Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters Read online

  The other person who will be hurt and sad is Mrs Tynan herself … for I feel sure that this is not what she intended, and some idiot has edited, and lost the sense of the article very badly.

  I think, Luchino, that perhaps you have not quite understood the ‘Genre’ of this kind of an article … I assure you that it does not give an unfavourable impression … it is not, for example, as wretched as ‘Womans Wear Daily’ which could have caused far more distress ..... and WHO reads Vogue except a few women in hairdressers?

  However it obviously did distress you; and I can only repeat that Mrs Tynan was tremendously aware of her debt to you, and her affection and respect was immense. It is very sad that it should have all come to this.

  With love and affection

  Dirk

  To Joseph Losey Clermont

  25 March 1971

  Joseph –

  You have just told me to write to you … a letter of ‘some sort’. So I am. At this moment. I have just, as I told you, written to Melissa Dearden2 … what a strange thing growing older is .... one looses hair, teeth and good friends … time gallops. Oh dear! O shit!

  Teeth. All mine fell out the week before I was due in London for DIV … not all, exactly, just the key tooth which held in a VAST bridge of all sorts of delicious back teeth … so now I trail over to Monte Carlo twice a week where the only dentist in ALL FUCKING FRANCE, would’nt you know, does the job that I have to have done. He is very chic, Baldheaded, from choice, golden bracelet, wife minus a gall-bladder .... and a faux Utrillo in the waiting room along with two colour snapshots of Grace and H.R.H. Rainier … so we know what happens pricewise … socially he’s ok … but God help the patients if H.R.H. Grace gets the jaw ache … cancell all appointments. Anyway he costs a fortune … has bad breath, but is rather good at the job and was trained at the University of Illinoise … (is there an ‘e’?) Apart from that, as they say, time drifts along in planting and weeding and reading and generally getting ready for the summer … a long long time a-coming. We have had such rain and snow and shit as you’d not believe … I should never have moved into the mountains, after all we are nearly 2,000 feet high … almost ski-ing country … however the buds are all bursting out … blossom on every tree … the sky is clear and steady blue … and it is really hot for lunch on the terrace.

  I am so happy that you may be in Cannes1 … it’s a bore being in competition with you, but rather fun too … in a way.… I ought to have played Maggie Leightons part but you are always so stingy with me .... however we’ll see what happens. Whatever does happen we’ll all be close to each other for a while … which is always pleasant. And we are so very near the Colombe .... incidentally I think that Simones’ film with Gaban2 is also entered … we ought to be a happy little gathering.

  [ … ] Does Trotsky go? You did’nt mention it today … so I expect it’s among the worries. So far I seem to be recieveing a lot of scripts about old Queers in love with butchers boys .... or schoolteachers in love with their Best Pupils … Oh Will they never learn in the film business? I’m not REALLY Aschenbach .... just ‘being’ him for one film. I have given up smoking, entirely, which has made me difficult to live with and I eat quantities of sweets and goodies ..... but it has been nearly ten days since I had a ‘ciggie’ … and considering I was a three pack a day boy I dont think thats too bad.

  Hell on the friends .... but I decided that as I am about to be fifty, really and truly, on Sunday I’d better get a hold on myself and do something adult for a change. So we’ll see .... I do feel better for it … but depressed and miserable most of the time. Which is a fat lot of good.

  Later.

  Just fed the dogs and Tony is polishing the tiled floors downstairs … a great black cloud has crept over the hills from Grasse .... and the day is almost spent. I long for my Brandy, but it’s not six yet [ … ] I am busy reading Harold Actons Memoirs1 … know them? Fun and a little tedious .... but good in bed … read a funny book called ‘Soldier Erect’2 … which is bawdy but excellent … and am just through with the Cocteau book3 … a bore. And so was he. On our way back from the old Dentist yesterday we sat in the sun outside the Welcome in Villefranch and had a beer in the sun on the harbour … it was so quiet and one found it difficult to remember all the magic which had once been generated in that little hotel … Nijinski … Diaghilev, Colette … Bakst … all lost now I suppose save for the relics left behind.

  I must put you down and go and get the evening papers … pay off the little Arab Gardner, Ahmet, who makes atrocious things in ciment and stone and which I am always trying to cover with creepers … and get on with the evening.

