Reading Between the Lines: Dirk Bogarde, Part One.
Actors, Actors, Actors! The following serves as part one of a guide to the English actor-writer-painter Dirk Bogarde, alongside some recommendations, personal thoughts, and more.
Hello everyone! This email marks Issue #1 of an ongoing series I will be doing, entitled Actors, Actors, Actors! I thought it might be fun to kick things off with a favorite artist of mine.
Before we delve into the rich life and career of Bogarde, I’m thrilled to say this is the very first rambling of SophiaOnFilm. Here’s hoping there’ll be more to come. If you like this piece, please forward it to your loved ones. As Dirk always said, life is for living, enjoying, learning, and sharing that with others.
Without further ado…
Sir Dirk Bogarde (28 March 1921-8 May 1999) once described life as follows:
It’s not forever; nothing’s forever. It’s sandcastles. The tide comes down and they go. You spend days, years, building the wretched things, covering them with shells, seaweed and making it all pretty, building moats and finding driftwood for little bridges. I remember very well as a child watching them and seeing them go in the evening when the tide came in.
—TV Times: Public Tears of a Private Man, An Interview with Dirk Bogarde. Interviewed By David James Smith. 13 September 1986.
This is a strong contender for one of my favorite sentiments shared on the mechanisms of life as we are aware of it. Undoubtedly nothing is forever, however that does not mean we should allow for the past to be completely erased— quite the contrary, this is a feeling I carry with me every day. Up to this present moment, a little over 23 years after Dirk Bogarde died of a heart attack in his Chelsea flat, his life and contributions to cinema have thankfully been acknowledged. By virtue of the Dirk Bogarde Estate and his official biographer, John Coldstream, there is a treasure trove of information to learn from. Much of the content compiled here is derived primarily from those resources, in addition to Dirk’s own writings, fan magazines, and interviews through the years.
Also in 1986, interviewer Russell Harty sat Bogarde down at his home in Provence, France, for a television special called “Dirk Bogarde: Above The Title”. A comment he made there perhaps sums up his identity best:
[To Harty] I’m still in the shell, and you certainly haven’t cracked it yet, honey.
I refer to the above quote for a couple of reasons, the first is for clarification as to what the goal is exactly for these upcoming issues on Bogarde. Notably, the day before Harty and his crew arrived at Le Haut Clermont, Dirk burned the strong majority of his wartime diaries, letters, and other personal items; the justification for this was that anything he felt the public should know can be found in his autobiographies (A Postillion Struck by Lightning, Snakes and Ladders, An Orderly Man, Backcloth, *A Short Walk From Harrods, *Cleared for Takeoff):
It’s all there, if you want to read it. But if you’re not very bright you won’t get it. You have to read in between the lines of everything I’ve ever written anyway.
*A Short Walk From Harrods and Cleared for Takeoff were published in 1993 and 1995 respectively, after Above the Title aired.
Dirk was a very private man, and rightfully so. After all, nobody truly owes anything to anyone, specifically in the realm of one’s personal life. There is a tendency to want to know everything and all about prominent figures, but at the same time, privacy is something that should be regarded among both the living and the dead. That being said, I am not interested in cracking Bogarde’s shell. What he chose to take to his grave I leave with him. Instead, this will be a study of reading between the lines of Dirk’s life, using what I have learned from my research to argue for the icon status he has inadvertently achieved. I will be exploring the reasons why that shell was built to begin with, in addition to understanding his impact on not only cinema itself, but both past and contemporary cultures.
*This is by no means a full account of Bogarde’s life, as it would simply be wrong and unfair to try and squeeze everything into one email. I’ve selected from my studies what I find necessary to paint a clear picture. This section will cover 1921-1963.
I highly doubt that Margaret Niven and Ulric van den Bogaerde would’ve thought that 101 years after Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde was born, a 20-year-old university student would be typing away at her laptop in an attempt to preserve the history and understanding of their son. But alas, they probably did not expect the child would later become the paragon Dirk Bogarde: a name christened to him after World War Two in hopes of gaining easy familiarity within the film industry.
As a child, Dirk showed interest in all things artistic, straying away from what some consider “traditionally masculine” endeavors like sports (which certainly stuck to adulthood, as Joseph Losey once implied he was so unathletic he required a stunt double to walk up hills for him in Modesty Blaise). Not only did he enjoy acting, but also painting, which translated to theater through production design. Very often Bogarde wrote his own plays and would utilize people like his sister, Elizabeth “Lu” Goodings (1924-), to perform with him.
