Any fans? His notable film roles include The Servant, Darling, Victim (first film to use the word [italic]homosexual[/italic]), Death in Venice and The Night Porter.
He lived with his "manager" Anthony Forwood for almost 40 years.
Hello and thank you for being a DL contributor. We are changing the login scheme for contributors for simpler login and to better support using multiple devices. Please click here to update your account with a username and password.
Hello. Some features on this site require registration. Please click here to register for free.
Hello and thank you for registering. Please complete the process by verifying your email address. If you can't find the email you can resend it here.
Hello. Some features on this site require a subscription. Please click here to get full access and no ads for $1.99 or less per month.
Any fans? His notable film roles include The Servant, Darling, Victim (first film to use the word [italic]homosexual[/italic]), Death in Venice and The Night Porter.
He lived with his "manager" Anthony Forwood for almost 40 years.
by Anonymous | reply 300 | Yesterday at 1:10 AM |
He had a cameo recently in the thread about the kid who played Tadzio.
by Anonymous | reply 1 | 12/28/2020 |
If Datalounge existed sixty years ago we’d have so many Dirk trolls and threads
by Anonymous | reply 2 | 12/28/2020 |
by Anonymous | reply 4 | 12/28/2020 |
Excellent actor but of a generation where he couldn't be completely honest. To his credit, he didn't go the beard route (which is probably why Hollywood never embraced him), though he did once say that he tended to "fall in love" with many of his leading ladies - more like a wishful thinking crush.
by Anonymous | reply 5 | 12/28/2020 |
Just finished reading his published letters (1970-1997). Full of shameless "luvvie" humble-bragging and Grade A bitchery.
Also he "Dirkmatizes" Alexis Smith (THE SLEEPING TIGER) and Margaret Lockwood (CAST A DARK SHADOW) in his suavest "homme fatal" flicks of the 1950s.
John Coldstream's biography is a must for all Dirk fans. His closeted autobiographies aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
by Anonymous | reply 9 | 12/28/2020 |
Forwood had bdf.
by Anonymous | reply 10 | 12/28/2020 |
He was good friends with tragic model and actress Capucine. There was video footage of various celebrities visiting his home in Grasse. I’m not sure if it’s on YouTube or was part of a documentary. I remember in his published letters he said Vanessa Redgrave treated Joseph Losey abominably on the set of Steaming. His letters were quite informative and sometimes biting. For instance he advised a friend against casting Marisa Berenson and Charlotte Rampling and instead aim high and cast Julie Christie instead.
by Anonymous | reply 11 | 12/28/2020 |
It's funny watching old footage where interviewers tiptoe around Dirk being gay, quite the elephant in the room.
At 17:25
[quote]“I’m still in the shell, and you haven’t cracked it yet, honey!” This mildly bitchy taunt was tossed at Russell Harty by Dirk Bogarde during a televised spat in 1986. It goes to the heart of the man. The words illuminate the actor and writer’s lifelong habit of disguise and its unconscious flip side, self-revelation. Bogarde spent his life playing a complex game of camouflage – with his public, with his friends and even with himself. But in doing so, he unwittingly exposed far more about himself than he could ever have wanted.
by Anonymous | reply 12 | 12/28/2020 |
I remember Charlotte Rampling acting bemused during a BBC interview recounting the time Madonna approached Dirk to reenact the Night Porter in her justify my love video. Bogarde was insulted and declined and Wallis Franken was in the video instead.
by Anonymous | reply 13 | 12/28/2020 |
Tony was married to Glynis Johns (still alive at 97), and had a son, Gareth (also Dirk's brother's name). DB claimed the marriage was "disastrous" [sic]. A year after the divorce, Bogarde and Johns were kissing enthustically in front of the camera (DEAR MR. PROHACK).
So: Dirk was fucking his female co-star's ex-husband.
by Anonymous | reply 14 | 12/28/2020 |
"Fan" is understating it by a long shot. He was talented, articulate, handsome, ahead of his time.
by Anonymous | reply 15 | 12/28/2020 |
Yes, I'm a longtime fan of his. He was a very handsome man and an excellent actor.
by Anonymous | reply 16 | 12/28/2020 |
He’s very good in Our Mother’s House playing against type as the sinister, womanising “father” Charlie.
by Anonymous | reply 17 | 12/28/2020 |
[quote]It's funny watching old footage where interviewers tiptoe around Dirk being gay, quite the elephant in the room.
It's 2020 and nothing has changed at least on French television when you see star news anchor Laurent Delahousse tangentially referencing his guest's homosexuality by referring to his love of "the Spice Girls" while growing up in the suburbs.
by Anonymous | reply 19 | 12/28/2020 |
Nice job, R18.
by Anonymous | reply 20 | 12/28/2020 |
Why do those photos look like Desi Arnez and not Dirk Bogarde? I have never in my life confused the two.
by Anonymous | reply 21 | 12/28/2020 |
R21, they actually do look alike to me, though Dirk was more handsome.
by Anonymous | reply 23 | 12/28/2020 |
R22, because the photos in R7 & R8 are both Desi Arnaz.
by Anonymous | reply 24 | 12/28/2020 |
Sorry, meant that in reply to R21 not R22,
by Anonymous | reply 25 | 12/28/2020 |
Darling is still one of my favorite movies of all time... the relationship between Borgarde and Christie so real, doomed from the start. With the character being a fag hag for many, cheating with the lizard-bisexual Laurence Harvey... and Borgarde never able to satisfy Christie.. apparently sexually. It always seemed to be to present a subtext of a gay guy falling in love with a straight woman and the result inevitably heart-breaking.
No matter what Bogarde's role in any movie, there was always a secret shadow self lurking. The gay Icon for the decades that were his.
by Anonymous | reply 26 | 12/28/2020 |
OP, Anthony Forwood was not his “manager,” he was his manager. He kept Bogarde employed over decades when his being gay could have killed his career.
It’s 2021, we don’t hide behind quotation marks any more.
by Anonymous | reply 27 | 12/28/2020 |
Of Dirk Bogarde, John Fraser wrote:
[italic] "Dirk's life with [Anthony] Forwood had been so respectable, their love for each other so profound and so enduring, it would have been a glorious day for the pursuit of understanding and the promotion of tolerance if he had screwed up the courage ... to make one dignified allusion to his true nature. Self-love is no substitute for self-respect."
by Anonymous | reply 28 | 12/28/2020 |
by Anonymous | reply 29 | 12/28/2020 |
He was also friendly with the actress Mai Zetterling, aka the Granny in the original witches. I can’t remember what he said about her in his letters but she comes across as rather eccentric.
by Anonymous | reply 30 | 12/28/2020 |
by Anonymous | reply 31 | 12/28/2020 |
Prompted by this thread, I watched Victim this afternoon on HBOMax. Really solid film and groundbreaking for its time. I'm amazed that Bogarde had the courage to take that role but still could never quite come out himself. Several other actors in the film were also gay and closeted to one extent or another.
by Anonymous | reply 32 | 12/28/2020 |
You beat me to it R24
by Anonymous | reply 33 | 12/28/2020 |
In his letters he refers to Zetterling's ""queer" husband and her dirty feet.
by Anonymous | reply 34 | 12/28/2020 |
The best bits in Victim were the alcoholic playing the opening: there is a full glass of whisky at the top of the ivory which he drinks every time he gets there then goes back to play up to another drink. The other best bit was the clerk analyzing the photos of the crying boy; so moving, such trust.
by Anonymous | reply 36 | 12/28/2020 |
Noel Coward walking past a billboard for Dirk Bogarde's new film "The Sea Shall Not Have Them" quipped to his companion; " I don't see why not, everyone else has....."
by Anonymous | reply 37 | 12/28/2020 |
So many friends or whatever of Dirk Bogarde were always after him to come out, even well into late life. He always responded the same; it just wasn't possible...