  Huge love to you both as always, and as you know,

  for always.

  Dirk

  XXXX for Patreeecia

  To the Loseys Clermont

  12 June 1971

  My dearest Joe and Patricia:

  A delayed letter to thank you, once again, for my Olive Pot! And also to say … as if I had not done so already .. how super it was about the GBween and the Palm d’Or.4 I really did clap myself silly when you wandered laconically onto the stage to Romey … and a little, only a little harder, for MY pappa .... he behaved a bit tiresomly I fear during that nervous day … but he can hardly be blamed because we were ASSURED a month before in Rome that we had got the palm ourselves! .. and that I was to ‘Shut up’ and not make a fuss about being suddenly dubbed because although I could not win ... or be in competition ... the film already HAD! So it came as a bit of a shock to pappa to find that this was not quite the case! However .. he saved face and got immense coverage in the glossies coming down the stairs with Romey and I … and off he went to buy up the Picasso shop in Valauris before leaving for Rome .... and we are doing colossal business in Paris .. Germany and Italy .... and the reviews are quite dotty with praise and love, except for Nice-Matin who said it was the most boring thing she’d seen since measles .... or something.

  Anyway … it piss’d with rain for a week after you all left … and then sudden Mistrals came and we had a few super days … and more rain .. and all the rose growers in Antibes were ruined because the hail smashed all the glasshouses .... and tore all the lettuce and early peas and so on. All disaster.

  Now it really is lovely and glowing and we have made the hay .. carted and dumped it .... the pool is reduced to a trickle .... the sky aches with blue and I have just planted five mimosa trees .... three inches high. I suppose you could call that optomism!

  Romey called the other night and is coming over for lunch this week … she naturally wants to talk about you .... so I shall be simply lovely about you and hope to God you dont let me down and treat her as you treated poor Jacquline Sassarde1 who is still not out of shock! I met her at the airport the other week and she is still wincing at the memories .... rotten old sod you.

  [ … ] Old Alice Bates2 came up to the house for the day, just before you all left, and brought that rather agressive wife with him … she seems to spend her time looking over her shoulder to see if Alan is still there. As well she might. He is a nice fellow but as viril and sexual as a packet of Kleenex .... the main fault of GBween I felt … no sort of animal magnetism .... like Sean Connery has .... however obviously, as you said it was that or no lolly and in the end Leo and Maggie3 will swamp them … and you and dear Carmen4 will do all the rest very neatly!

  I have to write about fifty more letters … this was just to send you my love again .. and my happiness for your success … do let me know, one day, how and when you get your showing .... it ought to be sometime in September .... not really before. A fat kiss to Patreecia .... and every love to you both ..... Dirk –

  To Bee Gilbert and Ian Holm Clermont

  30 June 1971

  Darling Snowball and Millionair:

  Mansions this time.5 Ye Gods! What did they pay you on the Rattigan thing! I cant imagine … but seriously how super smashing … as long as the Channel Tunnel is not running across the front lawn in 1975 ....
Lovely letter from you today. [ … ] Long article in this months Show Mag (New York) by the Dreaded Frankenstein who names every film he has ever made, and talks on a bit alarming about most of them, with never a single mention of the ‘Fixer’. Out of sight out of mind. I wish he were. More often.

