Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters Read online

  No one, least of all Visconti, wants to be reminded of that film … and you know yourself how tiresome writers widows can be. Or perhaps you dont?

  The Mahler story is as old as God. I did’nt mean it to be a revalation to you .. I was just sharing an idea which I personally think exciting, simply, I suppose, because I love the Music and know well the story of the man .... however; does’nt matter.

  Anyway … this is just to put you in the picture about a number of things. You whimper too often, you old sod … and you cant expect to pick up lumps of Cartier, and all the rest of the crap, with rotten scripts .. and wheather you like it or not they both were simply AWFUL! And dated. So come back to Europe and make a little bit of lovliness for tuppence. And screw the watches and the approbation of the Yacht Set. They really do say ‘You are only as good as your last picture.’ Perhaps you’ll be lovely after ‘Landscape’.1

  And perhaps Shaw is JUST what you deserve. As far as I remember he only does two things really well .. shout above rain and wind and stand with his legs apart.

  Now. To stop attacking you. We quit this horrid house, a year has been enough, and move to Venice on Wednesday … or to St Paul .... dont know which yet … we dont start to shoot at the Hotel des Bains until April 6th .... so I’ll hang around until they need me. I went up to Venice last week and rented the Volpi house on the Guidecca .. an acre of garden, and a simple house with silence all around .... so we might be there in a week or so.

  We shoot in Venice all the time .... dreading the start of the Season; naturally Visconti wants the whole of the Piazza dressed as it was in 1911 ..... plus the vastly expensive boat .... we’ll see. There are VAST complications ..... not the least of whome is one José Ferrar2 who bought the rights years ago; and we all thought he was dead.

  Not a bit of it … he is in Key Largo alive and well … and spitting shit and hate. And refuses to sign a Quit notice.

  So. I may just have to go back to Box and Thomas and be in one of their Doctor Films as a ‘Guest’. That’ll take me down a peg or two .... wont it?

  Wet and cold here … and really hateful.… I have had two months dentistry done in six days and am reeling from novacane and the bill .... why does it always happen in a lump I wonder? Misfortune, I mean.

  [ … ] I have just read through the last two pages, and it seems as if I were hitting the shit out of you. Well: I am in a way … but you know that I am the person who loves you most in all the world, save for Patreeecia .... and I have the right, privatly, to say to you what I feel. And it says something that I have bothered to write you all this .... when I have a lot of other things to do, like have a drink … walk the dog, and write to James Clark about a BBC Documentary they want to make on me doing Mahler.

  See how rotten I can be?

  Incidentally I did ‘This is Your Life’ for Wendy Craig last week ..... I thought I had to after all the filthy things you have said about her in print. So I did a lovely sick-making chat to her about how SUPER she was in ‘El Servo’ .... and I must say I was pissing myself at the thought of your poleaxed face, had you heard!

  [ … ] Tote is off having a wheel changed on the new BMW … which goes much too fast … but does do Rome-Venice in hours flat .... and I mean flat.

  I think that I told you that I took Simone and Yves up to the new house and that they loved it .... which was a relief .... I cant wait for April 6th … when I finally get posession, and start shooting on DIV! What timing! Oy! Yoi! Do I ever do it well.

  It is raining like hell … and I really must write a couple more bits .... by the way [ … ] there is an odd little script with which I almost fell in love [ … ] you might hate it … it is called ‘Thunder On The Left’ … was written by Christopher Morley about twenty five years ago,1 and has been excellently lifted and re-set in England in ’39. By … dont faint, because I nearly did, Victor Lindon, or Lyndon2 ..... for Willie, Vanessa,3 self, Christie, and three or four other smashing parts … it might be too much the same as ‘Go Between’ .... but it is interesting to read [ … ] And you dont need to play me .... Stanley [Baker] would do it quite lovely. With a little bit of help from his friends.

  I’m being a bastard I know. But I do love you … and Patreecia and her torn ligaments … if you ever want to speak to me again am care of R. Fox.

  I have never been quite so in limbo before!

  Dirk –

  On 1 April, in preparation for Death in Venice, Dirk and Tony moved into Ca’ Leone on the Giudecca. They made a brief visit to Rome for Dirk’s costume fittings and makeup tests.

