letters]] in 1993 by the [[University of Sussex]] in England.
Bogarde was created a Knight Bachelor in the United Kingdom in 1992, awarded the {{lang|fr|Commandeur de l'[[Ordre des Arts et des Lettres]]}} by the French government in 1990, an [[honorary doctorate]] of literature on 4 July 1985 by [[St Andrews University]] in Scotland, and an honorary [[doctor of Letters|doctorate of letters]] in 1993 by the [[University of Sussex]] in England. In 1984, Bogarde served as president of the jury at the [[1984 Cannes Film Festival|Cannes Film Festival]], the first British person to serve in this capacity.
 
In 1984, Bogarde served as president of the jury at the [[1984 Cannes Film Festival|Cannes Film Festival]], the first British person to serve in this capacity.


==Filmography==
==Filmography==
Titles preceded by an asterisk (*) are [[Television film|films made for television]].
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:90%"
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:90%"
|- style="text-align:center;"
|- style="text-align:center;"
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|Uncredited
|Uncredited
|-
|-
| rowspan="3" |1947
| rowspan="4" |1947
|''Rope''
|''[[Rope (1947 film)|Rope]]''
|Charlies Granillo
|Charlies Granillo
|TV movie
|TV movie
|-
|''[[The Case of Helvig Delbo]]''
|
|TV special
|-
|-
|''[[Power Without Glory (play)|Power Without Glory]]''
|''[[Power Without Glory (play)|Power Without Glory]]''
|Cliff
|Cliff
|TV movie
|TV movie using cast of stage production
|-
|-
|''[[Dancing with Crime]]''
|''[[Dancing with Crime]]''
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|''[[Esther Waters (film)|Esther Waters]]''
|''[[Esther Waters (film)|Esther Waters]]''
|William Latch
|William Latch
|
| First leading role in film
|-
|-
|''[[Quartet (1948 film)|Quartet]]''
|''[[Quartet (1948 film)|Quartet]]''
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|''[[The Blue Lamp]]''
|''[[The Blue Lamp]]''
|Tom Riley
|Tom Riley
|
| First box office hit
|-
|-
|''[[So Long at the Fair]]''
|''[[So Long at the Fair]]''
|George Hathaway
|George Hathaway
|
| First film produced by Betty Box
|-
|-
|''[[The Woman in Question]]''
|''[[The Woman in Question]]''
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|''[[For Better, for Worse (1954 film)|For Better, for Worse]]''
|''[[For Better, for Worse (1954 film)|For Better, for Worse]]''
|Tony Howard
|Tony Howard
|
|Directed by Val Guest
|-
|-
|''[[The Sea Shall Not Have Them]]''
|''[[The Sea Shall Not Have Them]]''
|Flight Sgt. MacKay
|Flight Sgt. MacKay
|
| Bogare's first film with director Lewis Gilbert
|-
|-
|rowspan=3|1955
|rowspan=3|1955
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|''[[Doctor at Sea (film)|Doctor at Sea]]''
|''[[Doctor at Sea (film)|Doctor at Sea]]''
|Dr Simon Sparrow
|Dr Simon Sparrow
|
| 2nd "doctor" film
|-
|-
|''[[Cast a Dark Shadow]]''
|''[[Cast a Dark Shadow]]''
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|''[[Ill Met by Moonlight (film)|Ill Met by Moonlight]]''
|''[[Ill Met by Moonlight (film)|Ill Met by Moonlight]]''
|Maj. [[Patrick Leigh Fermor]] a.k.a. Philedem
|Maj. [[Patrick Leigh Fermor]] a.k.a. Philedem
|
|Directed by Michael Powell
|-
|-
|''[[Doctor at Large (film)|Doctor at Large]]''
|''[[Doctor at Large (film)|Doctor at Large]]''
|Dr Simon Sparrow
|Dr Simon Sparrow
|
|3rd "doctor" film
|-
|-
|''[[Campbell's Kingdom]]''
|''[[Campbell's Kingdom]]''
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|''[[The Doctor's Dilemma (film)|The Doctor's Dilemma]]''
|''[[The Doctor's Dilemma (film)|The Doctor's Dilemma]]''
|Louis Dubedat
|Louis Dubedat
|
|First Hollywood movie
|-
|-
|1959
|1959
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|''[[Doctor in Distress (film)|Doctor in Distress]]''
|''[[Doctor in Distress (film)|Doctor in Distress]]''
|Dr Simon Sparrow
|Dr Simon Sparrow
|
|Bogarde's 4th "doctor" film<ref>{{cite magazine|magazine=Filmink|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/forgotten-british-film-studios-the-rank-organisation-1963-and-1964/|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|date=30 July 2025|access-date=30 July 2025|title=Forgotten British Film Studios: The Rank Organisation, 1963 and 1964}}</ref>
|-
|-
|''[[The Servant (1963 film)|The Servant]]''
|''[[The Servant (1963 film)|The Servant]]''
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|''[[The High Bright Sun]]''
|''[[The High Bright Sun]]''
|Major McGuire
|Major McGuire
|
|Bogarde's last movie with Betty Box and Ralph Thomas<ref>{{cite magazine|first=Stephen|last=Vagg|magazine=Filmink|date=11 August 2025|access-date=11 August 2025|url=https://www.filmink.com.au/forgotten-british-film-studios-the-rank-organisation-1965-to-1967/|title=Forgotten British Film Studios: The Rank Organisation, 1965 to 1967}}</ref>
|-
|-
|''Little Moon of Alban''
|''[[Little Moon of Alban (1964 film)|Little Moon of Alban]]''
|Kenneth Boyd
|Kenneth Boyd
|
|
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[[Category:English male novelists]]
[[Category:English male novelists]]
[[Category:English male stage actors]]
[[Category:English male stage actors]]
[[Category:English people of Dutch descent]]
[[Category:English male television actors]]
[[Category:English people of Flemish descent]]
[[Category:English people of Scottish descent]]
[[Category:English people of Scottish descent]]
[[Category:English gay actors]]
[[Category:English gay actors]]
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[[Category:Male actors from Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur]]
[[Category:Male actors from Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur]]
[[Category:People from West Hampstead]]
[[Category:People from West Hampstead]]
[[Category:Pseudonymous actors]]
[[Category:Queen's Royal Regiment officers]]
[[Category:Queen's Royal Regiment officers]]
[[Category:Royal Corps of Signals soldiers]]
[[Category:Royal Corps of Signals soldiers]]