Long as he was able to get roles obviously Dirk Bogarde worried about work drying up if he confirmed those long told rumors. Other bit of it one assumes was Dirk Bogarde was a product of his time and upbringing. Bit of self-loathing or shame, certainly that one didn't flaunt one's disabilities in public.
Much of this could be colored by fact homosexual acts were a crime for most of his active acting career. This and nearly universally studio contracts contained moral clauses. Confirmation that Bogarde and Forwood were living together as anything more than what they let on likely would have ended the former's career.
by Anonymous | reply 38 | 12/28/2020 |
Nowl was such a tart, acid queen at times. He also said that about Redgrave. The Queen Mother thought he was marvelous; so did Dickie darling.
by Anonymous | reply 39 | 12/28/2020 |
Who's Dickie Darling---Mountbatten?
by Anonymous | reply 40 | 12/28/2020 |
Yes R40
by Anonymous | reply 41 | 12/28/2020 |
Found it! Knew had it bookmarked somewhere. Noel Coward was having a go at both stars of "The Sea Shall Not Have Them"; Dirk Bogarde (closeted homosexual), and Michael Redgrave (bisexual)
"An old joke, reprinted in John Coldstream's all but flawless biography of Dirk Bogarde, has Noël Coward being driven past a billboard advertising Michael Redgrave and Bogarde in the film, The Sea Shall Not Have Them. "I don't see why not," the Master said. 'Everyone else has." And yet the dilemma of the closeted film star - a piece of jargon that Bogarde himself affected to loathe - was no joke; disclosure in those pre-Wolfenden days would have spelled the end of his career."
by Anonymous | reply 42 | 12/28/2020 |
Quip varies slightly by who is doing the telling, but essence remains same.
"Once, when Morley was crossing Leicester Square with Noel Coward, they saw a poster for an adventure movie starring Michael Redgrave and Dirk Bogarde entitled The Sea Shall Not Have Them. "I fail to see why not," Coward remarked. "Everybody else has.""
by Anonymous | reply 43 | 12/28/2020 |
[quote]Why do those photos look like Desi Arnez and not Dirk Bogarde? I have never in my life confused the two.
I've never confused the two, but there is absolutely a striking resemblance. I've thought so from the first moment I ever saw Bogarde.
by Anonymous | reply 44 | 12/28/2020 |
He co-starred with Judy Garland in her final film, I Could Go On Singing.
by Anonymous | reply 45 | 12/28/2020 |
r27, you're the one hiding shit. They were BOYFRIENDS
by Anonymous | reply 48 | 12/28/2020 |
I read his memoirs. Highly fictionalised, but excellent. The authorized biography released by his estate is very good as well, and pulls no punches.
by Anonymous | reply 50 | 12/28/2020 |
Terrific actor. Stunningly beautiful. Fought in WW2. Allegedly participated in liberation of Bergen Belzen. His dramatic roles are well known, but he also was rather terrific comic actor. His Doctor series is very charming. Failed in Hollywood because he refused to beard. People shame him for not coming out - he lived most of his life with one man, openly mourned him when he died, never married, never had kids, AND he took groundbreaking role in The Victim - movie that lead to decriminalization of homosexuality in Britain.
Love him as an actor, admire him as a gay man.
by Anonymous | reply 51 | 12/28/2020 |
Bogarde was a far better writer than actor. His performances were wooden, and he seemed to be on the verge of hysterics in many of his roles. He appeared in a film directed by Fassbinder, Despair. Can't imagine that he did it for anything other than the pay packet.
I've seen many of Bogarde's interviews and programs about his life. In one interview, he responds to a question about his autobiographies with "If you have your wits about you, and read between the lines, you'll know exactly who I am". Perfectly summed up his writing style; intelligent, nuanced writing for the discerning reader.
by Anonymous | reply 53 | 12/28/2020 |
All I know about Dirk Bogarde I learned from Adam Ant. And that one fact, is that apparently, he wore white socks.
by Anonymous | reply 54 | 12/29/2020 |
Longtime fan of Dirk Bogarde. When I was a gayling I used to gush over him along with older women who were fans of his from their youth. I wonder if they knew the truth?
by Anonymous | reply 55 | 12/29/2020 |
My first gay crush. Just the most beautiful face. As a child I liked seeing him in films. Now I know why but when I look back, a little too skinny for my current tastes, but the face. So handsome. I thought him a good actor. In his later films always pushed his boundaries as much as he could while maintaining a career. I saw him at a book signing when he was elderly and then saw him coming out of the back of a hotel he was staying at. I wanted to go up to him and say, I have enjoyed your films Mr. Bogarde over the years and if I'd met you when you were young, I'd have fucked you all day long. I wish I had.
by Anonymous | reply 56 | 12/29/2020 |
[quote] I wanted to go up to him and say, I have enjoyed your films Mr. Bogarde over the years and if I'd met you when you were young, I'd have fucked you all day long. I wish I had.
R56 Aww that brought a tear to my eye.
by Anonymous | reply 57 | 12/29/2020 |
[Quote]To his credit, he didn't go the beard route
I don't know about this. He tried with Capucine, but she rejected his idea. He wrote terrible things about her after her death which are unforgivable particularly since they are untrue.
He lied about his part in the war as well which was confirmed when fellow soldiers came forward to dispute Bogarde's accounts. What a silly and pathetic queen he turned out to be.
But yes, as a gayling I fell madly for him. So handsome and a wonderful actor. Even in Modesty Blaise he made the loins stir.
by Anonymous | reply 58 | 12/29/2020 |
"When I was a gayling I used to gush over him along with older women who were fans of his from their youth. I wonder if they knew the truth?"
Oh honey, we knew before you even opened your mouth.
by Anonymous | reply 59 | 12/29/2020 |
R58
He fought at WW2, it's not clear whether he participated in liberation of BB, but he was at war. I think he was Intelligence officer.
What did he say about Capucine?
by Anonymous | reply 60 | 12/29/2020 |
[quote]wooden.... hysterics
Neat trick R53
by Anonymous | reply 62 | 12/29/2020 |
" Of Dirk Bogarde, John Fraser wrote: "Dirk's life with [Anthony] Forwood had been so respectable, their love for each other so profound and so enduring, it would have been a glorious day for the pursuit of understanding and the promotion of tolerance if he had screwed up the courage ... to make one dignified allusion to his true nature. Self-love is no substitute for self-respect."
But... Dirk was 33 when Alan Turing killed himself in 1954. I think people forget the zeitgeist back in the day:
"Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts; the Labouchere Amendment of 1885 had mandated that "gross indecency" was a criminal offence in the UK. He accepted chemical castration treatment, with DES, as an alternative to prison. Turing died in 1954, 16 days before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined his death as a suicide, but it has been noted that the known evidence is also consistent with accidental poisoning"
by Anonymous | reply 63 | 12/29/2020 |
R53
Bogard is a wooden actor.
