Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters Read online

  The boy, like Joe’s Leo,3 was sensational … 15 years old playing 14 .. Swedish .. absolutely extraordinary. We worked together as if he had been in the business as long as I .. which is 36 years this June … and he was as utterly professional as Sarah Miles4 is not … I mention no other names … naturally.

  But the strain was teriffic .... we finished shooting in a plum orchard in Bolzano at noon on August the 2nd .... and drove a packed car … (Totes new, super white Maserati) plus dog to Cremona … then to Nice .. and moved in the furniture and Staff the day after. Exceptionally tiresome .. especially as the heat was up in the ninties and we had not even seen the house really ready for us before then. It is really rather fine. We have done a hell of a lot to it; opened up walls and floors and closed doors and windows and generally transformed a stable, workroom and kitchen into a fifty foot room with a great terrace and windows out over the whole of the Provence countryside to the sea at La Napoule … We really do rather adore it, and keep hoping that God, or the fates, will allow us a little time to stay here .... apart from the always present hazard of age and health there should be no real reason why not.… I dont have to work again for twenty years, which will take care of me anyway! And I am not all that eager to do so .... Joe and Visconti are terrible spoilers for one .... no one else quite hits the same mark.

  The Resnais script … due to start in January … is extraordinary … a Marienbad about de Sade. Original. Confusing. Brilliant and un commercial. We just will have to wait and see if anyone will give us the lolly. I dont mind working for nothing so long as the Katzes and the Hymes and the Shinklehubbers cut their salaries! But they bloody well dont! There they all are at the Colombe … fat and bulging and spending our profits .. Ugh!

  [ … ] Otherwise we sit and write and read and garden and play music and shop and eat and wander about hanging pictures and dusting books ..... and generally settling in for a Stay.

  [ … ] The sun is beginning to dip over the big mountain to my left … I have fed the dog … mended a fuse and am now about to wander down to watch the workmen finish off my fencing … ten square acres of it … RATHER expensive … but now the chasseurs cant just wander in and blast everything that moves to feathers and pulp!

  My devoted love to you as ever and to Joe … pass him the news you think he’d listen to, and tell him I’m delighted he’s on the booze again .. he was a bit of a drag on Tonic and bitters, and I dont suppose a smoke did much difference to him!

  I’m off for my ‘jar’ [ … ] I love you and miss you both.

  Dirk.

  To Joseph Losey Clermont

  30 November 1970

  Joseph –

  A hurried note to say how smashing it was to hear you on Saturday. A lovely bit of a surprise while I was planting out a lady called Nelly Moser … who I hope will smother the south wall with a ‘palet of brilliant colours and enchanting blooms.’ As the lable says … by June.

  I await with great intrest for the Mosley script1 … you are not too often pleased with the writing in scripts generally … so your obvious enthusiasm for this is splendid. I forgot to ask you, and probably should’nt, where the backing was coming from, because if it is from Columbia you wont get me I fear! They loath my guts for some reason which I have never found out. Except that I did call Frankavitch2 a ‘fat white slug’ to his face, and in public, which obviously cant have helped!

  I gather today that Death In Venice opens in Febuary in London … God knows after that I’ll really have to retire .... but if they liked ‘Scrooge’, as they all seemed to do yesterday, … they may like us!

  Dont be too upset about ‘Figures’ … you had a typically marvellous personal press … and the Match reaction is marvellous as you know … and it is a hell of a time to open a picture … a month from Christmas … have they played it in a good house? Or one of those barns? Anyway .. it has only added luster to your already burnished crown … so why worry about the lolly, especially as you seem to have no problems in that direction for the next couple of movies.

  My typing is getting simply dreadful … I keep on missing out bits and pieces … and I feel that the real reason is that I am keeping one eager eye on the clock to see when I can go down and get myself a bottle of Kronenberg.

  Anyway this is just a note to say thank you for the call … and I’ll speak to you as soon as I get my hands on the script.

  devotions to Patricia …

  And you. Dirk

  To Luchino Visconti Clermont

  4 December 1970

  My dear Luchino –

  First of all please forgive me for typing this letter, and also for writing it in English.

  Your long letter has just reached me today and filled me with sadness to know that you are so unhappy.1

  I cannot comment on the piece in ‘Vogue’, because I have not read it … but I can, and do, apologize for any distress that a friend of mine, Mrs Tynan, should have caused you. It is important to try and reply to your ‘points’ individually.

  I have NEVER EVER said that I was ‘miscast’ in ‘The Damned’, as a matter of fact I dont think that I was! However it is perfectly true that other people DO think so, and have written it in the Press in America and in England, so I suppose that Mrs Tynan is entitled to quote them, if that is what she has done.

  I tell the story of our first meeting, in the Hassler, and it is intended to be a compliment to your magnetism and charme. I always say that I had no intention of playing Freidrich2 because I knew that it was a poor part, but that after about five minutes of your concentrated charm I was quite unable to say ‘no’ … and knew that I wanted to work with you above all things. This is true and I shall continue to say so.

