Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters

by Unknown

  Which does’nt get you far.

  Not with Ibsen in Italian, it does’nt.

  It would be lovely if you could come to us for your holiday … on the other hand it is possible that we could get to you in Sardeginia .... if I can leave the staff and house for some time .... but we dont have a lot of spare cash … lira but not francs … so the Colombe [d’Or] is dicey .... we were going up to stay with Simone [Signoret], but really .... I have a pool here, and my bar bills are far less expensive .... anyway: lets see. Keep me informed of your lobster-like movements and we’ll do all we can to meet you .... but not until after September 18th. We are, as they say, booked ‘solide’ with expatriats until about then .... and just remember what I said … I can get baked beans here … fresh from the tin. (Chilled they’ll give you a hard.) And if we try we can wrastle up some onions … Antonia cooks like a dream on charcoal … and the wine spills down from the vine … actually you could both come and do a little pressing! We start to gather about mid September ...... gather the grapes I mean .... so, anyway [ … ] keep us informed.

  Dont be too sad and depressed … this might be the best film you ever did .... and if it aint stop whining and think of the lolly! I hear that you have bought ‘next door’ in Chelsea! Goodness … what expansion … and here I am wondering if I can get a small Monastary in Tuscany … I can too, but they are huge. Want to come and see?

  My devoted love to you both … T. sends his, I know, but he is the new possesor of a super BMW 2800, white and black and terribly sexy and far too fucking fast for elderly fellows like me – and he’s washing it –

  I love you … and miss you … but thats your fault!

  Warmest wishes to you both and much happiness.

  Dirk

  I have reached the end of this letter without any idea WHATSOEVER of your address. You dont put one and Patricia sends nervous postcards from airports with ‘Tuesday’ written on them. Would Tuesday, South Spain, reach you. I doubt it … I’ll have to dial Robin.1 What fun. Actually we CAN dial direct to London … but so can everyone else ..... so one never gets through. D –

  To Joseph Losey

  (Postcard) Villa Berti

  16 October 1969

  Your letter made me feel sad! I’m fine! I have a film with Visconti in March. One with Resnais in June – & we are off to Tuscany to look at a house tomorrow. Life is’nt all that bad, Joe. It can, actually, be fun if you try! My love to you both – as ever. D.

  Luchino Visconti had asked Dirk to play Gustav von Aschenbach in Death in Venice. While waiting for production to start, Dirk had found, and begun the procedure to buy, Le Haut Clermont, a former farmhouse at Châteauneuf de Grasse.

  To Ann Skinner Villa Berti

  15 January 1970

  Dearest Beloved AS.

  What a smashing letter from N.Y. And it only took four days to get here! Quite a record considering that I am still getting Christmas Cards dated December 18th from places like Haywards Heath and Cowfold!

  I am so happy that you liked ‘Gotterdammerung’ … (I cant bring myself to use the American title.) .... the blood and sweat and tears were terrible … and even though the old sod cut me to buggery in order to give the Boy more screen time … I am proud as proud that I am in it.

  Is’nt it super too … that both ‘Lovely War’ and ‘Damned’ are on the N.Y. critics list of ten best! I mean thats a pretty good acheivement even if the customers dont call. Which in the case of the Visconti I am delighted to tell you that they do. Or are. And even in Italy we have started to make our Profits! And now all the battles rage because I have a modest 15% .... which I shall never ever see … but I am bloody well going to fight for it somehow.

  Returning to Viscontiville .... we were not dubbed, except in Italian, but Ingrid [Thulin] re dubbed herself and one other actor … Helmut Griem, dubbed himself.… I must confess that the accents did’nt really bother me that much … Visconti used German and English actors because he says, and I think he is right, that the Italians are only good singing in opera ..... as you recall from his other films, he tries not to use Italians if he can help it! [ … ] fortunatly I persuaded V. to import English actors from London .. and not use the Yanks here in Rome who do all the dubbing on every picture and sound exactly as if they were in the American Express Office.