Fassbinder only for a paycheck.
You just full of fresh takes. Seriously, what do you have against Fassbinder?
by Anonymous | reply 64 | 12/29/2020 |
I think Dirk is one of those actors who was so interesting that he just had to "be" - like Cary Grant, who was hardly Olivier or Gielgud, but you were entranced by him nonetheless.
Weird in Grant's case because he was such a narcissist but I don't think Bogarde was - he was an intellectual and probably a depressive.
by Anonymous | reply 65 | 12/29/2020 |
R63
John Fraser himself was gay and he wasn't openly gay. He admitted he went to psychiatrist to "cure" homosexuality and tried sex with women.
by Anonymous | reply 66 | 12/29/2020 |
Fraser did come out eventually....Bogarde never did
by Anonymous | reply 67 | 12/29/2020 |
[quote]if I'd met you when you were young, I'd have fucked you all day long.
I'm actually glad you didn't say that--not exactly complimentary!
by Anonymous | reply 68 | 12/29/2020 |
He looks like a slim Desi Arnaz at the OP.
by Anonymous | reply 69 | 12/29/2020 |
[quote] you're the one hiding shit.
You don't need to hide it, R48, put it in the toilet.
by Anonymous | reply 70 | 12/29/2020 |
R67
He never was on the same level as Bogarde, as an actor and celebrity.
by Anonymous | reply 71 | 12/29/2020 |
r71, maybe, but Dirk didn't come out even after he retired
by Anonymous | reply 72 | 12/29/2020 |
R72
And he still did more for gay rights with his role in The Victim.
by Anonymous | reply 73 | 12/29/2020 |
He took the role in Victim while insisting that he was straight
by Anonymous | reply 74 | 12/29/2020 |
It’s like David Tyler, who lives with his real estate agent, Cartwright.
by Anonymous | reply 75 | 12/29/2020 |
R74
Insisting he was gay was punished by law. The movie actually changed it.
by Anonymous | reply 76 | 12/29/2020 |
The movie alone didn't change the laws
by Anonymous | reply 77 | 12/29/2020 |
Dirk and Alexis Smith were BFFs.
by Anonymous | reply 78 | 12/29/2020 |
The way he broke down at R12, I felt really sad for him. Him talking about what he remembered seeing during the war was really heartbreaking.
by Anonymous | reply 79 | 12/29/2020 |
Except he only saw it on film.
by Anonymous | reply 80 | 12/29/2020 |
After WWII nearly every other Frenchman or woman was claiming to have been part of the Resistance. So much so that real members of that movement quipped that if numbers were true the Germans would have never lasted long as they did in France.
British and other allied elsewhere were all bathing themselves in glory as having "been there" when this or that horror camp was liberated. Over the years these sort of war tales grew in ways that they do as men recount their "glory days".
This happens with almost every war; people want to attach themselves to whatever major event that dominates historical record. Men who had a "good war" and thus were no where near any front all of a sudden start telling tales of how they were among first troops to liberate Paris......
by Anonymous | reply 81 | 12/29/2020 |
R81, Do you actually have any proof that he was lying about being involved in the war otherwise put a sock in it, whore!
by Anonymous | reply 82 | 12/29/2020 |
Even John Coldstream (in his editing of the letters) occasionally comments on DB's embellishment of his wartime experiences, especially in Asia. And he's being tactful.
DB was, like most vets, inclined to exaggerate when relating their "war stories."
by Anonymous | reply 83 | 12/29/2020 |
R45: I love the totally appropriate Italian re-titling of I COULD GO ON SINGING, and the poster's graphics.
"Shadow Over the Stage Production." The "Eyeties" were basically outing Bogarde here.
by Anonymous | reply 84 | 12/29/2020 |
He lied about even the most mundane details of his life. In the family documentary his sister and nephew giggle about his outrageous lies, big and small. .
by Anonymous | reply 85 | 12/29/2020 |
[Quote]DB was, like most vets, inclined to exaggerate when relating their "war stories."
Most vets exaggerate? Maybe those safely behind the lines. Combat vets are notorious for not wanting to talk about their experiences. They're simply too painful.
by Anonymous | reply 86 | 12/29/2020 |
Ronald Reagan made up a WW2 military career. John Kerry made up some shit about Vietnam. Hillary said she had to run for her life to get out of sniper fire in some European airport. It really is quite surprising that Tramp merely claimed to have bonespurs, given his generally feeble grasp on reality.
by Anonymous | reply 87 | 12/29/2020 |
[quote] Bogarde was an intellectual
What makes you say that, R65?
His choice of film roles? His duplicating memoirs (which most likely had ghost-writers)?
by Anonymous | reply 88 | 12/29/2020 |
Still all of this aside DB left his distinct mark on film. This can never be taken away from him. What a hypnotic bugger.
by Anonymous | reply 89 | 12/29/2020 |
DB was an intell officer.
by Anonymous | reply 90 | 12/29/2020 |
Of course he was.
by Anonymous | reply 91 | 12/29/2020 |
[quote] DB left his distinct mark on film
He left his mark making comedy records
by Anonymous | reply 92 | 12/29/2020 |
Handsome, very good actor. I understand why he stayed in the closet. Different times and laws. But he has long relationship which was open secret to many.
by Anonymous | reply 94 | 12/29/2020 |
His other contribution to comedy was this farrago
"The Singer Not the Song" (1960) full of camp, petulance and passive aggression because they refused to pay for Marlon Brando to star opposite him.
by Anonymous | reply 95 | 12/29/2020 |
R92. Oh, dear. That certainly hasn't survived the test of time. His fan girls must have loved filling their homes with the sound of his dreamy voice.
by Anonymous | reply 96 | 12/29/2020 |
What "shit" did John Kerry "make up" about Vietnam, R88?
by Anonymous | reply 97 | 12/29/2020 |
[quote] "shit"
It is everywhere nowdays, R97. There are four parcels of it in this thread already.
by Anonymous | reply 98 | 12/29/2020 |
When I was a gayling I thought he was the most handsome man I'd ever seen. He had a lovely voice as well.
I think it was Sarah Miles who said despite spending many weekends at Dirk and Tony's home Dirk remained closeted even to her and other friends. They'd roll their eyes behind his back.
