Dirk's books

We have not done a Dirk Bogarde post for a while - he is one of our Patron Saints here after all, as per all the other posts on him. After my recent house move I was unpacking all those books of his ... who knew when I met him back in November 1970, when he was promoting DEATH IN VENICE and doing a lecture/Q&A at the BFI in London, when he was just starting on that decade in France, that he would go on to write 9 best-selling books of autobiography and 6 novels. There are several other books on him too ...

A POSTILLION STRUCK BY LIGHTENING in 1977 was his first book, a delightful and popular best-seller on his idyllic childhood on the Sussex downs. This was followed by SNAKES AND LADDERS in '78, still a terrific re-read on his early career and being the "Idol of The Odeons" and goes up to that move to France. AN ORDINARY MAN and BACKCLOTH continue the saga of life in Provence and his 1970s films, while the fascinating A SHORT WALK FROM HARRODS in 1993 covers the end of the French life, with illness and death and that return to Chelsea in London, and then his own stroke and recovery. GREAT MEADOW is another childhood memoir, and CLEARED FOR TAKE-OFF in 1995 is more tales of his career and some of the people he knew (like Ingrid Bergman and Capucine and the young Bardot). They are all here in these books, as Dirk certainly knew everyone including all those fascinating ladies like Kay Kendall, Garland, Ava, and all the new talent of the Fifties and Sixties he worked with.  

A PARTICULAR FRIENDSHIP is a charming memoir too of his pen-friend ship with an American woman who owned one of his houses - she did not know who Bogarde was but saw some pictures of the house in a magazine at the hairdressers and just had to write to him about it, leading to a long friendship until her death. FOR THE TIME BEING in 1998 (a year before he died) is a very interesting collection of his book reviews and columns for "The Times" from when he was back in London and doing regular reviews. 

I saw him again in 1992 at the National Theatre, reading from and discussing one of his memoirs then. 

His first novel A GENTLE OCCUPATION in 1980, remains his best for me, its very re-readable too and a fascinating story with great characters in that Far Eastern wartime setting; VOICES IN THE GARDEN amuses, the others are WEST OF SUNSET, JERICHO, PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT and his final one CLOSING RANKS in 1997 which I have not read, but a copy is on its way to me. 

Books on Dirk are the 1974 THE FILMS OF DIRK BOGARDE by Margaret Hinxman and Susan D'Arcy; comprehensive up to THE NIGHT PORTER; Shreridan Morley's career and life overview in DIRK BOGARDE RANK OUTSIDER, and Robert Tanitch's DIRK BOGARDE: THE COMPLETE CAREER ILLUSTRATED, in 1988 all with great detail and photographs. He was certainly the most prolific and most-written about of the British stars of his era, as shown by the huge (600+ pages) authorised biography by John Coldstream (who commissioned Dirk to write for "The Times") followed by EVER, DIRK, a collection of his letters (500+ pages), edited by Coldstream. 

Two other delicious items I must mention are that 1958 Fan's Star Library little book on him - I collected them all and first had that when I was 12 ( still have the Sophia Loren one too), and one I acquired much later as a car boot sale: Dirk's Life Story in Pictures which is a priceless delight with all those illustrations. It explains Dirk's bachelorhood to the fans (this was 1958) with the relevation that he was really in love with Jean Simmons (his co-star in SO LONG AT THE FAIR in 1950) all along but she broke his heart by choosing Stewart Granger, leaving Dirk alone at his country estate ...... it also has a delicious take on Rock Hudson and his sham marriage - as covered before here, see Dirk comic strip label, for more. 

Interesting chapters on Dirk too in the biographies of actors like James Fox, Michael Craig, John Fraser and Michael York, on working and socialising with Dirk and of course Tony Forwood. 

Bette and Dirk / Dirk and Bette

People We Like, continued. Dirk Bogarde (the man who knew everyone) didn't get to meet Bette Davis until late in both their careers and lives, but I remember seeing them in some tribute show in the 1980s.  

Here they are with Dickie (Lord Attenborough) too - I met him and his wife the time we were all queueing for Dirk's first personal appearance/Q&A at the London BFI in 1970, and Bette was a wow there in person in 1972  (above right), as we have reported before here, Bette, NFT labels.

Dirk in 1971

I came across a fascinating long interview with Dirk Bogarde by Gordon Gow in the May 1971 200th issue of one of my favourite magazines "Films and Filming", about the time Dirk was promoting Visconti's DEATH IN VENICE. (As I have recounted here before, I met him about 6 months before this interview, at the London BFI in November 1970 where he gave a very entertaining lecture and Q&A session, and he autographed the programme for me afterwards when I managed to have a quick conversation with him). 