Latest revision as of 21:20, 2 November 2025

Template:Short description Template:Use British English Template:Use dmy dates

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Sir Dirk Bogarde (born Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde; 28 March 1921 – 8 May 1999) was an English actor, novelist and screenwriter. Initially a matinée idol in films such as Doctor in the House (1954) for the Rank Organisation, he later acted in art house films, evolving from "heartthrob to icon of edginess".[1]

In a second career, Bogarde wrote seven volumes of memoirs, six novels, and a volume of collected journalism, mainly from articles in The Daily Telegraph. He fought in the Second World War and over the course of five years reached the rank of major and was awarded seven medals. His poetry has been published in war anthologies, and a grey ink brush drawing, "Tents in Orchard. 1944", is in the collection of the British Museum.[2]

Having come to prominence in films including The Blue Lamp in the early 1950s, Bogarde starred in the popular Doctor film series (1954–1963). He twice won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, for The Servant (1963) and Darling (1965). His other notable film roles included Victim (1961), Accident (1967), The Damned (1969), Death in Venice (1971), The Night Porter (1974), A Bridge Too Far (1977) and Despair (1978). He was appointed a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in 1990 and a Knight Bachelor in 1992.

Early years and education

Bogarde was the eldest of three children born to Ulric van den Bogaerde (1892–1972) and Margaret Niven (1898–1980). Ulric was born in Perry Barr, Birmingham, of Flemish ancestry, and was art editor of The Times. Margaret Niven, a former actress, was Scottish, from Glasgow. Dirk Bogarde was born in a nursing home at 12 Hemstal Road,[3] West Hampstead, London, and was baptised on 30 October 1921, at St. Mary's Church, Kilburn.[3] He had a younger sister, Elizabeth (born 1924), and a brother, Gareth Ulric Van Den Bogaerde, an advertising film producer, born in July 1933 in Hendon.[4]