  Now I am sitting in a damp heap of wet, Rome, rain .. waiting to start work with V. on ‘Death In Venice’ … which he has asked me to play. I feel a little sick at the idea, with nerves and terror, but long and long to do it .... we start shooting in mid March at the Lido in Venice … and then exteriors there. After that I hope, only hope, to be able to move into my new house in Grasse what I’v bought myself at a VAST cost!1 It is a small bergerie … (with not enough space.) .. built in 1642 … almost untoutched .. restored by a brilliant young painter who presently lives there with six small kids and a Maoist wife! It stands on the slope of a hill among twelve acres of giant olives .. and looks right down the plain to the bay of La Napoule. It is sheerest beauty .. and it is half an hour from Nice Airport … and thirty minutes from Cannes … and ten from Grasse. No swimming pool! I have to go up next week and sign the documents … and then it is mine … but I cant get the fellow out for three months from signiture … on account of his smelly little children and Easter … or something .... by which time I’ll be up to me cod piece in Venice .... anyway; I must be calm. And you are welcome anytime you care provided that you dont mind sleeping in an olive tree … we wont have a guest room for a year!

  In order to do all this I have had to become a Non Resident of GB. A beastly feeling .... but essential .... and after all it really does’nt mean so much … just that I can only stay for 100 days a year for the first four years .... but it does make you feel a tichy bit wobbley at first.

  In the Autum I hope to do a rather super film with Damiani2 … one of the greatest local Directors .... it’s terribly funny and sad.… a sort of ‘Zorba’ with me being a sort of [Alan] Bates … but much better! The other gentleman is a tremendous star in Europe … a wild bull of a man called Jean Pierre Volonte3 .... and everyone is very frightened of him … including me .... he has to chuck me in a harbour. And I cant swim. I hope he grows to love me. I’ll try to make him.

  Then … if all that works out I am going into another Visconti! Proust no less! Yippeee! It’s almost as regular as Box and Thomas!4 And a fucking sight more fun. Mind you the only thing that is FIRM is D in V. and the house in Grasse .. and that is that. I am not at the moment complaining. Do you remember the miseries of ‘Sebastian’ and how I said never again for sheer lolly? And went and gave a smashing perf. in ‘Justine’ which no one went to see and which I loathed. So now it’s for what money they can afford to pay me and what I can afford to live on and who is the director and what is the part … nothing else matters. I do wish I could work with Schles.1 but I dont think he terribly cares for my work .... and I long to work with T. Harvey … and nearly did once … and hope the chance will come again.2 Super that he is settling down in N.Y ..... not so long ago he was a timid and charming little director, floating about in the sea in Venice … and I congratulated him on his ‘little’ film .... and he said wistfully .... ‘well … I dont think anything will happen for me here … but I am just going to wait, and hope the lolly holds out, until the last day.’ And we all know what happened then!3 Is’nt life funny?

  Remember Lords and the hoses and the first Cont Sheets? .. and Arnoldie4 being devine as ever .... he writes occasionally … I have asked him to come and do D in V [ … ]

  I must write some more, dull, letters … I mean letters to dull people .... and then go and finish my reading in St Peters … doing a rather super two hour documentary for NBC5 with R. Richardson, E. Evans, O Wells and me … reading letters of Bonnie Prince Charlie (I am) and a HUGE chunk of Childe Harolde[.] Which unnerves me … 4am in St Peters is an odd hour … but your voice does’nt half sound lovely! All my love and from Tote .... Dirk – XXX

  To Jos
eph and Patricia Losey Villa Berti

  15 February 1970

  Well … actually we are still here at this Villa, which becomes increasingly miserable as the year goes on … a year ago yesterday I left England.6 What a lot happens in such a very comparitavly small time … small, anyway, as one gets older. I loved your two funny-grumpy-slush-and students letters! I do think you were DOTTY to go and try and teach the heathens.7 Almost as useless as Aid To Biafra … however I suppose it got you out of the way of the Hickery-Dickery taking place in your house in Chelsea … let us hope that you also managed to get some of them on your side in the Students Hall, Man .. like it was for real, man, like you could get them to dig you and PINTER at the same time.

  We have been sort of commuting, Wagon Lits Style, to and from La Colombe for the last three months .... I have bought my house near Grasse [ … ] Simone was a bit undecided about the idea that I would become a immigrant, which I have had to do now, and buy anything which she would approve … however we did the whole deal by ourselves … (it cost me a fortune … nearly 100,000 quid) and when I took her over on Thursday all she could say was ‘Ah! C’est vrai! C’est vrai! C’est beau ..’ or Belle … I cant remember the gender. I never, for that matter, have.