by Anonymous | reply 99 | 12/29/2020 |
Bogarde was one of the first Allied officers in April 1945 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.[6]
Women survivors in Bergen-Belsen collecting their bread ration after their liberation, April 1945 "I think it was on the 13th of April—I'm not quite sure what the date was" [it was the 15th] "—in '44" [sic, the camp was liberated on the 15th April 1945, and it was the 20th April 1945 when Bogarde made his visit] "when we opened up Belsen Camp, which was the first concentration camp any of us had seen, we didn't even know what they were, we'd heard vague rumours that they were. I mean nothing could be worse than that. The gates were opened and then I realised that I was looking at Dante's Inferno, I mean ... I ... I still haven't seen anything as dreadful. And never will. And a girl came up who spoke English, because she recognised one of the badges, and she ... her breasts were like, sort of, empty purses, she had no top on, and a pair of man's pyjamas, you know, the prison pyjamas, and no hair. But I knew she was girl because of her breasts, which were empty. She was I suppose, oh I don't know, twenty four, twenty five, and we talked, and she was, you know, so excited and thrilled, and all around us there were mountains of dead people, I mean mountains of them, and they were slushy, and they were slimy, so when you walked through them ... or walked—you tried not to, but it was like .... well you just walked through them, and she ... there was a very nice British MP [Royal Military Police], and he said 'Don't have any more, come away, come away sir, if you don't mind, because they've all got typhoid and you'll get it, you shouldn't be here swanning-around' and she saw in the back of the jeep, the unexpired portion of the daily ration, wrapped in a piece of the Daily Mirror, and she said could she have it, and he" [the Military Police] "said 'Don't give her food, because they eat it immediately and they die, within ten minutes', but she didn't want the food, she wanted the piece of Daily Mirror—she hadn't seen newsprint for about eight years or five years, whatever it was she had been in the camp for. ... she was Estonian. ... that's all she wanted. She gave me a big kiss, which was very moving. The corporal" [Military Police] "was out of his mind and I was just dragged off. I never saw her again, of course she died. I mean, I gather they all did. But, I can't really describe it very well, I don't really want to. I went through some of the huts and there were tiers and tiers of rotting people, but some of them who were alive underneath the rot, and were lifting their heads and trying .... trying to do the victory thing. That was the worst."[4]
by Anonymous | reply 100 | 12/29/2020 |
"After the war I always knew that nothing, nothing, could ever be as bad ... but nothing could frighten me any more, I mean, no man could frighten me any more, no Director ... nothing could be as bad as the war, or the things I saw in the war."[4] The horror and revulsion at the cruelty and inhumanity that he witnessed still left him with a deep-seated hostility towards Germany; in the late 1980s he wrote that he would disembark from a lift rather than ride with a German of his generation.[7] Nevertheless, three of his more memorable film roles were as Germans, one of them as a former SS officer in The Night Porter (1974).[8] Bogarde was most vocal, towards the end of his life, on voluntary euthanasia, of which he became a staunch proponent after witnessing the protracted death of his lifelong partner and manager Anthony Forwood (the former husband of actress Glynis Johns) in 1988. He gave an interview to John Hofsess, London executive director of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society: "My views were formulated as a 24-year-old officer in Normandy ... On one occasion the jeep ahead hit a mine ... Next thing I knew, there was this chap in the long grass beside me. A bloody bundle, shrapnel-ripped, legless, one arm only. The one arm reached out to me, white eyeballs wide, unseeing, in the bloody mask that had been a face. A gurgling voice said, "Help. Kill me." With shaking hands I reached for my small pouch to load my revolver ... I had to look for my bullets—by which time somebody else had already taken care of him. I heard the shot. I still remember that gurgling sound. A voice pleading for death .... During the war I saw more wounded men being "taken care of" than I saw being rescued. Because sometimes you were too far from a dressing station, sometimes you couldn't get them out. And they were pumping blood or whatever; they were in such a wreck, the only thing to do was to shoot them. And they were, so don't think they weren't. That hardens you: You get used to the fact that it can happen. And that it is the only sensible thing to do."
by Anonymous | reply 101 | 12/29/2020 |
R100 R101 are from wikipedia based on tv interview in 1986.
by Anonymous | reply 102 | 12/29/2020 |
I lived near him in London. For those of us who early punks ( 76 onwards ) his films were iconic so when I saw him on the street it was always a bit of a moment. In those days it wasn’t unusual to see well known actors around town and, as it was before the Internet and mobile phones and also a period in which people were more respectful of privacy, they were always left alone. However I have never seen anyone that well known give off such an intense impression of insularity and unapproachability.
Then again, he always looked in an absolutely foul mood.
by Anonymous | reply 103 | 12/29/2020 |
Kerry claimed to be descended from Irish catholics which I am sure went down well in Boston. In fact he is descended fron Austrian Jews and his real name is Cohen.
by Anonymous | reply 104 | 12/29/2020 |
The war stories cited @ r100 and r101 are untrue, but wouldn't it be nice if they were?
by Anonymous | reply 105 | 12/29/2020 |
Christopher Lee was another one who exaggerated his war record
by Anonymous | reply 106 | 12/29/2020 |
R105 They are? Sorry, I didn’t know. He didn’t liberate camps? Or why aren’t they?
by Anonymous | reply 107 | 12/29/2020 |
R95 "That certainly hasn't survived the test of time'
That 'Lyrics for Lovers' album must have seemed arch and camp even in 1960.
It's very easy to mock him in all his campery but, on the other hand, I'm sorry that his contract manager John Davis refused to allow him to appear in 'Gigi'. He would have been VERY pretty in that very pretty film. And Dirk's 'sprechstimme' is preferable to Louis Jourdan's which was abysmal.
by Anonymous | reply 109 | 12/29/2020 |
John Ford was another shameless fabricator of WW2 epxeriences.
Check out Anthony Asquith's LIBEL (59), co-starring DL Icon Olivia de Havilland. Dirk plays three roles, including a POW who's as camp as a row of tents.
by Anonymous | reply 110 | 12/29/2020 |
R109 Minnelli like Jourdan better.
by Anonymous | reply 111 | 12/29/2020 |
Did Jourdan blow Minnelli?
by Anonymous | reply 112 | 12/29/2020 |
[quote]Dirk and Alexis Smith were BFFs.
Does EVERY thread have to mention "Follies"?
by Anonymous | reply 113 | 12/29/2020 |
Who here has had him?
One gets the impression he didn't get much action, but this may be another of his constructions although John Frasier did suggest DB was sex starved IIRC
by Anonymous | reply 115 | 12/29/2020 |
They're only "controversial" because a Karl Rove/pro-Bush billionaire-funded astroturf group lied about Kerry's record, giving us the political term "Swift Boating." (R98)
by Anonymous | reply 116 | 12/29/2020 |
Did Helmut Berger write about DB? They must have known each other especially during the Dolce Vita of 1960s Rome and Cinecitta.
by Anonymous | reply 117 | 12/29/2020 |
From that TV interview, I think he would be fun to know. His reminiscence of Garland is very moving, one of the best descriptions I've ever heard about what she was really like.
by Anonymous | reply 119 | 12/29/2020 |
My asshole is so soft and supple.
by Anonymous | reply 120 | 12/29/2020 |
^ Dirk, is that you?
by Anonymous | reply 121 | 12/29/2020 |
He dated Blanche Deveraux.
[quote]Blanche: [about Dirk] This is strictly off the record, but Dirk's nearly five years younger than I am.
[quote]Dorothy:In what, Blanche? Dog years?
by Anonymous | reply 122 | 12/29/2020 |
[Quote] Why do those photos look like Desi Arnez and not Dirk Bogarde? I've never confused the two, but there is absolutely a striking resemblance.
That is exactly my point.
by Anonymous | reply 123 | 12/29/2020 |
And not much has changed when it comes to actors hiding in the closet.
by Anonymous | reply 125 | 12/29/2020 |
Endlessly fascinated by his relationship with his partner. He fulfilled ultimate DL dream - got straight married guy to fall in love with him.
by Anonymous | reply 127 | 12/30/2020 |
[quote]Dirk Bogarde - born Derek Niven van den Bogaerde.