Conditions in the family home in north London became cramped, so Bogarde was moved to Glasgow to stay with relatives of his mother. He stayed there for more than three years, returning at the end of 1937.[4] He attended University College School and the former Allan Glen's High School of Science in Glasgow, a time he described in his autobiography as an unhappy one. Having secured a scholarship at Chelsea College of Art, Bogarde completed his two year course, and landed "a back-stage job as tea-boy at seven shillings and sixpence per week".[5] A chance to act as a stand-in convinced Bogarde that "he needed some additional basic training, and he joined a provincial repertory group". His first on-screen appearance was as an uncredited extra in the George Formby comedy, Come On George! (1939).[6]

War service

During the war, Derek "Pip" Bogaerde served in the British Army, initially with the Royal Corps of Signals. He was then commissioned at the age of 22 into the Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey) on 2 April 1943 with the rank of second lieutenant.[7] He served in both the European and Pacific theatres, principally as an intelligence officer.

D-Day and aftermath

Bogarde served as an intelligence officer with the 21st Army Group (Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery) as it liberated Europe.[8] Taylor Downing's book, Spies in the Sky, tells of Bogarde's work in photo-reconnaissance in the aftermath of D-Day, moving through Normandy with Royal Canadian Air Force units. By July 1944, they were at the "B.8" airfield at Sommervieu, near Bayeux. As an air photographic interpreter with the rank of captain, Bogarde was later attached to the Second Army, where he selected ground targets in France, Holland and Germany for the Second Tactical Air Force and RAF Bomber Command.[9] Villages on key routes were heavily bombed to prevent the Wehrmacht's armour from reaching the invasion lodgement areas.[10] In a 1986 Yorkshire Television interview with Russell Harty, Bogarde recalled going on painting trips, sometimes to see the villages which he had selected as targets,

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I found what I had thought in the rubble were a whole row of footballs, and they weren't footballs ... they were children's heads ... A whole school of kids, a convent, had been pulled out of school, and lined up in this little narrow alleyway between the buildings to save them from the bombing, and the whole thing had come in on top of them.[9]

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Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

Bogarde said he was one of the first Allied officers to reach the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany on 20 April 1945, an experience that had the most profound effect on him and about which he had difficulty speaking for many years afterwards.[11]

File:The Liberation of Bergen-belsen Concentration Camp, April 1945 BU4274.jpg
Women survivors in Bergen-Belsen collecting their bread ration after their liberation, April 1945

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The gates were opened, and then I realised that I was looking at Dante's Inferno. And a girl came up who spoke English, because she recognised one of the badges, and she ... her breasts were like, sort of, empty purses, she had no top on, and a pair of man's pyjamas, you know, the prison pyjamas, and no hair ... and all around us there were mountains of dead people, I mean mountains of them, and they were slushy, and they were slimy.[9]

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File:Bergen Belsen Liberation 03.jpg
A British Army bulldozer pushes bodies into a mass grave at Belsen, 19 April 1945

There was some doubt as to whether he really visited Belsen, although, more than a decade after publishing his biography, and following additional research, John Coldstream concluded that "it is now possible to state with some authority that he did at least set foot inside the camp".[12]

India

Bogarde disclosed in a 1966 interview with Woman's Mirror that he was at fault in a multiple fatality car-crash on VJ Day in India, "I don't drive-I killed some people once, in a car crash, and I'll never drive again, not even on a film set. It was a long time ago, on VJ day, actually, in India, and they were all soldiers."[13]

Long-term effects

The horror and revulsion at the cruelty and inhumanity that he said he witnessed 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 of his generation.[14] Nevertheless, three of his more memorable film roles were as Germans, one of them as a former SS officer in The Night Porter (1974).[15]

Bogarde was most vocal towards the end of his life on 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,

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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 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.

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Career

Bogarde's London West End theatre-acting debut was in 1939, with the stage name "Derek Bogaerde", in J. B. Priestley's play Cornelius. In 1947 he appeared at the Fortune Theatre in Michael Clayton Hutton's Power Without Glory.[16] After the war, he started pursuing film roles using the name "Dirk Bogarde". One of Bogarde's earliest starring roles in cinema was in the 1949 film Once a Jolly Swagman, where he played a daring speedway ace, riding for the Cobras. This was filmed at New Cross Speedway, in South East London, during one of the postwar years in which speedway was the biggest spectator sport in the UK.