  I am often asked what I learned from you, and I always reply that this is a very difficult question. As an actor, perhaps nothing; possibly because I am too old to learn. But about the Cinema, and as a man, I think that I have learned very much from you .... but it would be very hard to express just exactly what it is. Later perhaps I will know. This is what I tell people.

  Your direction of me as Freidrich. I dont know what has been written and possibly it is my fault for trying to explain something difficult, not very well. It is my attempt to explain the method of ‘Shorthand’ communication between Director and Actor. You used to say very little to me but I knew, or thought that I knew, what you wanted from me. Certainly at times you did use musical terms such as ‘a little too much Lohengrin’ or something equally amusing, and this would always indicate to me that I should give a little less or a little more. It is a very personal thing between an Actor and his Director; difficult to explain properly to people who do not exactly understand, but I am often asked this about you, about Losey, Cukor and Clayton.

  I cannot believe that Mrs Tynan has deliberately written unkindly. I know well her total admiration, and indeed affection, for you. It is possible that I may have given her a wrong impression by talking too much about you, as one does about someone of whom one is deeply fond, and whom one admires as much as I do you. It is equally possible that her article may have suffered from bad editing (as so often happens) so that things have been condensed and appear out of their true context. Possibly she has tried to show some of your fallibilities to make you appear more of a human being than a Giant, and possibly she has miscalculated the effect … but … I really cannot say until I have read the thing, and I do not yet know how to get a copy of ‘Vogue’.

  That is that as far as I can explain.

  Incidentally I do not ever remember recieving a letter from you about the many other things which I have said about you in the worlds Press … and on Film. These remarks have prompted letters from people like Losey and Clayton and Schlesinger saying (in an amused way) it would have been marvellous if I had ever said that about them! I think that if you had read some of these items you would have been not too distressed. You must realise my deep feeling for you, my implicit trust in you and my enormous respect for your energies and brilliance. It is
so easy to read only the trivial things and be hurt … as hurt indeed as I have been by your remark that, au fond, I ‘am like all other actors’ in my shallowness.

  I have said to the Press constantly that if I succeed in ‘Death’ it will be entirely due to you … and if I fail it will be equally so, for I gave myself to you entirely to do as you chose. I cannot think of a higher compliment.

  When I have read this wretched article in ‘Vogue’ I may be able to make some further comment; for the moment I can only apologise for having had you distressed by someone I trusted and to whome you have shown such great kindness.

  With affection

  Dirk

  To Bee Gilbert and Ian Holm Clermont

  9 December 1970

  Dearest, beloved, Sno and Ian …

  You ARE super chums. I mean about not being pissed off with us because we did’nt see you during the horrid five days we were in your Burg. It was really pretty foul; first Tote had a cyst problem, and so that meant Doctors and etc .. and us not being able to tell people exactly what we were up to on account of not wanting to worry anyone; also his Pa is dying-sort-of and is in a nasty little nursing home [ … ] and we had to trail to and from there and deal out cheer and keep the Matron charmed so that she does’nt pinch all Totes Pa’s lolly … she is a sort of Irish Bodkin-Adams-Type1 … with the full Dancing Eyes and Irish Sparkle and a firm determination to grab her elderly patients’ money for a colour Telly set .... anyway … then I had to spend two ghastly days, freezing, in the Furniture depositary in Victoria getting rid of all the stuff I have left from the Move. [ … ] In between I had to fit in the Lecture at the NFT,2 which was sold out and great fun and very irreverant .... I showd clips from all my worst Movies and worst perfs … and it made us all laugh very much indeed … I did’nt realise that I go back such a long way! There I was looking like a half cooked featus at one point, and at another like a very poovey person in black leather making eyes at John Mills … this last part brought down the house … and I feared libel .... but as I only opened my eyes wide and looked at the audience with surprise and shock … and never said a word, I think I’ll escape. Perhaps not with Frankenstein3 … I was a bit forthright about him and his Tense Set Lark and they thought that was all a bit larky too … apparently they had all seen the documentary on Grand Prix … I have not … but it made for a super happy, funny two and a half hours! Naturally I was whacked afterwards … and we went back to the Connaught with an illassorted bunch of Audience … the Tynans … he dressd in some plastic Python with shoe buckles large enough to frame a Valesquez … and she preggers but sweet [ … E]veryone drank a great deal and some of them talked about me, so that was lovely. And really after that, we were so hating London, the cold, the bad tempers the garbage the prices and everything else, that as soon as Tote was thankfully put in the clear, and the old Pa was sorted out … we grabbed the first flight to Paris and caught the Blue Train home without telling anyone ..... it was a lousy thing to do but we really wanted to get back as soon as possible because the Staff dont speak Frog and we were leaving them for the first time in a strange country. Anyway all was lovliness the next morning when we got off the train in Cannes Station in blinding sun … went straight to the Market and bought lunch and drove through the golden countryside to the house.

  Anyway here we are … breakfast on the terrace every morning – in sweaters!… and a log fire at night … It’s superly warm about mid day and then the temperature dips a bit as the sun sets and one feels a nip and starts the fire and the record player and the brandy bottle and settles down with the daily (London) papers which arrive every evening at five.