Was he Dutch?
by Anonymous | reply 128 | 12/30/2020 |
R128, he was born in Britain but I believe his father was Dutch
by Anonymous | reply 129 | 12/30/2020 |
R103: when you saw him, he was (as his letters reveal) in deep depression after Tony died, drinking heavily, fretting constantly about money and his book sales, living in reduced circumstances (a one-bedroom flat), and moaning fogyishly about the decline of London and its grotty inhabitants (even Sloane Square).
by Anonymous | reply 130 | 12/30/2020 |
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was his Dutch cousin.
by Anonymous | reply 131 | 12/30/2020 |
[Quote]he was born in Britain but I believe his father was Dutch
He lied about this as well. His family was Belgian which he found tacky I guess . In his mind Dutch was better.
by Anonymous | reply 132 | 12/30/2020 |
Belgium was regarded as the Runt of Europe: they put the EU Commission in Brussels because they couldn't find anywhere less controversial between France and Germany. The thing about Belgium is that it has prospered greatly with the EU: Eurocrats are paid tax-free and it shows: Belgium is a rich country with all the duty-free money.
by Anonymous | reply 133 | 12/30/2020 |
They were a handsome couple
by Anonymous | reply 135 | 12/31/2020 |
Was he a fabulist in his private life, as well, or was the persona just for public consumption?
by Anonymous | reply 137 | 12/31/2020 |
Great Dirk documentary.
[quote]Family lore has it that one of his Scottish uncles seduced him. By the time he was called up for the army, it would appear that his sexuality was determined. “A war finds you out, I’m afraid,” he wrote in his autobiography. But just how much he never told. According to his brother and sister, he omitted from his accounts of arriving in liberated Belsen or serving as an aerial reconnaissance officer in Normandy a number of affairs with fellow officers, among them a hero of the D-Day run. In a will made on 30 May 1944, he leaves to Tony Jones, a lieutenant in the RNVR: “The picture in my room of the cloth tower in Ypres, and my silver ring from my left hand.” As Gareth says, “In the army he had a treasure trove of a way of life in which he could indulge and after the war that needed to be regulated.” Another Tony rescued him.
[quote]Dirk Bogarde and Tony Forwood had met at the start of the war. On 28 October 1940, Dirk was playing at Amersham rep in Grief Goes Over when Tony, who couldn’t get in to see Edison, the Man at the local cinema, went to the theatre instead. He worked as an agent for the West End management firm HM Tennant’s and, impressed by Dirk’s performance, gave him his card. Six years later, demobbed and looking for a job, Dirk knocked at Tony’s door in Chesham Mews and, as he tells it, a flu-ridden Tony dropped the key from an upstairs window. Within a year Dirk had made his first Rank film and Tony, now separated from his wife and young son, had moved into Dirk’s house in Chester Row. Forty years later they were still together. “I don’t think there was a night they were apart,” says Elizabeth. Confusion surrounds their partnership. “I was aware that his relationship with Tony in the early days was a homosexual relationship,” says Dirk's younger brother Gareth.
[quote]Under the surface lay a lot of terror. In 1950, Dirk’s brother Gareth had lived with Dirk and Tony in London. “I remember Dirk ranting and shouting. Once he reduced me to tears. I asked Tony: ‘Why did he do this?’ and Tony said : ‘Have you ever seen anyone chew the carpet? Your brother will from time to time.'” Tony was one of very few able to rein him in. “Like a cat has a particular sofa arm to scratch and to tear,” says Gareth, “Tony was that. He absorbed a huge amount of Dirk’s fury.”
[quote]At the heart of Dirk’s fury, believes Gareth, lay his fear of being found out – and not just sexually. “Because the whole point was that it was a mystery. What you have with him is an immensely mercurial, brilliant character who, I believe, had no personality of his own. What he had was what part he chose to be for the day, rather like putting on a tie in the morning. What shall I take out of the cupboard today; what shall I be?’ And I think without being able to do that he was adrift. He had a horror of all the bits of the jigsaw coming together.”
by Anonymous | reply 138 | 01/01/2021 |
He had, rare for movie actors and English ones especially in those days, quite a fabulous tan.
by Anonymous | reply 139 | 01/01/2021 |
[quote][R103]: when you saw him, he was (as his letters reveal) in deep depression after Tony died, drinking heavily, fretting constantly about money and his book sales, living in reduced circumstances (a one-bedroom flat), and moaning fogyishly about the decline of London and its grotty inhabitants (even Sloane Square).
Sounds like Morrissey.
by Anonymous | reply 140 | 01/01/2021 |
R7 He looks like Ricky Ricardo in that pic ...still handsome
by Anonymous | reply 141 | 01/01/2021 |
"According to his brother and sister, he omitted from his accounts of arriving in liberated Belsen or serving as an aerial reconnaissance officer in Normandy a number of affairs with fellow officers, among them a hero of the D-Day run."
I want to see Dirk: the Early Years where he gets it on with lots of hot military men!
by Anonymous | reply 142 | 01/01/2021 |
Sorry, but his family sounds like a bunch of pretentious vicious pricks. He obviously wasn't easy man to be with, but it seems like he loved his family, he left a lot of money to his nephew Brock and pension to his sister. What's the point of exposing him so much after his death? I am not talking about his affairs with men, but all those bitter stories about his personality. I see a lot of bitterness in everything i read from his family.
by Anonymous | reply 143 | 01/01/2021 |
He was very unkind and bitchy to his family. At some point he wanted his brother to refer to him as Sir. You can't demean others for decades and expect them to hold you in high regard when you're gone
by Anonymous | reply 144 | 01/01/2021 |
He looks just like Desi Arnaz. Seriously, twins .
by Anonymous | reply 145 | 01/01/2021 |
You do realize, though, R145, that someone posted a couple of pictures of Desi Arnaz early in this thread and said they were Dirk Bogarde?
by Anonymous | reply 146 | 01/01/2021 |
R144
As i said, he obviously wasn't easy man. From what i read, he was very jealous of his younger brother Gsreth when he was born, to the point where his parents decided to send him to relatives in Glasgow who mentally, physically and most likely sexually abused him. It's a lot for a child. It's surprising that he had relationship with his family at all. If he were so bitchy and bitter, he would've leave his money to some dog charity.
by Anonymous | reply 147 | 01/01/2021 |
I'd be very interested to learn about his hook ups with guys in the film industry. He must have had them I would think. I wonder if Helmut pounded Dirk's hole?
by Anonymous | reply 148 | 01/01/2021 |
I kind of love the fact that he was a whore with multiple lovers.
by Anonymous | reply 149 | 01/02/2021 |
R149 At 24:20 in the doc at R138 they discuss Dirk’s army days and his siblings talk about boyfriends he had during those years; Tony Jones who was five years his senior, John Nelson and a third one who died in the war.
by Anonymous | reply 150 | 01/02/2021 |
Was Dirk the pass-around bottom of the British Army?
by Anonymous | reply 151 | 01/02/2021 |
[quote] Dirk didn't come out even after he retired
His 'retirement is a moot point', R72.
Dirk declared 'Death In Venice' was 'Ne plus ultra' in 1971.
Yet he succumbed and appeared in TEN return appearances in the following 19 years.
by Anonymous | reply 152 | 01/02/2021 |
He was prettier than Jean back in '49.