Film stardom

Bogarde was 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 matinée idol image.[17] His Rank contract began following his appearance in Esther Waters (1948), his first credited role, replacing Stewart Granger.[18] Another early role of his was in The Blue Lamp (1950), playing a hoodlum who shoots and kills a police constable (Jack Warner), whilst in So Long at the Fair (1950), a film noir, he played a handsome artist who comes to the rescue of Jean Simmons during the World's Fair in Paris. He also had roles as an accidental murderer in Hunted (or The Stranger in Between, 1952), a young wing commander in Bomber Command in Appointment in London (1953), and in Desperate Moment (1953), a wrongly imprisoned man who regains hope of clearing his name when he learns his sweetheart, Mai Zetterling, is still alive.

Bogarde featured as a medical student in Doctor in the House (1954), a film that made him one of the most popular British stars of the 1950s. The film co-starred Kenneth More and Donald Sinden, with James Robertson Justice as their crabby mentor. The production was initiated by Betty Box, who had picked up a copy of the book at Crewe during a long rail journey and had seen its possibility as a film. Box and Ralph Thomas had difficulties convincing Rank executives that people would go to a film about doctors and that Bogarde, who up to then had played character roles, had sex appeal and could play light comedy. They were allocated a modest budget and were allowed to use only available Rank contract artists. The film was the first of the Doctor film series based on the books by Richard Gordon.

In The Sleeping Tiger (1954), Bogarde played a neurotic criminal with co-star Alexis Smith. It was Bogarde's first film for American expatriate director Joseph Losey.[19]

He did his second Doctor film, Doctor at Sea (1955), co-starring Brigitte Bardot in one of her first film roles; played a returning colonial who fights the Mau-Mau with Virginia McKenna and Donald Sinden in Simba (1955); Cast a Dark Shadow (1955), as a man who marries women for money and then murders them; The Spanish Gardener (1956), with Michael Hordern, Jon Whiteley and Cyril Cusack; Doctor at Large (1957), again with Donald Sinden, another entry in the Doctor film series, with later Bond girl Shirley Eaton; the Powell and Pressburger production Ill Met by Moonlight (1957) co-starring Marius Goring as German General Kreipe, kidnapped on Crete by Patrick "Paddy" Leigh Fermor (Bogarde) and W. Stanley Moss (David Oxley), and a fellow band of Cretan resistance fighters based on W. Stanley Moss' real-life account (Ill Met by Moonlight) of the Second World War abduction;[20] A Tale of Two Cities (1958), a faithful retelling of Charles Dickens' classic; as a flight lieutenant in the Far East, who falls in love with a beautiful Japanese teacher Yoko Tani in The Wind Cannot Read (1958);The Doctor's Dilemma (1959), based on a play by George Bernard Shaw and co-starring Leslie Caron and Robert Morley; and Libel (1959), playing three roles and co-starring Olivia de Havilland. Bogarde was called "Rank's jewel in the crown."[21]

Art house and European cinema

After leaving the Rank Organisation in the early 1960s, Bogarde abandoned his heart-throb image and "chose roles that challenged received morality and that pushed the scope of cinema".[1] He starred in the film Victim (1961), playing a London barrister who fights the blackmailers of a young man with whom he has had a deeply emotional relationship. The young man commits suicide after being arrested for embezzlement, rather than ruin his beloved's career. In exposing the ring of extortionists, Bogarde's character risks his reputation and marriage to see that justice is done. Victim was the first British film to portray the humiliation to which gay people were exposed via discriminatory law and as a victimised minority; it is said to have had some effect upon the later Sexual Offences Act 1967 ending, to some extent, the illegal status of male homosexual activity.