  We have just bought another fucking dog. A Boxer bitch with ricketts, called Daisy. She is supposed to be a wife and companion for our Roman Bastard, Labbo, but so far he has shown no great intrest, and one fears, like all Italian men, that faced with the Lady he’d rather have a feller. However we have only been en menage for four days; it’s a bit early yet.

  I SO agree with Ian about the Bread bit and loosing ones Pride. I did it for ages … and then broke away for a while to earn Self Pride for no Bread and felt poorer, but richer … if you know what I mean … and then came a time when I just had to get bread for Taxes and all, as you both well know, and that was dreadful … part of the misery of the ‘Fixer’ thing was that. I earned possibly 1,000 dollars a WORD in that load of crapperoo, and it paid an awful lot of taxes and so on, but made me feel physically ill to do. I dont think that it really works. Once one is out of the Wood, so to speak, and can steady oneself financially, even a little, Back To The Quality is the motto. Self respect, for a man, after a certain age is terribly important in Actors.

  Does one want to be a Burton? An O’Tool? Or a Lesley Phillips!! Besides … the parts that dont pay well are usually the most interesting I find. I got pennies, literally, for ‘Death In Venice’ … we had to pay our own expenses even … but what a chance to act for the Cinema! It was worth paying to be in it … even if it is an unholy flop .... So, dear Ian, most respected Sir, and adored friend … play your hunch and piss off out of the Ratty-Land.1 It does no good to ones soul … unless one happens to be K. Moore … and soulless.

  I have just been asked to do a couple of movies … and me really trying to retire and pull out gradually … one is with Losey and is marvellous, obscure, and wild … and no lolly as usual … which is as it should be … the other is for America .... at least American financed .... and is a stunning support part a la Bibikov2 .... but all QUITE different … and the lolly will keep me here for fifty years almost! I dont really want to do either .... they both happen in early spring JUST when all the things one has done to the garden here start to show … and who wants to be in Shepperton during April and May, when one could be here in the idle sun, tending the vines and seeing that the sheep dont eat the wild tulips and hyacinths on the hill? … anyway, fate may intervean .. I cant spell a bloody word these days … intervene. Better.

  Sno; I do hope you pass your ‘A’ Levels … you ARE clever. If I had to try now I’d end up in a home for retarded children in Lowestoft, or somewhere … thank the Lord they were’nt invented in my time.

  Daisy has just wobbled up stairs to my room, here, and is scratching herself all over. Love or a rash?

  When we were in Rome a few weeks ago, doing some dubbing for the Film, I met a Doctor […] who told me some worrying news about a mutual chum of ours. No names, no pack-drill. He was with us in Budapest and Ian cleaned up the sick. If things are true, he apparently did the window leap one evening … but not with the full intention of killing himself … apparently if you REALLY want to do that you dont jump feet first: but head first. Anyway … I don’t know if it is true or not .. and one has not liked to ask before this. He was so funny and charming in California … I thought that things were going to be better for him. If it’s true it’s rotten. If not do forget it.

  Jolly indescreet of the Doctor anyway. And he told the story in a lift full of Americans who goggled all the way up to the seventh floor.

  Daisy has just been sick on my bed.

  I have just finished Nancy Mitfords ‘Fredrick’1 … smashing if one can wade through the battles, which are as boring as they must have been frightful … and am about to start on the Speer2 book … thats a great chunk of winter evening reading .. snug in bed while the mistral tugs at the shutters and dogs howl in the village … Breckenbridge3 was a nasty little book, I thought … and it shocked me a bit too … I believe the film is unbelievable in it’s horror … and Mr Vidals comments would make Hell burn out. However he made a lot of Bread from that little item, I can tell you. I dont know why I suddenly remembered, in the middle of that line, about Bates having twins? Is it true? Rather super for him, if he is happy and can afford the sods .... did you manage to see ‘Hamlet’?4 Or will you?

  Incidentally; if the Ratty does come off in Febuary .. and if you felt a long week-end away would clear the heads and brains and things, why not come to us for
a stay? Not the most perfect month … but then it’s better than Buda or Pest … and the Mimosa is out and you can have a double bed … bath and loo along the corridor, and every word heard through the walls .... farts, paper and all! But do think about it … it’s only 1 Hr. and a half from London .... you could be back in a flash … and it is quite pretty, and we would adore to see you again privatly, as it were … and not in Connaught Drawingrooms ..

  It’s high time that we did some Leaf-Catching again1 ......

  Love and devotions …

  Dirk.

  To Luchino Visconti Clermont

  12 December 1970

  My dear Luchino:

  I have just recieved a copy of the Vogue article from New York and must write to you without delay. I have also spoken to Mrs Tynan on the telephone and told her of your anger. She is frightfully upset and has not read the article herself which both she, and I, feel must have been severly Edited.

  The article, I dont honestly think, is all that good ..... but it is really not all that bad. And it really is not unkind to you, nor does it make you, as you said, ‘look rediculous’. The one person who comes out badly is myself! I sound like an opinionated, concieted, thankless, Actor … which I dont think I am and would hate to be. My interview with Mrs Tynan was loyal to you and very devoted … it was also self-mocking, which does not emerg from this obviously condensed and mutilated Article.