There were both pretty. The costumes were pretty, The decor was pretty. It was
by Anonymous | reply 153 | 01/02/2021 |
Terence Stamp’s latest book talks about the movie they were in together and how he was basically a narcissistic asshole.
by Anonymous | reply 155 | 01/03/2021 |
R155 oh cringe. When actors talk about other actors, it’s like throwing stones at glass houses. That being said I’m a sucker for gossip and I’d definitely read his book. I can imagine Dirk was a bit guarded and possibly judgemental of the younger set such as Stamp after all he probably didn’t want Stamp to walk away with the picture
by Anonymous | reply 156 | 01/03/2021 |
I checked Bogarde threads here, and it seems like he didn't get along with people like Sean Connery, Richard Burton and now Terrence Stamp. All three have reputations of assholes. He got along fine with people like Michael York and James Fox. And it seems like he was friends with all the actresses he worked with.
by Anonymous | reply 158 | 01/03/2021 |
"Terence Stamp’s latest book talks about the movie they were in together and how he was basically a narcissistic asshole."
Terence is one to talk....
by Anonymous | reply 159 | 01/03/2021 |
[quote] the movie they were in together and how he was basically a narcissistic asshole.
Bogarde was playing a ruthless effete criminal who wanted to kill Terence Stamp.
Wiki describes how the filming got very messy with its Italian star (whose dialogue was unintelligible) and its egotistical director (who was in favour at the time but she soon fell out of fashion).
by Anonymous | reply 160 | 01/03/2021 |
He was wonderful, although the US critics didn't think so in Alain Resnais' "Providence" (1977) with Gielgud, Ellen Burstyn, David Warner, and Elaine Stritch.
by Anonymous | reply 163 | 01/04/2021 |
I admired his courage, though some think he was a coward. To be 33 and in the closet when Alan Turing died must have been quite frightening. Then to take on The Victim wa last a strong statement about sexuality. It helped change the laws.
by Anonymous | reply 164 | 01/04/2021 |
R165 Yeah, surprised it took 165 comments to get to the Servant on DL. Not a great film, but a hallmark of auteur perversion. Losey was the great British hope to match Truffaut and Godard for a London minute. I think Bogarde enjoyed the part just a little too much....
by Anonymous | reply 166 | 01/05/2021 |
I thought he and James Fox had tons of chemistry
by Anonymous | reply 167 | 01/05/2021 |
Here's James Fox talking about Dirk, Tony Forwood, The Servant (07:30) and the homoeroticism of it. It's a great doc, it also features Björn Andrésen who played Tadzio in Death in Venice.
by Anonymous | reply 168 | 01/05/2021 |
[italic]Sebastian[/italic] got my attention when I was a kid. Even then I liked anything spy or espionage related and this had a word game at the beginning. He was very handsome, though uptight on film.
by Anonymous | reply 169 | 01/05/2021 |
Well, in that photo, he looks like a de-bloated Desi Arnaz
by Anonymous | reply 170 | 01/05/2021 |
Born Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde on March 28, 1921.
by Anonymous | reply 171 | 01/05/2021 |
^ He is wearing one of those ever-so-soft woollen pullovers.
My mother tells me he was known for wearing them draped over his shoulders like a woman would drape her mink.
by Anonymous | reply 172 | 01/05/2021 |
Was he a meek bottom?
by Anonymous | reply 174 | 01/05/2021 |
I doubt Dirk was meek anything.
by Anonymous | reply 176 | 01/05/2021 |
[quote] I doubt Dirk was meek anything.
Have you seen this Camp-O-Rama drama?
by Anonymous | reply 177 | 01/05/2021 |
R177
Still not meek. Just hilarious.
by Anonymous | reply 178 | 01/06/2021 |
Let’s not forget Dirk wore white socks
by Anonymous | reply 179 | 01/06/2021 |
R6 That's a lovely pic of two pretty men together. I wish they could have embraced for the camera.
I know both of them appeared in a lot of trashy movies but IMDB said Dirk was asked to appear in this one.
His role was eventually taken by Nigel Green which is probably for the good because Dirk is TOO effeminate to play soldiers.
by Anonymous | reply 180 | 01/06/2021 |
Too effeminate to play soldiers? He WAS a soldier.
by Anonymous | reply 181 | 01/06/2021 |
[quote] He WAS a soldier.
I don't believe you. He was as much a soldier as the effete, epicene David Niven was a soldier.
by Anonymous | reply 182 | 01/06/2021 |
Well, they both served in the military, which - gasp - makes them soldiers
by Anonymous | reply 183 | 01/06/2021 |
They and Peter Ustinov spent their time behind a desk.
Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, DBE ferociously attacked Bogarde's characterisation of her late husband Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Browning, GCVO, KBE, CB, DSO (1896 – 1965) in the 1977 film 'A Bridge Too Far'.
She said it was effeminate and negative 'poncing around with white gloves'. Edward Fox said Bogarde was impersonating Freddie Browning completely wrongly. It was as if "he set out to play him as a poofy waiter."
by Anonymous | reply 184 | 01/06/2021 |
[quote] Sir Dirk Bogarde Any fans?
Well, thank you for asking, OP. But I have a love/hate feeling for him.
by Anonymous | reply 185 | 01/06/2021 |
R184, Du Maurier was a dyke with self-loathing issues. And the site you linked to rightly calls Edward Fox a hypocrite for mocking Bogarde.
by Anonymous | reply 186 | 01/06/2021 |
Edward and James Fox look like twins.
by Anonymous | reply 187 | 01/06/2021 |
I can't agree, R187. I feel James, seen in R165, has a retroussé nose whereas as Edward's is rather beaky.
by Anonymous | reply 188 | 01/06/2021 |
I admire their relationship.
by Anonymous | reply 191 | 01/07/2021 |
^. Read the memoirs. They are disorganised and repetitive and their relationship sounds rather sad.
by Anonymous | reply 192 | 01/07/2021 |
In OP's photo he looks JUST LIKE Desi Arnaz.
by Anonymous | reply 193 | 01/07/2021 |
A repetitive couple?
by Anonymous | reply 194 | 01/08/2021 |
He was adorable
by Anonymous | reply 196 | 01/08/2021 |
I bet he broke a lot of hearts in his army days.
by Anonymous | reply 198 | 01/08/2021 |
I liked The Servant a lot when I saw it for the first time on the Criterion Channel recently, but I was really expecting much more homoeroticism. There was hardly any, frankly.
by Anonymous | reply 199 | 01/08/2021 |
That photo was taken when I was a mere child - only 110 years old!
by Anonymous | reply 203 | 01/23/2021 |
R202 He played host to three visiting older Hollywood ladies; Olivia, Alexis and Judy.
by Anonymous | reply 204 | 01/23/2021 |
I reckon this cutie is a 21st century version of Dirk.
Cute face, nondescript body, financially well-off and an ex-RADA student,
by Anonymous | reply 205 | 01/23/2021 |
Hello Joel. And no.
by Anonymous | reply 206 | 01/23/2021 |
R194 The memoirs are disorganised and repetitive. It was planned for one volume but then stretched out and repeated into 4 volumes.
My opinion is that the relationship was sad as they descended into geriatrics and Dirk was offered trashy roles unsuited to his opinion of his status.
by Anonymous | reply 207 | 01/23/2021 |
[Quote] the relationship was sad as they descended into geriatrics
Punctuated with copious rentboys??
by Anonymous | reply 208 | 01/23/2021 |
The fact that they grew old together is significant on it's own. And if it's sad, well, no surprising, it's not a lot of gun to grew old and to lose your beauty and health.