  To Joseph Losey Hotel Hassler, Rome

  18 April 1970

  Sad that my ‘paranoid’ letter caused you such anger – it WAS supposed to be funny (I even printed it red). However – accept, if you care to, my apologies – it is difficult for me to offer more.

  My ‘exile’, as you quaintly call it, was not emotional, but very good business – I am enormously glad to be out of England, and I have a glorious house and ten acres of land and as soon as I can get there to live I shall be happier.

  [ … ] Dont bother keeping this letter, or my dear American nit-wit, the last for ‘whatever posterity’ there might be – I can write ruder things – and funnier! – off to Venice again tomorrow for 3 months I hope (rented the Volpi house – super, if sodden) – love to Patricia & apologies for upsetting the bucolic peace of ‘Pink Sands’ – !

  Dirk

  To Dilys Powell Ca’ Leone

  Giudecca 140

  Venezia

  May 13th. at 3.05pm –

  This is Boast Paper ..... but your letter, this morning, has tempted me to write back to you .... as I can neither spell or punctuate, or use this sodding little machine you are in for a ‘bumpy read’ … This is the most enchanting little house. Built by one of the Volpies for a mistress in about seventeen something, in an acre of garden facing out to sea … it’s on the Other side of the Guidecca .... looking towards an infinity of little islands .. and then the tip of the beastly old Lido.

  The mistresses all prospered here, I gather, and the last one is the father of the present Count .. a sly looking little bastard, judging by a pastel, sadly Stiltoned by damp, which hangs in the saloon. They dont ‘let’ it … but lovely Visconti said I was ok and they repainted the kitchen … pulled up the weeds, and let me in at a million Lire a month .... considering that I am hardly being paid a million lira a year for the film, I think they were molto generous. Odd people. Volpi made a specific rule that there would be ‘not photography in the house or the garden.’

  I wonder why we are ALL classed as Burtons … it is a bore sometimes. By the way … incase you panic … this letter is not an invitation to a long course in letter exchange. As I oncex (I hate this blasted machine.) told you in a postcard .. ours is NOT that sort of friendship … we dont HAVE to write … it is just that sometimes it is pleasant and lovely to ‘touch’ you. As you are able, unknowingly, every week to touch me.

  After our shy luncheon, which you pleaded not to have, but to which you wonderfully ‘gave in’, with your funny plastic umbrella and Claudette Colbert just across the room.… I am deeply aware of not ‘pressing’ things … but it is a titchy bit tough when one actually loves a person, to always keep distance .... especially when one has to be a very great deal ‘decontracté’ … of which I am well aware.

  Anyway, the hell with all that.… I have made the point, I hope, clear … Visconti is doing something magical .... we have absolutely NO money at all .... Warners are ‘behind’ us, but would have preferd ‘a little girl’, instead of a little boy .... this was their own suggestion. They thought it would be more ‘youth oriented’ .. (for Gods sake dont tell anyone.) .. but there it is in a nutshell. Now they are bemused, and wonder how to sell a movie about ‘This old fag who digs kiddies.’

  One has, always, to catch ones breath and clench ones fists, and be nice to them ..... the Yanks I mean … but in ALL degrees they are dreadful. And I use the English word .....
one is full of DREAD for them & they are full of dread too – … from Cambodia to Kent1 .. to the idiotic values, or non values, which they attach to Mann and ‘DIV’.

  But in any case we have completely stripped the [Hôtel] des Bains and redone it for 1911 … it is ravishing. To make you blub, a bit. Great cartwheel hats, ablaze with ribbon and stuffed birds … persian carpets … brass bowls full of Hydrangias .. (Wrong spelling again) tables and basket work chairs … lamps with frilly shades .. palms .... waiters with white gloves .... ‘smokings’ ... hobble skirts … children with lampshades for hats … The Merry Widow from the Orchestra … the clack of heels on parquet .. Nannies, and boys in sailor suits; drinks to be drunk through straws .... suddenly a daring Tango creeping in to the [repertoire] … laughter, and idle chatter … the dining room full of white chairs and gilded mirrors … (The original white chairs which we found on the local rubbish tip … all two hundred of them.) temps perdue … time recaptured. And odd. Shivers up ones spine when one sinks into a stuffed leather armchair and reads the ‘Times’ of June 11th, 1911 … to see pictures of the review at Spithead .. (what a huge Navy we had.) .. and on the opposite page a sad picture of the Prince of Wales with his Welsh Gear. What an odd, odd, feeling it is ..... almost … no, not almost, clearly a case of Priestly2 ...... I have been here before .... and in this room … this odd mahogany room with mirrors and art neauveau lamps.