Dirk’s upbringing was interrupted when in 1933, Margaret gave birth to another son, Gareth, whose existence as an infant caused a great deal of turmoil for him. Gareth commented on the nature of their relationship in an interview with The Telegraph:
We had a love/hate relationship. I loved, he hated. I don’t say this flippantly, it is the truth. I did love him, but he hated first himself, and secondly what he had done, which was to nuture resentment of me. I think he had hurt himself because of that and he hated it. He hated himself.
The inner hatred one may have for themselves often materializes from the standards implemented by the hegemony, and I would argue Dirk was, unfortunately, a victim of this. In a time where laws actively sought to destroy the lives of men like Bogarde, the words expressed by Gareth make slightly more sense. Keep a mental bookmark of that as you read— it’ll come up again.
A good example of the dynamic between the two comes from a time when Dirk gained popularity as an actor in England, and Gareth himself attempted to follow in his footsteps. While the eldest son drove into Pinewood Studios each morning in a Rolls Royce, the younger would trail behind using public transit. Gareth recalled this moment when at the age of 14 he met Elizabeth Taylor, a friend of Dirk’s:
She [Taylor] was with Michael Wilding. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I was very gauche. And then Dirk introduced me by saying: “This is my small brother, he is a farm boy.”
Ouch.
Despite the seemingly dour picture Gareth had painted of Dirk so far, he emphasized that everyone, not just his brother, had their flaws:
If you take the bits that are beastly and string them all together, of course you end up with a black picture of someone. We all have dark sides of our life. Dirk had extremes of kindness and generosity. He was a tremendously sparkling character of quick mind and brain.
Before landing a coveted spot at Rank Organization, which can be thought of as England’s primary film studio, the Hollywood equivalent perhaps being MGM, Dirk would enlist in the military, serving in the Air Photographic Intelligence Unit. Lovingly nicknamed “Pip” or “Pippin” by fellow soldiers such as Jack Jones, who in a letter was once noted by Dirk as someone who he briefly “shared his life with,” he would continue to paint and write, the former being included in the Imperial Wars Museum’s collection. World War Two had a lasting traumatic impression on his life, which he recalled in both his autobiographies and numerous interviews. A story he often shared was about his first time seeing the concentration camps, namely Bergen-Belsen. You can listen to the story either in the aforementioned Russell Harty interview or in this moment from the BBC World Service in 1966.
After the war, Dirk signed a contract with Rank in 1947, his first starring role being William Latch in Esther Waters (1948). Not only did this start the career he’d been inclined to since childhood, but also cemented a relationship with his lifelong partner: Anthony “Tony / Tote” Forwood. A former actor whose films were few and far between, he decided to dedicate his endeavors to being Dirk’s manager. Following the amicable divorce from his wife, the much more successful actor Glynis Johns (1923-), the two lived together until Tony’s death in 1988. Tony had one son, coincidentally named Gareth, who split his time living with the two and Johns.
Dirk and Tony would stick with each other through everything. One was very seldom seen without the other. Their relationship was an open secret, yet one that publicly was never described as anything more than professional or platonic. This reasoning is attributed to its time: it was a criminal offense for gay men to exist without draconian interference by those in power. Even after these laws were tossed aside, an airtight lid was kept on their actual happenings. In his autobiographies, Dirk never referred to Tony as anything more than “Forwood”. Some are critical of this choice, but as I’ve already said, nobody should be forced to disclose anything they are not comfortable with doing so. Simply because being gay was no longer a criminal act, it doesn’t mean that the trauma arising from the laws had suddenly disappeared without a trace. Regardless of how their relationship is truly identified, it is clear to see that there was a mutual and profound love the two had for one another.
A role that boosted Dirk’s career at its earliest comes from his first collaboration with the (immensely understated) director Basil Dearden in The Blue Lamp (1950). In a scene that shocked audiences nationwide, Dirk’s Tom Riley shot and killed Jack Warner’s PC George Dixon, whose familiar face charmed English households as one of the most popular screen actors at the time. Dirk’s performance showed an inner darkness not observed in his prior work, a characteristic that would not come out in full force until 1963 with The Servant.