Dirk always gave good interview and this one is choice. I must quote some extracts .... as he talks about Marilyn Monroe, and various films of his like THE SPANISH GARDENER, THE SERVANT, ACCIDENT and DEATH IN VENICE. He talks a lot about Visconti here, and was particularly fond of SENSO. 

"Marilyn had this intangible wistfulness … in BUS STOP she was magical. Do you remember the scene where she gets her tatty old train ripped off her by a man at a café table when she is doing her act? Do you remember her look of pain and rage and despair?

THE SPANISH GARDENER: “In those days they wouldn’t have anything to do with homosexuality. The whole premise of the original story was that a small boy, without any sexual knowledge, fell in love with the gardener because he had no love at all from his parents. He had no mother and a perfectly foul father. This sort of thing so often happens. The whole story tilted on the fact that the father became incurably jealous because he was sexually in love with the gardener. And of course that did not come through because then we were supposed to be making nice wholesome pictures. In the end nothing worked out, I wasn’t killed as the gardener was in the book. We made it all nice for the Odeon circuit. It was so absurd and shameful I did not go and see it, but the old aunties and uncles loved it." (In the book, a best-seller by A.J. Cronin, Jose the gardener is 19 - Bogarde was 35 at the time, and the character was not killed off as in the novel, as Rank created a false happy ending to send audiences home happy).   

He is not especially fond of his work in THE SERVANT. “It amuses me. It was enormous fun to do – it was no effort. It was entirely technical to act. Harold Pinter had written it so unfailingly that you couldn’t put a foot wrong in it. I was surrounded with only the very best people, and it was as easy as falling off a log. But THE SERVANT will be a classic film for all time. I know – whatever happens to me – I will be in the archives because of THE SERVANT. In its entirety of course, its an important film. Especially now we know all about LSD – surprise, surprise. Apparanty audiences didn’t now about LSD when the film was first shown, and none of the critics did either, and the whole ending is LSD – the boy is on a trip. I’ve seen it again in America recently and it stands up, and it is absolutely chilling in German – more than that, it’s a towering picture. But from my point of view it cost me very little emotionally, because I’m nothing to do with the man I played in THE SERVANT so it was easy to become a North country bastard called Barrett and his compulsion to dominate." Shame he was not asked about Gabriel, his high camp arch-villain in Losey's 1966 MODESTY BLAISE ... (one of my essential movies). Left: a MODESTY publicity shot.

He says though that ACCIDENT is the best film Losey and Bogarde did together. “I was very aware of the emotions of the man in ACCIDENT and I was almost in a trance for about four months after I’d finished it. …. I put all the clothes and shoes that I wore for the character into a trunk and locked them up. I wore them later in JUSTINE and left them all behind me in Hollywood, so they may come up for sale in 20^th Century Fox’s lot. I got rid of them, you see, because the man I had been in ACCIDENT was dead and I didn’t want his clothes  - locked them away as you would with the clothes of anybody who has died in a sudden car crash. JUSTINE was much later and Pursewarden was a different man." (I saw and reviewed ACCIDENT again recently, scroll down or over the page..).

"Aschenbach in DEATH IN VENICE is the ultimate loser. He’s a dying man, he goes to Venice for the last months of his life. After years of rigorous and strict belief that beauty is created by man, he suddenly finds at dinner one night that God, quite alone by Himself, all up there in Heaven, has created a piece of beauty sitting across the soup plate … a youth of such beauty that Aschenbach can’t believe it. … Before he dies he sees that God was right and man was wrong. That God is in fact the creator of beauty … I do believe there is a higher power, and I don’t know any other word for it but God. I think our future is formed: whether you go and play golf on the moon or get squashed by a truck on a French bypass. Its all shaped."

Bogarde now lives in his house in France, at Grasse, eschewing the crowded beaches below and settling for a hose-down in his back garden. He is waiting for Alain Resnais to give him the word to start work on a film about the Marquis de Sade, but money has been difficult to raise. “I’ve got a very pleasant place to live in now. Sufficient money to exist for the rest of my life if I’m very careful. I can manage … DEATH IN VENICE could well be the finish for me. I don’t want to go back to the things I did before – the DOCTORS and all that rubbish. If DEATH IN VENICE fails, I’ll stay with it as a failure. If it’s a success, and my performance in it has worked, then perhaps it’s the film I’ve always been wanting to make – and I might someday go and do another somewhere, but I’m not anxious." 