  [ … ] I have so far said no … I mean NO. to Somerset Maughm; Trotsky: Chaucer: Randolph Churchill: Tarquemeda1 (Spanish Inquisition) and a Major in the Indian Army in 1888 … they were not dirty propositions .. Parts, if you know what I mean. My fat Friend2 is fair out of his bonce with worry .. whose to pay for the Maserati when it next has a face lift? But, honestly, the absolute SHIT is unbelievable … and after being vastly spoiled by Visconti and Mann I am not budging till I’m sure. Opened in N.Y last week [to] mixed reviews .. all the male Critics say it is a film about a Sodomite … the Female ones have raved and we are packed out for weeks to come by all the kids … funny thing .. same as London, Rome and Paris and Berlin … all kids. I wonder why? Vastly intresting to really find out … it’s a sort of cult … but why I cannot imagine. Enough that it is … and thats lovely. Next Visconti is doing a story about the last two days in the life of Ludwig of Bavaria … with Helmut Berger and Romy Schnieder as the Empress Elizabeth … nothing for me unless I play a castle on the lake … and he has all those from the German Government. Still not smoking … weeeeeeel. One or two with a beer and a couple in the evenings with the Daily Telegraph (does’nt that sound ghastly!) The fucking Daily Tel. It’s not as bad as that though … weather golden, still, blazing and the geraniums, you were right, a blaze of red and white and night scented stock dotting the pots and beds and everything now glorious and in full leaf … alas! The hols. start tomorrow officially … and for the next two months the roads, hotels, beaches and everything will be unbearable with burnt Frogs and G.B’s and nasty Allemands and stuffy Dutch and the very commonest Americans. Question: How can an American BE common. They are. Essentially an Immigrant Race they remain such. We had two for dinner last night … Jewish mother and daughter .. daughter with a Nose Job, Mother with bronchitis caught on the boat coming over. By talking I’ll bet. Both on Microbiotic Food … ghastly. Kind. Foolish. Blind. and fucking bores .... but [ ... ] I had to be pleasant.

  Tote is upstairs writing a long letter about Stocks and Shares … I’m sitting here on the terrace in the late evening sun … and the sea shimmers .. little white sails scud toward La Napoule … the scent of wild broom and carnations make the hill smell like the Cosmetic Section of Boots Cash Thingummy … but it is for real at least.

  I’ll go and fill up my glass of Fundador … just about gone now … and wish that we were in Corsica if thats where you will go .... funny how much one loves you both. Quite dotty. But it has lasted with firmness ever since Charlie Chan smashed up that wardrobe .... and it’ll go on …

  my heart on a salver for you .. and a seemly hug to your mate .. always, anyway, my love.

  Dirk

  XXXX+300

  P.S. Ghastly typing – sorry machine gone potty.

  P.P.S. Daisy in the Nunnery. Got the curse bad – & Labbo in a heap of despair in the Studio – Dogs do fall in love! And I cant explain to him she’ll be home in 2 weeks – Oh! now one knows what it means ‘To live a dogs life’ – poor sod.

  To Ann Skinner Clermont

  July 27th. 110° in the sun –

  This is hotter than Morocco! Christ! I really dont care for heat at this advanced age. It is only nine thirty am and already great dollops of sweat are plopping onto my lap … I’m trying to keep them off the keys because it makes everything so slippery. And thats the scene here this morning … cozadas1 screaming in the olives … crickets in the grass … the dogs lie gasping under the vine trellis … we have just heard the BBC telling us all about Lords .. (Fond memories of rain and flying continuity sheets) and the Astronauts on their dotty way to the Moon and something vague about another Coup ..... Gareth Forwood is here for a hol … and lies moaning face upwards in the swimming hole … and the whole of the Attenborough family, minus of course Pappa, decend for luncheon. They are very sweet but it means that I wont get a siesta this arvo .... and that makes me grotty if I have a beer too many before lunch. All I seem to be doing is grumbling … and I really dont mean to at all. It’s all lovliness as far as I am concerned.

  Your smash-hit of a letter made me piss myself [ … ] You are simply doing a perfectly normal thing in falling in love with married men ..... who wants to start breaking them in, for Gods sake? let someone else do that for you ..... it’s rather the same thing with Pipes .... my father never ever smoked a NEW pipe but gave it to our gardner to smoke about the place for a month or so until it was really ripe and then he stuck it on his stem, if you know what I mean, and smoked a perfectly cured pipe. Same with Married Fellows. Got it? No need to come to a Shrinker. I’m one.

  I wrote to John about Sunday2 … it was tremendously exciting getting all the notices and finding each one better than the other.… I was as happy as if I had been in the bloody thing … and he wrote a sweet note back and wondered, wistfully I thought, if I would like it .... well, I’m pretty sure that I will although I dont go a great bundle on Miss J’s tits … all nibbled and Russeled1 .... however I’ll have a look when I come over in October.… I have to then, to chat with Business Gentlemen … it’s hopeless on telephones and in letters to get things straightened out .... so a trip to London is indicated I fear.