File:Dirk Bogarde Jane Birkin Cannes.jpg
Bogarde with Jane Birkin, co-star in Daddy Nostalgie at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival

He again teamed up with Joseph Losey to play Hugo Barrett, a decadent valet, in The Servant (1963), with a script by Harold Pinter, and which garnered Bogarde a BAFTA Award. That year also saw the release of The Mind Benders, in which he played a professor conducting sensory deprivation experiments at Oxford University (and which anticipates Altered States [1980]). The following year saw another collaboration with Losey in the anti-war film King and Country, in which Bogarde played an army officer at a court-martial, reluctantly defending deserter Tom Courtenay. He won a second BAFTA for his role as a television broadcaster-writer Robert Gold in Darling (1965), directed by John Schlesinger. Bogarde, Losey and Pinter reunited for Accident (1967), which recounted the travails of Stephen, a bored Oxford University professor.

Our Mother's House (1967) is an off-beat film noir and the British entry at the Venice Film Festival, directed by Jack Clayton, in which Bogarde plays a ne'er-do-well father who descends upon "his" seven children on the death of their mother. In his first collaboration with Luchino Visconti in La Caduta degli dei (The Damned, 1969), Bogarde played German industrialist Frederick Bruckmann alongside Ingrid Thulin. Two years later Visconti was back at the helm when Bogarde portrayed Gustav von Aschenbach in Morte a Venezia (Death in Venice).[22] In 1974, the controversial Il Portiere di notte (The Night Porter) saw Bogarde cast as an ex-Nazi, Max Aldorfer, co-starring Charlotte Rampling, and directed by Liliana Cavani. He played Claude, the lawyer son of a dying, drunken writer (John Gielgud) in the well-received, multidimensional French film Providence (1977), directed by Alain Resnais, and industrialist Hermann Hermann, who descends into madness in Despair (1978) directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. "It was the best performance I've ever done in my life," he later recounted. "Fassbinder... really screwed the film up. He tore it to pieces with a scissors."[23] This led to Bogarde going on an extended hiatus. "And I thought, 'OK. Give it up'. So I gave it up and I didn't do another film for fourteen years." He returned one last time, as Daddy in Bertrand Tavernier's Daddy Nostalgie, (or These Foolish Things) (1991), co-starring Jane Birkin as his daughter.

Other later career roles

In the 1960s and 1970s Bogarde played opposite many renowned stars. The Angel Wore Red (1960) saw Bogarde playing an unfrocked priest who falls in love with cabaret entertainer Ava Gardner during the Spanish Civil War. The same year, in Song Without End he portrayed Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist Franz Liszt, a film initially directed by Charles Vidor (who died during shooting) and completed by Bogarde's friend George Cukor, which was the actor's only foray into Hollywood.[24] The campy The Singer Not the Song (1961) starred Bogarde as a Mexican bandit alongside John Mills as a priest.

In H.M.S. Defiant (or Damn the Defiant!) (1962), he played the sadistic Lieutenant Scott-Padget, co-starring Sir Alec Guinness; I Could Go On Singing (1963), co-starring Judy Garland in her final screen role; Hot Enough for June (or Agent 8¾) (1964), a James Bond-type spy spoof co-starring Robert Morley; Modesty Blaise (1966), a campy spy send-up playing arch villain Gabriel opposite Monica Vitti and Terence Stamp and directed by Joseph Losey; The Fixer (1968), based on Bernard Malamud's novel, co-starring Alan Bates; Sebastian (1968), as Sebastian, a mathematician working on code decryption, who falls in love with Susannah York, a decrypter in the all-female decoding office he heads for British Intelligence, also co-starring Sir John Gielgud and Lilli Palmer, co-produced by Michael Powell; 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), also starring Sean Connery, and again directed by Richard Attenborough, saw Bogarde give a controversial performance as Lieutenant General Frederick 'Boy' Browning. Bogarde claimed he had known General Browning from his time on Field Marshal Montgomery's staff during the war, and took issue with the largely negative portrayal of the general whom he played in A Bridge Too Far. Browning's widow, author Dame Daphne du Maurier, ferociously attacked his characterisation and "the resultant establishment fallout, much of it homophobic, wrongly convinced [Bogarde] that the newly ennobled Sir Richard [Attenborough] had deliberately contrived to scupper his chance of a knighthood."[25] While several of his fellow actors were veterans, Bogarde was the only cast member to have served at the battles being depicted in the film, having entered Brussels the day after its liberation, and worked on the planning of Operation Market Garden.[8]