  Anyway I am ravished by it … we have a good deal to do .... throwing three large rooms on the ground floor into one … building another bathroom … and another kitchen and flat for A. and E. .... we shall not be able to move in untilI have finished with Visconti sometime, fingers crossed, in late June .... but the house is paid for, signed and sealed, and I have total posession in six weeks … when the builders will move in with the architect.

  Death In Venice starts April 1st outside the Hotel des Bains on the Lido. Visconti is scouring Stockholm, Warsaw, and Budapest for his Tadjio1 .... he has left instructions to have the WHOLE of St Marks re-dressed as it was in 1911 .... we are shooting in Panavision which has added millions to the slender budget … I have 18 changes … and we shoot also in the Tyrol and in Munich … because the TRUE story of DIV was that Mann, an old friend of Viscontis, was travelling on a train from Venice to Munich in 1910 … and in the compartment was a strange being in full slap … desperatly unhappy, his died, dyed, hair streaky .. his false eyelashes coming off in his tears. They spoke .... It was Gustave Mahler .. and he had just fallen in hopeless love with a child of thirteen in Venice ..... and so from there it went. So, although we are not telling anyone, I am in fact playing Mahler … and look rather like him with the putty nose-job and the rimless Lennon-glasses .... long hair … oh! dear I am a sight at the moment … So I rather fear that what my father calls a ‘slender little tale’ will end up with fifteen weeks shooting and then some, and so the house must wait … because this comes very much first … although how I am going to manage on the piddling little salary I dont know … we are back to OUR days of the Servant again … no lolly and everything needed.

  ‘The Damned’ has been a sort of run-away success here and in the States, and in little old Belgium where it took 800,000 dollars! It opens tomorrow in Paris at the Opera, which is right and fitting because that is what it is and how it was concieved, as an opera .. Your chum Roude2 sneaked in and saw it here in Rome and wrote a beastly notice … calling it very Grotesque and silly. (I gather he is Canadien or something) .. may account for things … also he saw it in Italian and cant speak it … so what WAS he about .... but, to be fair, I think the vast majority of the British Press will think so too .... they wont get it, I’m afraid.

  Except Maggie Hinxman who spent three days here last week doing an indepth thing on me, get that, for the Telegraph … she adored it … and got it’s points … but she did warn that a lot of her colleagues did’nt. We’ll see .... if we ever get a release there.

  [ … ] I hope that we can get into the house in July .. and settle there for a bit until a picture I want to make, very much, with Damiani starts … in October … a bit like ‘Zorba’ but MUCH better and without that terrible [Anthony] Quinn. Damiani wrote it as well … so thats a bit of a help. If there is’nt a civil war here before then, and there is every chance that there will be next summer .... that should keep me busy for a while … anyway until Prousts’ ‘Rememberance Of Things Past’ which V. is signed to do in the late spring of ’71 … but now that I have spent me savings I have to get to work … but not doing ‘Doctors’ again!

  Angela and Robin [Fox] came down to the Colombe with us .. and A. and E. and the dog [ … ] and one day at lunch on the terrace, the sun blazing, the mimosa great golden plumes, the almond blossom drifting in the soft wind .. and the doves scattering in an arc of blue sky, Antonia said ‘I think this is as near as I will ever get to Heaven.’ which was rather nice [ … ]

  In Italy, like everywhere else, films are at a terribly low ebb … Laurentis1 is closed and reopens as a Japanese Transistor and telly factory! Paradox … Cinecitta is the only one left that is making anything .... and that only has one on the floor right now. But I dont think the really Good stuff will fade away … so long as everyone takes fair cuts and shares … your Greedy Guts Chums fairly did for us all, I fear … and the folly of their ways washes on to us all … One simply does’nt find greed attractive, without talent at any rate .... still, they were not the only ones .. the Zanucks and the rest all helped hard to kill. So now we all have to hang on by our back teeth and start from scratch again … a new wind is blowing … one does’nt want to be a dead leaf in a bad winter! Rather a green bud … even at my age.