Of course that Resnais film did not happen - Dirk as the Marquis de Sade would have been interesting! - , but he and Resnais did the wonderful PROVIDENCE in 1977, and by then he had began his series of memoirs and novels as he became a best-selling writer. 
His later books like "A Short Walk From Harrods" recount his later French years and his and partner Tony Forwood's return to London due to ill-health - where he died in 1999 aged 78. Interesting too to read about the LSD in THE SERVANT, It did seem that Tony (James Fox) was drugged at the end, but I did not imagine it could have been LSD! (We certainly knew about LSD in 1968 when we were seeing The Doors and Jefferson Airplane in concert and the 2001 film on acid, but hardly early in the decade). 
It was interesting too seeing THE SERVANT again on the big screen a couple of year ago, as I have recounted previously, at the Curzon Soho, to tie in with its Blu-ray release, with co-stars Fox, Sarah Miles and Wendy Craig present, to discuss the film and their memories of working with Dirk and Losey, both of whom I had seen (separately) back in 1970 when I was a mere 24. Left: Bogarde at the BFI in 1970.
LOTS more Bogarde at the labels ....  

Dirk's Victim & those west end boys ...

Our London Live cable channel
showing old British movies

I have done quite a bit on Dirk here - check all the various posts and pictures at Dirk label - but I have not actually said much about his 1961 VICTIM, a film I know so well, having seen it several times since I was a teenager. It was interesting looking at it again the other day, its a thriller of course but is also a classic London film and like Dearden's POOL OF LONDON and SAPPHIRE, a perfect period piece now, as we take in the gay society of the early Sixties, from working class lads, to toffs and famous actors and their milieus of gentlemens' clubs and of course that then famous gay bar, The Salisbury. 

Boy Barrett, a junior accountant on a building site, flees when he sees the police arriving - he has been stealing money to pay blackmailers, as have several other homosexuals, as homosexuality was then illegal in Britain. When the police catch up with him he is trying to destroy evidence that links him to prominent barrister Melville Farr, soon to be  QC. When Farr realises Barrett has killed himself to protect him, he determines to track down the blackmailers no matter what cost to his reputation or his marriage. Will the other blackmail victims help and just who, among all the red herrings, is the real blackmailer? 

I know all these haunts, from the bedsits and flats of Boy Barrett and his crowd, to the West End we see in aspic here. Its fascinating for a London guy to see these locations now. Henry's barber shop is just off Cambridge Circus and Charing Cross Road/Seven Dials, just over from the big Palace Theatre where FLOWER DRUM SONG is playing - and later we see Dirk as barrister Melville Farr with the police outside that other theatre near the Salisbury where OLIVER is playing, with Ron Moody and Georgia Brown on nameboards above their heads. Norman Bird's bookshop must be one of those in Cecil Court, just off St Martin's Lane. (I had that paperback of the film then, when a teenager...).

The Salisbury is fascinating too, seeing those gilt interiors once again. This was a gay haunt during my working in the area in the 80s, where I would meet pals every Friday lunchime, and sometimes in the evening too, when out on the razz. As I mentioned elsewhere, Susannah York was standing next to me there once, as she drank with a friend. It was a famous theatrical bar, near the theatres, where actors appearing in the west end would hang out. A friend said he saw Alec Guinness there ... It has since been de-gayed and is now a tourist trap ...

Its a lovely cast here - not only Dirk as Melville Farr, but young Peter McEnery is an ideal Boy Barrett - he went on to Disney films (see label), a Vadim with Jane Fonda and lots of theatre: he was the first HAMLET I saw in 1967, and also in SHADOW OF A GUNMAN and a LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC) and of course he was the ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE. He should be doing more now in his 70s. 
Dennis Price also scores as the blackmailed actor, with society friends Anthony Nicholls and Peter Copley, while barfly Madge (Mavis Villiers) chats to the gay-hating barman at The Salisbury, and Hilton Edwards has a charity scam; Charles Lloyd-Pack is poor Henry, while Derren Nesbitt is suitably butch as the blackmailing leather boy. It works as an efficient thriller and the police nicely discuss the pros and cons of homosexuality being illegal causing lots of blackmail cases. We have to laugh at Boy's friend and his blonde cutie in her baby doll nightie, feeling sorry for Boy as he does not have what they have ...