Though I read that Dirk didn't mention his partner a lot even in the memoirs.
by Anonymous | reply 209 | 01/23/2021 |
[quote] Dirk didn't mention his partner
and he certainly didn't mention
[quote] copious rentboys
The overlong memoirs are as inoffensive as possible. After all, there were still thousand of housewives in Hounslow and Hackness who still melted at the sound Dirk's dulcet tones.
by Anonymous | reply 210 | 01/23/2021 |
Ryan Murphy, please make a series about these two!
by Anonymous | reply 211 | 01/23/2021 |
Women of a certain age loved Dirk Bogarde. I wonder if they ever knew he was gay.
by Anonymous | reply 212 | 01/23/2021 |
r211 = Darrin Criss
by Anonymous | reply 213 | 01/24/2021 |
He was always handsome
by Anonymous | reply 215 | 01/25/2021 |
I'd describe him as pretty rather than handsome.
He was inordinately pretty during the 50s. He was prettier and more delicate than hs female co-stars.
But during the 70s and 80s —and the crow's-feet cast deep lines across his face, he seemed to have shrunk as he transformed into a geriatric— he took on a creepy resemblance to Ronnie Corbett (and you Americans will need Google who that person is).
by Anonymous | reply 216 | 01/25/2021 |
I think he aged really well. He was beautiful even when he was old.
by Anonymous | reply 217 | 01/25/2021 |
[Quote] he took on a creepy resemblance to Ronnie Corbett
Pull the other one.
by Anonymous | reply 219 | 01/26/2021 |
[quote]Dirk Bogarde waiting outside for the plane, London, 1963.
by Anonymous | reply 220 | 01/26/2021 |
^ Look how he still wears his pompadour rather than elevator shoes to give him some height.
He's talking about himself rather than the film he's attending.
by Anonymous | reply 222 | 01/26/2021 |
[quote]Dirk and his parents Margaret and Ulric outside Beel House, shot by Tony Forwood in Amersham, 1960.
by Anonymous | reply 223 | 01/27/2021 |
^ that gif must be from 1960 when he was impersonating Franz Liszt (and the director died on him)
by Anonymous | reply 224 | 01/27/2021 |
^ he kept his child-like chest well into his 40s
by Anonymous | reply 225 | 02/02/2021 |
his auto bios are wonderful. highly recommend..
by Anonymous | reply 226 | 02/02/2021 |
I try to be positive, R226.
The most interesting thing he revealed in his meandering, opaque, repetitive four-volume memoirs was the torture of working to a contract to J. Arthur Rank.
He told a dirty anecdote about John Davis that I just wonder if it was true— or whether it was dreamed up in the fevered mind of the precious, frustrated ex-movie star.
by Anonymous | reply 227 | 02/02/2021 |
you did not read the same books i read. filled with awesome tales of adventure and a rich life.
by Anonymous | reply 228 | 02/02/2021 |
^ Dirk was an adorable twink
by Anonymous | reply 232 | 02/10/2021 |
Bogarde is entertaining as a Warhol-esque "evil genius" villain in *Modesty Blaise*. It's a kooky movie, as if the campy world of the early B52s' songs had been made real. Directed by Joseph Losey. It was Monica Vitti's first English-speaking part, as the heroine. It's on youtube, entire, for free, fairly high quality version.
by Anonymous | reply 233 | 02/10/2021 |
R12, thank you. That was a great interview/talk.
by Anonymous | reply 234 | 02/10/2021 |
Sir John Gielgud was outed in worst way (caught soliciting gay sex), but apparently survived the scandal which didn't harm his career.
by Anonymous | reply 236 | 02/13/2021 |
What do you mean by apparently?
by Anonymous | reply 237 | 02/13/2021 |
[quote] apparently
He wasn't frozen out of the industry like Kevin Spacey and Ingrid Bergman and that Italian woman in the news this week.
by Anonymous | reply 238 | 02/13/2021 |
He looks like Desi Arnaz.
by Anonymous | reply 239 | 02/13/2021 |
I liked how Sir John had the starring role —with silly Dirk in a supporting role—in this partly-entertaining, strange and cryptic piece of cinema.
by Anonymous | reply 240 | 02/13/2021 |
[quote] He looks like Desi Arnaz.
Only to the wilfully-ignorant!
You can educate yourself by looking at all the sundry links in this thread and the sundry videos on Youtube. You should know that Vincent Minelli INSISTED he star in the 'Gigi'.
by Anonymous | reply 241 | 02/13/2021 |
The Gigi?
by Anonymous | reply 242 | 02/13/2021 |
** the big-budget, $3 million-plus lavish MGM musical 'Gigi' **
by Anonymous | reply 243 | 02/13/2021 |
Can it be true that the feline, euphuistic, homosexual Dirk be related to that pseudo-tough-guy Humphrey (who looked as though he had Parkinsons)
[quote] Jules Niven van den Bogaerde was born on the 28 March 1921 in London, England. He had a Scottish mother, Margaret Niven and a father, Ulric van den Bogaerde, an Englishman of Flemish ancestry. Margaret was the daughter of actor Humphrey Bogart.
by Anonymous | reply 244 | 02/13/2021 |
Dirk Bogarde is much bigger star than Gielgud. If you trying to turn it into some sort of competition - openly gay Gielgud in main role, closeted Bogarde in supporting, well, that's just stupid. Screenplay needed actor like Gielgud in main role, that's it.
Also let's not pretend that Gielgud came out as gay on his own will. He was caught and didn't have a choice. It's great that his career survived though.
by Anonymous | reply 245 | 02/13/2021 |
Mine didn't.
by Anonymous | reply 246 | 02/13/2021 |
I detested Night Porter.
by Anonymous | reply 247 | 02/13/2021 |
^ All the characters in 'Night Porter' were detestable.
'The Damned' were also unlovely.
by Anonymous | reply 248 | 02/13/2021 |
But the Doctor In The House darlings...
by Anonymous | reply 249 | 02/13/2021 |
r245, Gielgud was outed. He never actually came out, btw. Being outed doesn't mean you have to come out - Larry Craig and John Travolta were outed but they never came out of the closet.
Btw, even though his career ultimately survived (he was probably "too big to fail" at that point - this was just after he was knighted) he did face some blowback. I know he had some problems getting a visa to work in the US because of his arrest. John Wolfitt (famous British actor and big homophobe) started a petition to ban him from working in the theater but pretty much no one signed it because Gielgud was so respected by his peers
by Anonymous | reply 250 | 02/13/2021 |
Donald Wolfit.
by Anonymous | reply 251 | 02/13/2021 |
Oops, yes, I meant Donald Wolfit
by Anonymous | reply 252 | 02/13/2021 |
Donald Wolfit was a fuzzbuzz who had issues of his own (and had other reasons to dislike Gielgud).
He was an independent actor-manager who ruled own poorly-paid company with a rod or iron.
Gielgud/Olivier/Richardson were in the inner-circle establishment of Binkie Beaumont/West End/Old Vic/Sadlers Wells (who accepted the dandies and the queer folk).
He made very few films (he got the role in 'Svengali' because the the original star was drunk; he got the role in 'Becket' because Drunkard O'Toole wanted him).
by Anonymous | reply 253 | 02/13/2021 |
I suspect another person out of sympathy with Gielgud was Anthony Quayle.
John Gielgud had some guest starring roles in the nascent Royal Shakespeare Company when Anthony Quayle was managing it in the early 50s.