Biographer and novelist

In 1977, Bogarde embarked on his second career as an author. Starting with a first volume A Postillion Struck by Lightning (an allusion to the phrase My postillion has been struck by lightning), he wrote a series of 15 books—nine volumes of memoirs and six novels, as well as essays, reviews, poetry and collected journalism. As a writer, Bogarde displayed a witty, elegant, highly literate and thoughtful style.[22]

Missed roles

While under contract with the Rank Organisation, Bogarde was set to play the role of T. E. Lawrence in a proposed film Lawrence written by Terence Rattigan and to be directed by Anthony Asquith.[26] On the eve of production, after a year of preparation by Bogarde, Rattigan and Asquith, the film was scrapped without full explanation—ostensibly for budgetary reasons—to the dismay of all three men.[27] The abrupt scrapping of Lawrence, a role long researched and keenly anticipated by Bogarde, was among his greatest screen disappointments.[17] (Rattigan reworked the script as a play, Ross, which opened to great success in 1960, initially with Alec Guinness playing Lawrence.) Bogarde was also reportedly considered for the title role in MGM's Doctor Zhivago (1965).[28] Earlier, he had declined Louis Jourdan's role as Gaston in MGM's Gigi (1958).[29]

His contract with Rank had precluded him from accepting the lead in the film adaptation of John Osborne's ground-breaking stage play, Look Back in Anger in 1959.[8] In 1961, Bogarde was offered the chance to play Hamlet at the recently founded Chichester Festival Theatre by artistic director Sir Laurence Olivier but had to decline owing to film commitments.[30] Bogarde later said that he regretted declining Olivier's offer and with it the chance to "really learn my craft".[31]

Personal life

After his acting career had given him some success, Bogarde moved from London and rented a cottage on the Bendrose Estate in Little Chalfont, Buckinghamshire, the family home of his business manager and partner, Anthony "Tote" Forwood.[32] Bogarde subsequently lived in the area for some 40 years. After an unsuccessful attempt to gain planning permission to convert the estate into a housing development, Bogarde bought the adjoining Beel House and Park from William Lowndes for £4,000. After tearing down the servants' wing, Bogarde and Forwood had the main house redeveloped and refurbished "to bring more light" into the original 1700s core. They lived there until 1960, after the development of Dr Challoner's High School just 200 yards from Beel House. The couple subsequently moved to Drummer's Yard near Beaconsfield. Beel House was later owned by Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, and Robert Kilroy Silk, who sold it for £6.5m in the mid-2010s.[32]

Bogarde and Forwood later moved to Provence, France, then Italy, before returning to France. They moved back to London shortly before Forwood's death in 1988.[33]

The critical and commercial failure of Song Without End affected his Hollywood leading man hopes. He struggled with the trauma of his active service, compounded by rapid fame, recounting, "First there was the war, and then the peace to cope with, and then suddenly I was a film star. It happened all too soon."[8]

Death

Bogarde, a heavy smoker, had a minor stroke in November 1987 while 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 massive stroke following the operation.[34] He was paralysed on one side of his body, which affected his speech, and from then on used a wheelchair. He then completed the final volume of his autobiography, which covered the effects of the stroke, and published an edition of his collected journalism, mainly from The Daily Telegraph. Bogarde spent some time with his friend Lauren Bacall the day before he died at his home in London from a heart attack on 8 May 1999, aged 78. His ashes were scattered at his former estate Le Pigeonnier in Grasse, southern France.[35]

Honours and awards

Bogarde was nominated five times as Best Actor by 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. In 1983, he received a special award for service to the cinema at the Cannes Festival. He was awarded the British Film Institute Fellowship in 1987. In 1988, Bogarde was honoured with the first BAFTA Tribute Award for an outstanding contribution to cinema.

Bogarde was created a Knight Bachelor in the United Kingdom in 1992, awarded the Script error: No such module "Lang". by the French government in 1990, an honorary doctorate of literature on 4 July 1985 by St Andrews University in Scotland, and an honorary doctorate of letters in 1993 by the University of Sussex in England. In 1984, Bogarde served as president of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival, the first British person to serve in this capacity.

