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Sir Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde (28 March, 1921 – 8 May, 1999), better known by his stage name Dirk Bogarde, was an actor and author.
Early yearsBogarde was born in West Hampstead, London, of mixed Dutch and Scottish ancestry. His father Ulric van den Bogaerde (born in Perry Barr, Birmingham) was the art editor of The Times and his mother Margaret Niven was a former actress. He attended the former Allan Glen's School in Glasgow, a time he described as unhappy in his autobiography, although others have disputed his account [1]. Bogarde served in World War II, reaching the rank of Captain and served in both the European and Pacific theatres, principally as an intelligence officer. In April 1945 he was one of the first Allied officers to reach the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, an experience that had the most profound effect on him and about which he found it difficult to speak for many years afterward. His horror and revulsion at the cruelty and inhumanity that he witnessed in Belsen left him with a deep-seated hostility towards Germany; he wrote in the 1990s that he would disembark from an elevator rather than ride with a German. Ironically, three of his more memorable film roles would be playing a German, one of them as a former SS officer. Film career
During the 1950s, he also starred as a murderer who befriends a young boy in Hunted (aka The Stranger in Between) (1952); Appointment in London (1953) as a young airman in Bomber Command who, against orders, joins a major offensive against the Germans; The Sea Shall Not Have Them (1954), playing a flight sergeant trapped in a dinghy with Sir Michael Redgrave; The Sleeping Tiger (1954), playing a neurotic criminal with co-star Alexis Smith in fine form, and Bogarde's first film for American expatriate director Joseph Losey; Doctor at Sea (1955), co-starring Brigitte Bardot in one of her first film roles; Cast a Dark Shadow (1955), as a man who marries women for money and then kills them; The Spanish Gardner (1956), co-starring Cyril Cusack and Bernard Lee; Doctor at Large (1957), another entry in the "Doctor series", co-starring Shirley Eaton; A Tale of Two Cities (1958), a faithful retelling of Charles Dickens' classic; The Doctor's Dilemma (1959), by George Bernard Shaw and co-starring Leslie Caron and Robert Morley, not a part of the "Doctor series"; and Libel (1959), playing three separate roles and co-starring Olivia de Havilland. Bogarde quickly became a matinee idol and was Britain's number one box office draw of the 1950s, gaining the title of "The Matinee Idol of the Odeon." After 1960, Bogarde abandoned his heart-throb image for more challenging parts, such as barrister Melville Farr in Victim (1961); decadent valet Hugo Barrett in The Servant (1963) (directed by Joseph Losey); television reporter Robert Gold in Darling (1965); Stephen, a bored Oxford University professor, in Accident (1967); German industrialist Frederick Bruckman in Luchino Visconti's The Damned (1969); the ex-Nazi, Max, in the chilling and controversial The Night Porter (1974) directed by Liliana Cavani; and, most notably, as Gustav von Aschenbach in Death in Venice (1971) also directed by Luchino Visconti, now probably his best-remembered role. Other of Bogarde's films during the 1960s and 1970s were The Angel Wore Red (1960), playing an unfrocked priest who falls in love with cabaret entertainer Ava Gardner during the Spanish Civil War; Song Without End (1960), playing Franz Liszt and directed by George Cukor; The Singer Not the Song (1961), as a Mexican bandit and co-starring Sir John Mills as a priest; HMS Defiant (aka Damn the Defiant!) (1962), playing sadistic Lieutenant Scott-Padget and stealing the movie from co-star Sir Alec Guinness; I Could Go On Singing (1963), playing surgeon David Donne and co-starring Judy Garland in her final screen role; The Mind Benders (1963), an off-beat film about sensory deprivation experiments at Oxford University (precursor to Altered States (1980)) playing Dr. Henry Longman; Hot Enough For June, (aka Agent 8 3/4) (1964), a James Bond-type spy spoof playing bumbling secret agent Nicholas Whistler; King And Country (1964), playing Army lawyer Captain Hargreaves, reluctantly defending deserter Tom Courtenay in a great role; Modesty Blaise (1966), a camp spy send-up playing archvillain Gabriel; Our Mother's House (1967), an off-beat film playing good-for-nothing Charlie Hook as the estranged father of seven children and directed by Jack Clayton; The Fixer (1968), based on Bernard Malamud's novel playing Bibikov, co-starring Alan Bates; Sebastian (1968), playing brilliant British intelligence code breaker and Oxford professor Mr. Sebastian and co-starring Sir John Gielgud, Susannah York, and Lilli Palmer; Oh! What A Lovely War (1969), playing Stephen, co-starring Sir John Gielgud and directed by Sir Richard Attenborough; Justine (1969), playing Pursewarden and directed by George Cukor; Le Serpent (1973), playing Boyle, co-starring Henry Fonda and Yul Brynner; A Bridge Too Far (1977), in a rather controversial performance as Lieutenant General Frederick "Boy" Browning and co-starring Sir Sean Connery, among an all-star cast; Providence (1977), playing Claude Langham and co-starring Sir John Gielgud; Despair (1978), as Hermann Hermann; and Daddy Nostalgie (1991) playing Daddy and co-starring Jane Birkin, Bogarde's final film role.