Dirk very quickly became a crucial moneymaker for Rank, the credit due to Ralph Thomas’ Doctor in the House (1954)—a film commercially met with mass success, followed by six sequels down the line. He starred as Simon Sparrow, a medical student who finds himself as a reactionary point for all the antics arising from daily life and the tribulations of medical school. Audiences were attracted to Bogarde’s on-screen presence, which also proved that he excelled in light romantic comedies. The follow-up came a year after, with Doctor at Sea (which, notably, I prefer to the original—may conceivably be an unpopular opinion?). Co-star of Dirk was the French actor Brigitte Bardot, in her first English-language film. He ended up being the top box-office draw in 1955 and 1957-1959.
Despite his popularity, Dirk was not feeling artistically challenged by his recent roles. It wasn’t until 1960 that this would change, in addition to the course of his career and life forever. Basil Dearden’s Victim (1961) was a turning point for Bogarde, who ditched his “matinée idol” persona for good: he was cast in the lead role as Melville Farr, who lives a successful life as an attorney, married to Sylvia Syms’ Laura. However, his livelihood is threatened after being linked to a young gay man by blackmailers. Turns out, Melville himself is also gay, and instead of surrendering to the circumstances, he fights back. I’ll touch on Victim further at a later time, which hopefully will give you all a chance to look at the film before I inevitably spoil it.
England’s history with minorities in any capacity is rocky, and even today continues to be, despite much of the law evolving. It was common in the 1950s-1960s to blackmail gay men, a tactic practically condoned by the government— thus its centrality to the film. It was not until Victim that the word “homosexual” was even said in an English-language film, let alone in a sympathetic light. When it was considered both criminal and taboo to speak on gayness in any form, it was a great risk for all involved. However, the chance the filmmakers took paid off. Although the film was deemed “too inappropriate” to get distributed in the United States, Victim received almost unanimous praise from English critics and audiences alike. It even influenced the law: Lord Arran, who sponsored the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, wrote to Bogarde, thanking him for helping to “push the public opinion in favour of decriminalization.”
Notably, the famous scene where Melville confesses his feelings for the boy was written by Dirk himself, who felt it needed to be explicitly addressed as the moment was not in Janet Green and John McCormick’s original screenplay. Years later, he commented:
Victim was the wisest decision I ever made in my cinematic life. It is extraordinary, in this over-permissive age, to believe that this modest film could ever have been considered courageous, daring, or dangerous to make. It was, in its time, all three.
There is something so unbearably sad, both intricate and personal behind the moment: the slight cracks of voice, the pain buried deep behind his eyes. I cannot imagine how poignantly it would’ve struck audiences who’d never been exposed to anything outside the heterosexual norm before. And it is exactly what made people realize Dirk would be around for a little while longer.
Without Victim, many of the finest films that follow in his catalog would’ve likely been in the hands of another— beginning with his second Joseph Losey collaboration, The Servant (1963).
The Servant is a tale following an English aristocrat, Tony (not Forwood, but truthfully this was something I considered an unintentional reference when first analyzing the film), who hires Hugo Barrett as his in-house manservant. From there, things spiral out of control, which for the sake of conserving your shock, those “things” in question I’ll leave unspoken for the time being. If a role like The Blue Lamp contained dashes of a more slimy, sadistic Bogardian image, The Servant was a masterclass on display. The role brought him lots of critical acclaim, including the BAFTA for Best Actor. Due to the lack of funding to garner him a proper awards campaign, he was not nominated for the Oscar. Interestingly enough, Rex Harrison, who Dirk once noted as one of his greatest acting influences, won that year for My Fair Lady.
The service I am using to type this newsletter will only grant me so much space to write: meaning, the next you’ll hear from me will be a continuation of what I’ve written here about Dirk’s life— from post-The Servant onward.
Hope you guys enjoyed this. Don’t hesitate to leave suggestions, or if you even like this at all! Any comments are substantial.
Until then, please stay safe and healthy. And hydrated. It’s beastly outside.
Cheers.
SophiaOnFilm
Nice piece. Id just make one suggestion about language. You use the word "queerness" - Id suggest that "queer" was a very threatening word to men of that era, it was a slur often followed by violence, threats or harassment.
His roles were brave and groundbreaking but use of that word is highly offensive to some of that era. I suspect that, as Bogarde never came out, he would be one of those