  [ … ] You will know by now, dont we All, what the Press said about the Devils2 .. some people who have seen it literally had to leave the cinema for fear of throwing up! And if the porno has gone God help what is left ..... I do think he is a frightful man. I met the Vice Pres of Warners the other day and he was sickingly rubbing his hands with joy at the VAST takings .... all house records broken etc … and poor little DIV dragged off and sent to Baker Strasser for a final week. Shit. [ … ]

  They are still putting pressure on me to do Trotsky … and I really dont want to one bit .... it is a difficult decision to make.… I worship Joe and so on, but I dont want to do anymore elderly gents … this time wigged I imagine .... and the flight out to Mexico (if they do go there) would have me in fits before we’d passed Plymouth!

  There are other things floating about in the pipeline … but I am not very eager. I feel retired now.… a funny feeling and not one to thrill old Noldie Schulkes! [ … ] I have begged Joe to use him. He really is so fucking good on a Unit and splendid for moral .... seems a pity to stand in for Alice Bates and that awful Belgian Postman Max Schell .... however it’s better than no work at all.

  Did I tell you that Ronnie Neame had asked me to be in his film with Jackson about Isobella of Spain? Well he said he’d ‘drop by’ with a script five weeks ago .. so I reckon thats folded. Or at least perhaps the American Company said nix to me .... DIV has become a sort of ‘Fag Movie’ in the US and generally had v. awful notices which made us all sad .... they quite misunderstood the picture and the book too, for that matter … they are a bloody awful country .... sorry: I forgot that you had an ‘intrest’ there!

  Not much news left really lovie .... life is rather sedentary .. watering, haying, emptying the pool … feeding a family … preparing for constant guests on their way to or from somewhere .... The Holmes come out for a week at the end of August … and between now and then we have a constant stream of onenight stands .... tough on the sheet situation and as there is only one loo and one bathroom and the water pressure here in July and August is so low that we cant get it up stairs … life is fun but not luxurious!

  Anyway .. one day it’ll be you from your slum dwellings … and I assure you no one will be happier to see you than us here at Clermont.

  All my love .. postcards from the Rift Valley1 … watch your bum in Morocco … and a great hug and kisses from …

  Dirk.

  To Joseph Losey Clermont

  14 August 1971

  My dear Joe:

  Thank you so much for calling the other evening and
my apologies for not speaking myself. But you MUST remember that you are one hour ahead of us in Italy, and that I am invariably in bed by eleven with two shovvers2 up the arse, and that we only have one telephone in the house and that is two floors down! So. Fat Friend had to do the talking.

  Sorry about T.3 I just was too late … Witt4 suggested, very firmly indeed that I read the new script … I did’nt even know there was one … I knew that Mosley was ‘doing’ something to that awful load of old codswallop I read with you in January, or whenever it was .... but I had no idea that the Black Script existed.

  Instead of soppy old Chatto5 giggling away about T. still not being cast it might have been more expedient, not to say intelligent, of her to suggest a look at a new script .... however she did’nt and Witt did .... but having got the thing to me in a matter of hours he then had to aquaint me with the fact that Fatso6 was in the running .... so I pulled out [ … ] I simply was not going to wait about for Fatso to make up it’s mind about billing and cooing.

  Really no ones fault .... but sad for me finally because T. is now a very superior, and amusing, fellow .... (I wonder if Fatso knows this? And that he was witty and compassionate?) and you have, to say the least of it, an Interesting Cast …

  I hope so much that all goes well with you and all who sail upon your Craft ..... I would send you a foot or a toad or a fist or something .... but reckon my love will be enough … it is certainly strong enough for us both!

  Marvellous to have Patricia to ourselves for a whole evening … and I trust that she reached Rome safely, if not accurately .... love to you all .... as ever.

  Dirk

  P.S. Mrs T. is a pretty super part too .... oh fuck!.

  To Bee Gilbert and Ian Holm Clermont

  11 November 1971

  [A guest from the Home Counties … ] all of sixty-seven with a red beard and a blondish wig which never ever moved in a Mistral on the Pic des Courmes, or snoring on a blue chesterfield, came to stay for a week.