Filmography

Year Title Role Notes
1939 Come On George! Extra Uncredited
1947 Rope Charlies Granillo TV movie
The Case of Helvig Delbo TV special
Power Without Glory Cliff TV movie using cast of stage production
Dancing with Crime Police Radio Caller Uncredited
1948 Esther Waters William Latch First leading role in film
Quartet George Bland (segment "The Alien Corn")
1949 Once a Jolly Swagman Bill Fox
Dear Mr. Prohack Charles Prohack
Boys in Brown Alfie Rawlins
1950 The Blue Lamp Tom Riley First box office hit
So Long at the Fair George Hathaway First film produced by Betty Box
The Woman in Question R.W. (Bob) Baker
1951 Blackmailed Stephen Mundy
1952 Hunted Chris Lloyd
Penny Princess Tony Craig
The Gentle Gunman Matt Sullivan
1953 Appointment in London Wing Commander Tim Mason
Desperate Moment Simon Van Halder
1954 They Who Dare Lt. David Graham
Doctor in the House Dr Simon Sparrow Bogarde's first film with director Ralph Thomas
The Sleeping Tiger Frank Clemmons Bogarde's first film with director Joseph Losey
For Better, for Worse Tony Howard Directed by Val Guest
The Sea Shall Not Have Them Flight Sgt. MacKay Bogare's first film with director Lewis Gilbert
1955 Simba Alan Howard
Doctor at Sea Dr Simon Sparrow 2nd "doctor" film
Cast a Dark Shadow Edward "Teddy" Bare
1956 The Spanish Gardener Jose
1957 Ill Met by Moonlight Maj. Patrick Leigh Fermor a.k.a. Philedem Directed by Michael Powell
Doctor at Large Dr Simon Sparrow 3rd "doctor" film
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 First Hollywood movie
1959 Libel Sir Mark Sebastian Loddon / Frank Welney / Number Fifteen
1960 The Angel Wore Red Arturo Carrera
Song Without End Franz Liszt Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1961 The Singer Not the Song Anacleto
Victim Melville Farr Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1962 H.M.S. Defiant 1st Lt. Scott-Padget
We Joined the Navy Dr. Simon Sparrow Cameo appearance, uncredited
The Password Is Courage Sergeant Major Charles Coward
1963 The Mind Benders Dr. Henry Longman
I Could Go On Singing David Donne
Doctor in Distress Dr Simon Sparrow Bogarde's 4th "doctor" film[36]
The Servant Hugo Barrett BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1964 Hot Enough for June Nicholas Whistler
King and Country Capt. Hargreaves
The High Bright Sun Major McGuire Bogarde's last movie with Betty Box and Ralph Thomas[37]
Little Moon of Alban Kenneth Boyd
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
1968 Sebastian Sebastian
The Fixer Bibikov
1969 Oh! What a Lovely War Stephen
Justine Pursewarden
The Damned Frederick Bruckmann
1970 Upon This Rock Bonnie Prince Charlie
1971 Death in Venice Gustav von Aschenbach Nominated – BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role
1973 Night Flight from Moscow Philip Boyle
1974 The Night Porter Maximilian Theo Aldorfer
1975 Permission to Kill Alan Curtis
1977 Providence Claude Langham
A Bridge Too Far Lt. Gen. Frederick 'Boy' Browning
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 Final film role

British box office ranking

For several years British film exhibitors voted Bogarde one of the most popular local stars at the box office:[38]

  • 1953 – 5th
  • 1954 – 2nd (9th-most popular international star)[39]
  • 1955 – 1st (also most popular international star)[40]
  • 1956 – 3rd
  • 1957 – 1st (also most popular international star)[41]
  • 1958 – 2nd (also 2nd-most popular international star)[42]
  • 1959 – 5th[43]
  • 1960 – 9th-most popular international star
  • 1961 – 8th-most popular international star
  • 1963 – 9th-most popular international star[44]

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: An Evocation, 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