Dirk famously lost his "Idol of the Odeons" image for playing gay here and looking a bit older than he did in those Rank opuses like CAMPBELL'S KINGDOM or THE WIND CANNOT READ, and Sylvia Syms is perfect as the puzzled wife. Dirk apparantly wrote much of the confrontation scene with her, with his "because I wanted him" speech. His performance was all the more courageous for the sensitivity and depth he afforded the role; of course the film is now “hopelessly outdated” in its attitude to homosexuality (Philip Kemp, Sight and Sound, 2005), despite being an 'X' certificate film - but it was an incredibly significant landmark of queer representation in British cinema. Dearden, as ever, delivers it all with panache. Its a quaint but still richly rewarding British Noir thriller, as well as a significant one, and well worth seeing any time. 

More groovy Fifties/Sixties London coming up: SERIOUS CHARGE / THE CHALLENGE / THE BOYS / IDOL ON PARADE / THE PARTY'S OVER / THAT KIND OF GIRL / TAM LIN ...

Dirk and Rock read "Films and Filming"

I have published this photo before .... Dirk Bogarde and Rock Hudson in Italy in 1957. Dirk was filming CAMPBELL'S KINGDOM (set in the Canadian Rockies, but filmed in the Dolomite Mountains in Italy near ski resort Cortina D'Ampezzo, where this was taken "in Dirk's private sitting room" as he entertained Rock Hudson, who was filming his A FAREWELL TO ARMS in the same region. 

I wondered what they were reading and it turns out to be this April 1957 issue of "Films & Filming" with Cary and Sophia on the cover.. The two closeted stars (Dirk and Rock that is), at their peaks then, should have found it fascinating reading. 

I like the back cover advertisement for THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT with another Vince advert for leisure wear. This particular ad is fascinating too:

Vince presents: The Short BOXER COAT. This HUSKY Jacket cut in generous lines from 80% Woollen Coating has a luxury lining of warm Quilting. With leather buttons, very smart high collar and two side pockets this is the ideal garment for MOTORING - STROLLING or on your MOTOR-SCOOTER. £8.5.0. Please state chest size when ordering. 

Hand knitted PIRATE CAPS in ALL colours. 10'6d. Come and see our NEW Autumn range of leisure wear. 

Or more butch types could go for the "rugged look" with this casual coat ....

More old movie mags 2: Dirk's & Rock's "romances" !

It is too easy to laugh now and make fun of those 1950s fan magazines - we all know the American ones, but the British ones are fascinating now too, particularly those ones where they had to concoct romances for closeted stars like Dirk Bogarde and Rock Hudson. Dirk and Rock of course both knew everyone, but how to explain they were still bachelors ...? Pity the (un-named) hacks who had to come up with these stories! and the fans who lapped them all up back in 1958, were they so naive then?

It seems Dirk was in love with Jean Simmons all along - who knew! (they made a film, SO LONG AT THE FAIR, in 1950) and was shattered when she went off and married Stewart Granger, so Dirk never got over it, as he posed for moody photographs on his various country estates ... and was comforted by his girl pals like Judy Garland, Kay Kendall, Capucine, Ava Gardner, Anouk Aimee, and later Charlotte Rampling and Jane Birkin, as he worked with all the new talent of the Sixties and Seventies. 

The Dirk Life Story in Pictures is a delirious 1950s comic strip, there is more of it at Dirk comic strip label ... Click on images to enlarge ...