  And then a blackbird starts singing in the trees outside and the first ultamarine blush of the dawn, about to come, is heralded.

  And ‘Viejlia’3 still scrapes on from the Orchestra .. to be followed, as the first blush of dawn hits the billowing curtains, and streaks across the floor, by the ‘Blue Danube’.

  I HAVE gone on a bit ..... but we are working at night at the moment, as you gather … and somehow night adds a timlessness to it all … and the women look SO beautiful. So elegant … mincing along on their heels … fans clacking … skirts a shimmer … hats brimming … what we have lost. Oh! Dearie me .... not comfortable, I agree, but that has never been a reason for correct behaviour, for elegance … for beauty even ..... but how much nicer it was then … just before the sky went dark, and ‘the lamps went out.’

  This machine is so foul … and my spelling so awful .... that I shall seal the letter with a kiss and clear off to bed for an hour or two before I have to trail across to the Lido to be turned into (I hope) a fiftytwo year old Jewish Genius with a ‘hang up’ (As Warners call it) on kids. Male.

  Seriously … I am off to be Aschenbach* .... based as you know on poor, sad, Mahler, who Mann met in a train from Vienna weeping in the compartment, and with a squint wig and running mascara ........ and from the stumbled story came DIV.

  We have gone back to Mahler .... and it is tough.

  Now the ribbon has run out – mercifully for you! – excuse, if you can, the utter lack of spelling – and never, ever – use an Olivetti ‘made in Spain’ – they really dont work –

  My love to you – for ever – as ever —

  D.B.

  * Actually; Visconti has had me made up as Mann – whome he knew well – So it’s a pretty drearey evening – I look like Lloyd George!

  After completing his work on the film, Dirk and Tony moved into Le Haut Clermont on 5 August. They were joined by the loyal Boludas.

  To Luchino Visconti Clermont

  19 September 1970

  My dear Luchino:

  I was tremendously happy to have your note, and the letter which you so kindly enclosed, but distressed to hear that you are STILL haveing battles with Warners.

  What on earth do they want? I suppose we spent too much and now the film is finished they refuse to help with extra expenses … well: DONT give in to them easily, they have a marvellous picture and a bargain anyway.

  I really do loath them … even Mr Katz1 who is quite nice and who I met here in the Colombe d’Or a few weeks ago .... but he said that he thought the picture was a ‘Masterpiece’ but that we had spent too much .... I told him that I thought that was perfectly reasonable for a ‘Masterpiece’.

  My house is almost a home now! It has taken a long time to get settled in .... Poverino2 HATES it because there is no pee-pee to smell, only rabbits and foxes and thyme and laurel ..... one can never please truly common people. He would be much happier back in Prima Porta.

  Much of my furniture was badly smashed during the journey from London .. and almost all my Meissen china .... however the pictures were safe, and look very fine on the white walls.

  So far we are happy .... and things are going calmly. My Parents are staying with me for two weeks ..... which is rather ghastly … and the servants have to go back to Spain next week where the poor girl has to have a (we hope) slight little operation .... so I shall be washing the floors myself and cooking … which I hate.

  It seems incredible to me that the film is over only by a few weeks … I am very nostalgic for it and for Gustav … and always for you, and I will never be able to thank you enough, ever, for your marvellous kindness in offering me the Part, and then in helping me to do it … I hope that I have done what you wanted. I can only tell you that I did my best from my heart not only for myself and Mann .... but for you as indeed I always will.

  I know that you do not care to read long letters in English … so I’ll finish off. I will come to you in Rome when you need me; I MAY start a film here in France at the end of October … but I want to be very sure of the thing first after ‘Death’.