  [ … ] I’ll take a house in Venice for the duration of the film .... if I can afford to … no Gritty Palaces now! Oh! dear! Oh! dear! Where are Box and Thomas and the RICH days? Well; they are making a new Doctor film with someone called Simon Dee .... wow!

  We, that is you and I, have a week of Losey Bogarde films at the little Everyman2 … how a week I dont know, but I suppose they’ll put ‘Blaise’ on in two halves .... Oddish notices for ‘Birthday Party’3 today … not tremendous … except for Dandy Nicholls and Sydney Tafler … (Rightly, I should think) and other than the new Arthur Shaeffer play,1 not Peter, his brother, which opened on Thursday to the raves of all the world, there is nothing much to tell you ..... the Schaeffer play is called ‘Sluth’ … and I was asked to do it with Keith Baxter ..... Quale (Ugh) plays it now.

  Raining and blowing a gale here … but the violets are out, the blossom is frothing … lunch on the terrace … and four eggs from the chickens this afternoon … Tony is downstairs reading a catalogue of French Cookers and I am about to drop into the Cognac and Soda …

  [ … ] Devoted love as ever …

  Dirk

  To Joseph Losey Villa Berti

  6 March 1970

  [In red ink] WARNING!

  This is supposed to be a funny letter – if you dont think so, ask Josh.

  Dearest Josieposie.…

  Of course you WOULD be distressed by the ‘Telegraph’ bit2 … I knew, the very second I read it .... ‘Watch it! Loseys going to be pissed off about this one.’ Well; I loved it … and approved it, and was terribly pleased to get the coverage .... things on which you did not comment .. like us both trying to work for English Films and make them go … seem to have passed over your huge head .... the fact that I did NOT say you were pissed out of your mind, and disgusting, the night I walked off the set … and took ALL the blame; you choose to ignore … correctly, I suppose .... If one thinks one is God one must behave as God … but I just honestly and calmely, do think that we have done all that we can together. I dont, honestly, see how we could work together again ..... we have said all there is to say as actor-director ...... and you decided, a while ago, to take another path my dear .. the one with the lolly and the lushness …. I have kept to my rather wobbley one; it has been a bit of a wrench … but, after all, I had the lush one before Our Time, with Rank, I suppose .... so now it is refreshing to be free .... and to choose. It is frightning like shit .... but it is honour regained.

  And remember about D in V .... I
know that you have long wanted to make it. You told me until I was blue in the face .... but you never asked me to do it .... or offered me the chance, or remotely thought that I even could! Visconti, in May last year, did .... I was amazed and thrilled to my marrow .... he gave no excuses or reasons, except to say, in a rather grudging way, that I was ‘like a dead pheasant … hanging by the neck, and almost ready to drop.’ the reference being, I hope, that I was RIPE. And also, that I do look like Mahler, and that I was ‘one of the most perfect actors in the world today on the screen.’

  You have never even said that I was more than passably good. To me anyway … And from your interviews and books and all those itsy-bitseys you hand out to ‘Isis’ and papers of that ilk … I was lucky to have you. Instead of the other way around, sweetie!!

  You ARE a naughty fellow … you know, full well that you are deeply loved by me … and that you always will be. No matter what. But you are a solitary .... there is no helping you .... you eat love like candy and vomit it straight up again: like a dog.

  It does’nt matter a scrap as long as your ‘lovers’ are patient, and have a sense, however wild, of humour .... but when you say that you are going to California to ‘help Burton’ get his Oscar, as if it were some noble deed ..... something in which you felt you should share .... so ‘that my usefulness is not entirely gone.’ Jeasus! What are you doing for the Welsh bastard? How can you help him get an Oscar for an indifferent performance that has already, sickeningly, been purchased by Hal Wallis?1 Why lend yourself to that stuff?

  And something else, Loseyposie … the Old Master … to whome you grudgingly accord the phrase ‘very good’ .... did not do ‘L’Etranger’2 for Greediness … he did’nt want to do the fucking thing at all .... (well, originally) but Mdm Camus put paid to that, and also the loyalty of his cheif actor … who pissed off at the last moment to another studio and left him with the alternative of a great and loving friend Mastrianni .... who knew that he was wrong .. and HATED the film … but offered to do it a few days before shooting to help Old Master out.