Bogarde was nominated six times as Best Actor by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), winning twice for The Servant in 1963 and Darling in 1965. He also received the London Film Critics Circle Lifetime Award in 1991. He made a total of 63 films between 1939 and 1991. Later career and private lifeImage:Dirk Bogarde.jpg Cover of Bogarde biography In 1977, Bogarde embarked on his second career - as an author. Starting with a first volume A Postillion Struck by Lightning, he wrote a series of autobiographical volumes, novels and book reviews. As a writer Bogarde displayed a witty, elegant, highly literate and thoughtful style, though some find his style to be somewhat precious at times. Bogarde was a life-long bachelor and during his life, was reported to be homosexual. For many years he shared his home in France with his manager Anthony (Tony) Forwood (a former husband of the actress Glynis Johns and the father of her only child, actor Gareth Forwood), but repeatedly denied that their relationship was anything other than friendship. Bogarde's most serious relationship with a female was with the French actress Capucine, whom he seriously considered marrying. Although Bogarde has been criticized for never publicly declaring his sexual orientation,[citation needed] he starred in the landmark 1961 film Victim, playing a prominent bisexual barrister in London who fights the blackmailers of a young man with whom he had an emotional relationship, and who commits suicide after being arrested for embezzlement, rather than ruining the attorney's reputation. In the process of exposing the ring of extortionists, Bogarde's character puts at risk his successful legal career and marriage in order to see that justice is served. Victim was the first mainstream British film to treat the subject of homosexuality seriously and the film helped lead to the changing of the law. As Great Britain's leading box-office star of the 1950s, Bogarde displayed enormous personal courage in appearing in such a controversial film as Victim, which could have destroyed his career at that time. However, his performance opened a path to more challenging roles that gained him respect as one of the leading actors in the intellectual ("art house") film genre. Bogarde's decision to appear in Victim appears even more daring today, given that many contemporary film stars are afraid to play gay characters because of the perceived public reaction and effect on their career that such a role could have. Despite the stereotyping his performance in Victim could have brought him, during his career Bogarde mostly portrayed heterosexual single or married men in the majority of his films, with the exception of his roles in Victim; The Servant; Modesty Blaise; and Death in Venice, although even those roles could be considered as being more bisexual than homosexual in nature. Bogarde's controversial film choices later in his career led him to have something of a cult following. The singer Morrissey was a fan, and, according to Charlotte Rampling[3], Bogarde was approached in 1990 by Madonna to appear in her video for Justify My Love, citing The Night Porter as an inspiration: Bogarde declined the offer. In 1984, Bogarde served as President of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival. This represented an immense honor for Bogarde, and thus became the first Briton ever to serve in that capacity. Dirk Bogarde was knighted in 1992 for his services to acting, and was the recipient of several honorary doctorates, including from St. Andrews and Sussex universities. Formerly a heavy smoker, Bogarde suffered a minor stroke in November 1987, while Anthony Forwood was dying of liver cancer and Parkinson's disease. Never afraid of voicing his opinion, after witnessing Forwood's protracted death he became active in promoting voluntary euthanasia for terminally ill patients in Britain, and toured the UK giving lectures and answering questions from live audiences on the subject. It was a cause, he stated, that had been important to him since the war, during which he had witnessed severely injured men pleading to be put out of their misery[4]. In September 1996, he underwent angioplasty to widen arteries leading to his heart, and suffered a pulmonary embolism following this operation. For the final three years of his life Bogarde was paralyzed on one side of his body, which affected his speech. However, he managed to complete a final volume of autobiography, which covered the stroke and its effect on him. He spent some time the day before he died with his good friend Lauren Bacall. Sir Dirk Bogarde died in London from a heart attack on May 8, 1999, age 78. His ashes were scattered at his beloved estate of "Le Haut Clermont", in Grasse, Southern France. FilmographyOther worksAutobiography/memoirs
Novels
BiographyDirk Bogarde, Rank Outsider, by Sheridan Morley, appeared in 1996. Dirk Bogarde, The Authorised Biography, by John Coldstream, appeared in 2004. References
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