  Fellini had very indifferent notices1 in London, as you may know, they called him a ‘Conjouror with nothing up his sleeve and too many bad tricks ..’ but most of all they were appalled by the terrible dubbing and the voices ..... so do be careful with those dreadful Americans in Death .... remember what you once told me .. ‘We have all the guns on us!’.

  My love and respect to you and my warmest affection always in all ways …

  With love

  Dirk

  To Patricia Losey Clermont

  September 25th. Friday.

  Darling –

  It was super to have your long letter … and superer, if that is a word, to know that you have fallen in love (sic) with the country.2 However; I feel that a couple of weeks in Febuary there would finally spell the end for Joe! Lonliness is corrupting in the real country unless you HAVE to go about the place doing things to keep warm, fed and occupied!

  I know. I tried it for a long time … however it does teach one tolerance, I found … and peace of mind to a certain extent.

  God knows that is what is needed all round these days.

  We have rid ourselves of my parents after a L O N G two week visit. He was devine as ever pottering about painting, and smelling the air, and trying to ‘capture’ Cezannes’ light on paper. But she sat in a heap, with tired legs, rather hating the whole thing and most of all me. As usual! I feel it so wretched that she is utterly incapable of enjoying a thing. Except the bar of the Colombe and a good flask of wine. And we all know what that leads to.

  However off they went from Cannes on Monday and on Tuesday the Staff flew off to Valencia. Antonia had found a lump in her breast, poor darling, so ..... and we now sit in our bergerie on the hill ‘doing’ for ourselves. I loath it .... and very much hope that all goes well with Antonia for her sake as well as my selfish own. Floors to scrub, beds to make, food to prepare, eat and wash up .... windows and shutters to lock and open, and the fucking incinerator to relight every morning! However; here we are in a beautiful place, where I have always wanted to be, and that should jolly well be enough. And, in truth, it is [ … ] We are a bit primitave here … only one loo so queues form in the morning like on airoplanes! The highest single cost here at Clermont is the Liquor! As you can imagine there is quite a lot of glug-glugging and it is lovely because the actual bottles are cheaper than with you .... and the wine is absurdly cheap … and the beer from Strasbourg cheap and potent. Meat is a real sod, and we cannot really afford to have it more than once a week and then i
n a sort of stew .. which does’nt bother me because I dont care for it all that much .... but the local fish, vegetables and things are super and abundant.

  A pause while we trailed the dustbins down to the end of the lane … Friday is the day …

  The Film with Visconti was amazing .. frightning and the most exhausting I have ever done in my life … to walk the knife edge between a sort of Peter O’-Tool-Chips performance with Granny-Glasses and an elderly ‘twitch’ … and a performance which would suggest a pre-senile man of fifty-one walking to his death, because his legs would not very well carry him to the edge of the tomb without reluctance … and because he actually could not see without his glasses ...... this was a very different thing. I hope that we have done it, otherwise, as Visconti says, ‘We are morto … perqui1 all the guns are at us with this’.

  I had a letter from him this morning to say that he was just starting to ‘cut’ .... he has been sitting in Ischia in the Palace refusing to see anyone from Warners because he feels, rightly I think, that they are all cheats [ … ] I rather think, but dont know, that we went over budget by a bit .... we were slated at 1,500,000 and I think we almost made it to two … and anything after 1,500,000 was supposed to be covered by V. Personally ..... which I am sure he has refused. It is a bargain picture whatever way they try to cut it … and trust the bloody Yids to know that! Excepting Danny A.1 there really are’nt any in the Movies that I would trust round a corner.

  However … there it is. The film is made .. the agonies … including paying off Jose Ferrer 100,000 dollars to clear off (he had half the rights we discovered the day we were to start shooting!) and the worry about the boy2 shooting up feet in days .. and staying up until seven every morning doing the ‘Frug’ or something frightful with the kids on the Lido and arriving for shooting with hoops of black under each eye … our ‘pure’ unblemished ‘Canava Marble’ falling to dust before our eyes; stuffed with Pot and pea nuts and chewing gum ...... what with all these agonies we made it. And it is done. Enough.