The young John Osborne (who was rather fey and epicene) observed that Quayle really preferred to employ actors who were masculine.
by Anonymous | reply 254 | 02/13/2021 |
Dirk looks so happy there!
by Anonymous | reply 256 | 02/14/2021 |
What a beautiful couple. Whole life together.
by Anonymous | reply 257 | 02/14/2021 |
Didn't Tony make a few sex tapes? He must have
by Anonymous | reply 258 | 02/15/2021 |
Wolfit was a major ham. Quayle was good but pretty much second tier.
by Anonymous | reply 259 | 02/15/2021 |
[quote] Wolfit was a major ham.
Meryl Streep is a major ham.
by Anonymous | reply 260 | 02/16/2021 |
Laurence. Olivier was a tour de force.
Donald Wolfit was forced to tour.
by Anonymous | reply 261 | 02/18/2021 |
Dirk Bogarde was used a chaperone for elderly Hollywood lady-stars as they descended into B Movies in England.
Dirk hosted Alexis Smith. Olivia AND Judy Garland.
Just like that other homosexual Emlyn Williams chaperoned old Bette as she descended into B Movies in England in a pay-boiler called 'Another Man’s Poison' in 1951.
by Anonymous | reply 262 | 02/19/2021 |
He was a Jungle Jezebel!
by Anonymous | reply 263 | 02/19/2021 |
Judy visiting Dirk and Tony's Drummers Yard house in Buckinghamshire, 1961.
by Anonymous | reply 264 | 02/20/2021 |
He was a Judy queen!
by Anonymous | reply 265 | 02/20/2021 |
R265 He was a Judy queen!
Let's be frank, he was a little girly.
Not quite effeminate but definitely effete.
by Anonymous | reply 267 | 02/20/2021 |
You can see Tony in a few low-budget noirs made for Hammer (before they turned to horror movies) in the early- to mid-50s. He wore a dinner jacket very well. He quit the business in 1955.
by Anonymous | reply 268 | 02/20/2021 |
[quote] With Ava Gardner
We need to add her to Dirk's list of fading beauty queens, Alexis , Livvy, Judy and Ava.
by Anonymous | reply 270 | 02/21/2021 |
There's a Dirk marathon coming up on TCM tomorrow.
by Anonymous | reply 271 | 02/22/2021 |
My little humpback? A beauty queen?!
by Anonymous | reply 272 | 02/22/2021 |
Well, Louis B Mayer, R272, you didn't try hard enough.
You had the chance to buy Dirk out of his crippling contract with J Arthur Rank and make him a proper Metro star of the big-budget, $3 million-plus lavish musical 'Gigi'.
But you went off and looked after your own personal needs!
by Anonymous | reply 273 | 02/22/2021 |
Never thought a thread on Dirk Bogarde would garner this many responses. Is Laurence Harvey next?
by Anonymous | reply 274 | 02/23/2021 |
[quote] Is Laurence Harvey next?
Please no! Llarushka was an skinny user who could only play one character type on screen.
Whereas Dirk was dichotomous.
One one hand, he had a pretty surname, pretty face and appeared in some interesting movies.
While on the other hand he was a po-faced, prissy performer who lived 20 years ahead of his time.
by Anonymous | reply 275 | 02/23/2021 |
I just watched "Victim" on TCM. Our Mother's House and Death in Venice are on later today.
by Anonymous | reply 276 | 02/23/2021 |
The film 'Darling' was taken from a real-life episode experienced by writer Frederic Raphael.
Here at 2.00 he describes Bogarde as a 'weak, suburban hairdresser'.
Later on he noted the veins in the ageing Bogarde’s face and described them as a ‘map of his discreet excesses’.
by Anonymous | reply 278 | Last Friday at 5:38 PM |
Harry Styles is the reincarnated Dirk Bogarde.
by Anonymous | reply 279 | Last Friday at 5:51 PM |
Harry Styles is vulgar in his presentation. Dirk? Never!
by Anonymous | reply 280 | Last Friday at 6:08 PM |
Dirk was always presented as being supremely refined and elegant— even when attempting to play a juvenile delinquent.
by Anonymous | reply 281 | Last Friday at 6:12 PM |
Harry is too ugly and untalented to compare
by Anonymous | reply 282 | Last Friday at 6:31 PM |
I saw the Password is Courage an early 60s Dirk film on TCM. A real forgotten film. Supporting actor Alfred Lynch (who I never heard of ) was also very handsome.
by Anonymous | reply 284 | Last Saturday at 8:18 AM |
Nice to see that he lived until 2003. I'm so used to seeing 1980s or early 1990s deaths for gay actors.
by Anonymous | reply 286 | Last Saturday at 9:22 AM |
Dirk Bogarde to so gorgeous and a great actor as well.
by Anonymous | reply 288 | Last Saturday at 11:08 PM |
[quote] a great actor
Which was his greatest rôle?
by Anonymous | reply 289 | Last Sunday at 12:24 AM |
R289 He gave one of the greatest performances on film in Death in Venice.
by Anonymous | reply 290 | Last Sunday at 7:52 AM |
[quote] Death in Venice
He didn't get much chance to speak in that movie.
There's 25 lines of script in that 130 minute movie.
by Anonymous | reply 291 | Last Monday at 1:34 PM |
Dirk DID have a lovely speaking voice! Good consonants and lovely vowels.
But does he speak as beautifully as Jeremy Irons?
I think not. Jeremy can convey a warm emotional intensity whereas Dirk has a feline coldness.
by Anonymous | reply 292 | Last Monday at 8:36 PM |
Has Jeremy married his son yet?
by Anonymous | reply 293 | Last Monday at 8:43 PM |
What makes you think that Jeremy Irons wants to marry his son, R203?
by Anonymous | reply 294 | Last Monday at 9:13 PM |
* * * What makes you think that Jeremy Irons wants to marry his son, [R293]? * * *
by Anonymous | reply 295 | Last Monday at 10:15 PM |
R283 That gif really displays Dirk's open-mouthed beauty and lovely eyelashes.
by Anonymous | reply 298 | Last Tuesday at 4:08 PM |
[quote]“I thought of him as a gorgeous young man, but not really as a [italic]man[/italic]. He was such a giggler. I loved Dirk, and was hoping that perhaps we would be married one day; but I was dreaming, I was fantasising. Dirk and I were very close friends for a while, but I never really [italic]knew[/italic] him. I didn’t realise he was gay, in those days people didn’t talk about it” - [bold]Jean Simmons[/bold]
by Anonymous | reply 299 | Last Tuesday at 11:21 PM |
^ Both of them were at the height of their beauty in that film.
And they wore beautiful costumes as well. Cathleen Nesbitt was chilling.
And there were echoes of the plot in Dirk's film 'Death In Venice' 20 years later.
by Anonymous | reply 300 | Yesterday at 1:10 AM |
Yes indeed, we too use "cookies." Don't you just LOVE clicking on these things on every single site you visit? I know we do! You can thank the EU parliament for making everyone in the world click on these pointless things while changing absolutely nothing. If you are interested you can take a look at our privacy/terms or if you just want to see the damn site without all this bureaucratic nonsense, click ACCEPT and we'll set a dreaded cookie to make it go away. Otherwise, you'll just have to find some other site for your pointless bitchery needs.
Become a contributor - post when you want with no ads!