These writers create imaginary dialogue exchanges between Rock and Phyllis Gates, the woman he married for a year (his agent Henry Willson's secretary), and concocted their own version of what when wrong in their troubled marriage. Phyllis it seems was too extravagant!
Lets quote some of this deathless prose:
"But, unfortunately, harmony did not reign in their mountain-side home for long. Soon the rumours started - Rock and Phyllis were not hitting it off so well. The marriage was cracking.
Hollywood know-alls said the trouble stemmed from Phyllis's extravagance. It was true that she loved to go shopping. And after all, why not, when Rock had so much money?
One night, Rock came home tired and hungry, from an exhuasting day at the studio. He pushed open the door. No Phyllis. He went through the house calling for her and at last he found her in the bedroom, trying on a black chiffon evening dress. 
She turned to him with stars in her eyes. "Look at it Rock" she cried. "Isn't it just the most stunning gown you ever saw?"
Rock raised a hand to his brow. "Wait a minute" he said, "you bought an evening gown last week. You haven't even worn it yet, and now this today".
The stars faded from Phyllis's eyes ... "But honey, don't you understand, soon I shall wear both of them. When we go out in public again". 
"I've told you before", Rock stormed, "I don't want us to start dragging round to nightclubs and premieres".
And so such a comparatively small thing as a new evening dress started off a first-class row.
It sparked off the other major difference between them. Phyllis liked the do the Town occasionally. Rock preferred to stay at home.
Perhaps he liked to have the chance because his film commitments so often took him away from home.
When he went to Europe to make A FAREWELL TO ARMS it was understood that Phyllis would join him. They both looked forward to this immensely for it would mean a second honeymoon.
And then a couple of weeks before Phyllis was due to leave for Italy, Rock received a letter.
"Rock, darling, I've just rented a beautiful house at Malibu Beach for us both. You can swim all day long ...!
Rock was furious. He rushed to the phone.
As soon as he heard her voice, he started to storm. "Phyllis, its me, Rock. Now what do you mean by renting a house without even consulting me?"
Phyllis's voice was cajoling at the other end of the line. "But, honey, its the loveliest house you ever saw. You'll adore it..."
Rock's voice was grim. "I'm not taking any house I haven't seen. Why didn't you consult me? I am the man in this family."
Phyllis's voice rose. "And I'm a grown woman. Why do I have to ask your permission for everything? A house is a woman's business. All I did was -"
Finally, they hung up on each other. Rows at home were bad enough, but rowing with thousands of miles between them - this was disastrous. 
It was also the beginning of the end ......"
There are pages more in in that vein. There was also a "vivacious" script girl named Betty Abbott whom Rock was captivated by, if Betty ever existed - they certainly deserve an award for artistic licence! Other stories in this fan mag are fictional accounts of Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh at home, and Montgomery Clift's impossible love for Elizabeth Taylor, with lots of juicy dialogue scenes ! Its priceless.

At least Dirk never went through a sham marriage - he and Rock were both filming in Italy in 1957, and as I have posted here before, they met for a photo op, and no doubt amused themselves discussing the sizes of their respective closets .... AND Rock browses through Dirk's March 1957 copy of "Films and Filming"!

The Servant + Q&A

New covers for the 50 year old Servant!

That turned out to be a fascinating Sunday afternoon, heading off into a blizzard to see THE SERVANT again on a large screen - see post below. I had forgotten so many little details and the three leading players James Fox, Sarah Miles and Wendy Craig were interesting afterwards on the film; interesting too seeing 3 great British players and '60s survivors, now in their '70s, together dicussing their work and memories of the film. They were interviewed by film critic Peter Bradshaw (of "The Guardian") who had interesting points too. As "The Guardian" put it:

A well-aimed blow to 1960s Britain's class structure, Joseph Losey's The Servant assembled an embarrassment of talent and didn't squander it: Harold Pinter on the screenplay and a cast led by Dirk Bogarde, James Fox, Sarah Miles and Wendy Craig. The movie stands as one of the great dramatic provocations of the era, an unsettling domestic web of manipulation, exploitation and decadence. The assembly for this special 50th- anniversary screening is no less remarkable. Incredibly, Fox, Miles and Craig will all be on stage to reminisce, talking to the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, plus there's an introduction by another Servant fan, comedian Richard Ayoade.

Even at the Curzon Mayfair though one has to waste half an hour enduring 15 minutes of adverts and then trailers for movies one has no interest in ... Seeing THE SERVANT again one realised how dominant that Dankworth score is, it pervades the film, as does the Cleo Laine song "All Gone" (Dankworth himself is glimpsed playing in a nightclub scene). Fox also commented on the great Richard MacDonald design for the house. Fox, Craig and Miles also had only pleasant memories of working with Losey and Bogarde. Sarah (a "Person We Like" on here, see label) excels in her second film (she had also done some shorts for her brother Christopher), and was very eloquent on the film, as were Craig and Fox (still with all his hair and still working!).

On being asked how gay they thought the film was when making it, Fox commented that the subject was never mentioned by Losey, but they knew there would be a gay sub-text. That restaurant scene was filmed in one day, with friends of Pinter brought in to play out those funny moments with the Irish bishop (Patrick Magee), the bickering lesbians and others. Miles reminded us of the long takes in the film, some of over 5 minutes - like when the fiance (Craig) who dislikes the servant, brings the flowers to the house and that whole scene plays out in one take, and also that scene where she and Fox return late to find the servant and his "sister" in the master's bedroom, or the scene in the pub where Barrett and master Tony meet again, shot with a minimum of camera movement and the actors strategically placed within the frame; the re-installed Barrett then imposes his real intentions on the house, turning the tables and switching position with his master (an indolent and not terribly bright aristocrat ready to be corrupted) whom seems to be plied with drugs and alcohol, absinthe perhaps ? - as much decadence as they could show in 1963, as the two men develop that odd relationship.