References

Footnotes

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Bibliography

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  • Bogarde, Dirk. For The Time Being: Collected Journalism. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, UK: Penguin, 1999. Template:ISBN.
  • Bogarde, Dirk. Snakes and Ladders. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, UK: Penguin, 1988. Template:ISBN.
  • Brownlow, Kevin. David Lean: A Biography. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996. Template:ISBN.
  • Coldstream, John. Dirk Bogarde: The Authorised Biography. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004. Template:ISBN.
  • Coldstream, John. Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters. London: Phoenix, 2009. Template:ISBN.
  • Hawkins, Diana and Richard Attenborough. Entirely Up To You, Darling. London: Arrow Books, 2009. Template:ISBN.
  • Hinxman, Margaret and Susan d'Arcy. The Films of Dirk Bogarde Richmond, California: Literary Services & Production, 1974. Template:ISBN.
  • Morley, Sheridan. Dirk Bogarde: Rank Outsider. Pontarddulais, Swansea, UK: Macmillan Distribution Limited, 2000. Template:ISBN.
  • Shipman, David. The Great Movie Stars: The International Years. London: Macdonald, 1989, p. 55-60 Template:ISBN
  • Tanitch, Robert. Dirk Bogarde: The Complete Career Illustrated. London: Ebury Press, 1988. Template:ISBN.

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Archival resources

  • Dirk Bogarde collection, 1957–1993 (4.5 linear feet) is housed at Boston University Dept. of Special Collections
  • Harold Matson Company, Inc. Records, 1937–1980 (68 linear feet) are housed at the Columbia University Libraries. The Matson Company was the literary agency with which Bogarde worked; the collection contains correspondence and other documents related to his literary career.

External links

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Template:BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role Template:Cannes Film Festival jury presidents

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  1. a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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  3. a b Coldstream 2004, p. 24.
  4. a b Moir, Jon. "Dirk could be cruel – but I know why." The Daily Telegraph (London), 2 September 2004. Retrieved: 29 March 2015.
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  9. a b c Above The Title, Yorkshire Television interview, 1986.
  10. Bogarde states that before a village was bombed by the RAF they would always drop leaflets warning the inhabitants but that sometimes the leaflets were blown away by the wind. Other air forces allocated to these same tasks, he states, "didn't drop leaflets, they just bombed everything that moved".
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  14. Bogarde, Dirk. "Out of the Shadows of Hell". For the Time Being. London: Penguin, 1988.
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  16. Wearing, J. P. The London Stage 1940–1949: A Calendar of Productions, Performers, and Personnel. Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. p.297
  17. a b Morley 1999, pp. 8–9.
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  25. Hawkins and Attenborough 2009, pp. 152–153.
  26. Brownlow 1996. p. 407.
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  30. Coldstream, John 2004, pp. 361–362.
  31. Bogarde 1988, p. 169.
  32. a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  33. Coldstream, John. Introduction to Ever Dirk, The Bogarde Letters. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2008, p3.
  34. "Sir Dirk reveals 'living will' wishes after stroke." The Free Library. Retrieved: 22 September 2013.
  35. "Obituary: Sir Dirk Bogarde." This is announcements. Retrieved: 22 September 2013.
  36. Template:Cite magazine
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  38. Shipman 1972, pp. 56–59.
  39. "John Wayne Heads Box-Office Poll." The Mercury (Hobart, Tasmania: 1860 - 1954) via National Library of Australia, 31 December 1954, p. 6. Retrieved: 9 July 2012.
  40. "The Dam Busters", The Times [London, England] 29 December 1955, p. 12 via The Times Digital Archive, 11 July 2012.
  41. "News in Brief." The Times [London, England] 27 December 1957, p. 9 via The Times Digital Archive. Retrieved: 11 July 2012.
  42. "Mr. Guinness Heads Film Poll". The Times [London, England], 2 January 1959, p. 4 via The Times Digital Archive, 11 July 2012.
  43. "Year of Profitable British Films". The Times [London, England], 1 January 1960, p. 13 via The Times Digital Archive, 11 July 2012.
  44. "Most Popular Films of 1963". The Times [London, England] 3 January 1964, p. 4 via The Times Digital Archive, 11 July 2012.
  45. Rodney Milnes. Opera in Concert - Die lustige Witwe. Glyndebourne Festival Opera at the Royal Festival Hall, 20 July 1993. Opera, September 1993, p1123-24. (The concert was recorded and issued on EMI CDS 5 55152-2.)
  46. Saki: a celebration - Hodder Headline Audiobooks, 1994 retrieved at WorldCat 15 August 2024.