The film is being re-released and out on Blu-ray for its 50th anniversary.with cast interviews etc (which I have had to pre-order along with a Blu-ray of BILLY LIAR, also spruced up with new interviews etc for its 50th year). Its certainly a key '60s film, up there with DARLING (where Bogarde is equally terrific in a totally contasting role) and Antonioni's BLOW-UP (a less happy experience for Sarah). A key Losey film too, one becomes fascinated by the house and those gliding camera movements. It always seems to be raining or snowing outside the house too - just like our weather here now! All the interiors were on a studio set as the actual house was too small for cast, crew & camera equipment, and people lived in it at the time!

The Blu-ray blurb:

A tale of manipulation, class conflict and sexual jealousy, Joseph Losey’s classic, adapted by Harold Pinter from Robin Maugham’s novel, is one of the finest British films of the 1960s. Dirk Bogarde plays Hugo, a manservant recently employed by a bored aristocrat (James Fox). Surly at best, Hugo gradually takes over the house, reducing his master to a state of complete submission. Pinter’s sparse dialogue allows Losey to create a taut, unsettling psychological drama.

Child actor Fox of course went on to KING RAT, THE CHASE, DUFFY, ISADORA and from teaching Millie to dance the Tapioca in THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE to that ferocious gangster drama PERFORMANCE - as per Fox label - then he was off the screen for over a decade and returned as a character actor of note .... Craig was also in films like THE NANNY with Bette Davis, Oliver Reed's wife in I'LL NEVER FORGET'IS'NAME (Reed label) and then became a much loved tv comedy star - she was in the first play I saw in London: RIDE A COCK HORSE with Peter O'Toole in 1965 (when she asked 19 year old me if it was still raining), and I have already appraised Sarah's career, as per label ...

Addendums:  

Guardian Interviews with Sarah Miles & Wendy Craig: 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/mar/25/how-we-made-the-servant?INT CMP=SRCH 

There is also a gallery of pictures from the set:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/gallery/2013/mar/25/servant-behind-the- scenes-gallery?INTCMP=SRCH
Child actor James Fox in 1950: footage from Ealing film THE MAGNET used in this pop video ( "My Boyish Days" by Care).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ytLyL4SRFA

All those Bogarde books ...

Rare publicity shots for MODESTY BLAISE

A round-up for Dirk obsessives on the various books and fan magazines about him - not counting his own 9 books of autobiography and 6 novels!

Sylvia Syms in discussing his career in that BBC collection of interviews, as per my last post below, said "They don't make them last that any more" - how right: after starting as an actor in 1947 after his war years, he became that "Idol of the Odeons" popular leading man of the '50s,
then the respected European actor of the '60s and '70s, and took up writing successfully in the '80s and '90s. Here's a selection of the books about him, he may not have been too pleased by those '50s anonymous fan mags, with that picture story about his "unrequited love for Jean Simmons" - at Dirk comic strip label! - but the later biography by John Coldstream covers everything nicely, and he also edited that fascinating collection of letters. Sheridan Morley (Robert's son) and Robert Tanitch also did interesting surveys of his career with notes on all the films, as did the sterling work THE FILMS OF DIRK BOGARDE. He also of course featured in lots of covers of magazines like "Picture Show", "Films & Filming" and "Sight & Sound".

 
Of his own books my favourites are SNAKES & LADDERS about his '50s star years and pals like Kay Kendall, Judy and Capucine (the making of I COULD GO ON SINGING being particularly illuminating) and A SHORT WALK FROM HARRODS covering his return to London after the French years, and A GENTLE OCCUPATION is certainly the best of his novels. The very odd VOICES IN THE GARDEN, with characters surely based on Visconti and Helmut Berger, made an ever odder telefilm starring his old friend Anouk Aimee, very unsuitable here.  His collection of book reviews FOR THE TIME BEING is also compulsive. Actor John Fraser ("The Jude Law of '50s/'60s cinema")'s 2005  autobiography CLOSE UP also has a fascinating chapter on Bogarde's home life.
www.dirkbogarde.co.uk is the perfect site on all things Bogarde.