Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters

by Unknown

  So Vol 3 will start coiling about in my head. Has done already .. it wont follow the same rhythm as ‘Snakes’. Less chronological I think. Although, naturally, progressive up to today … or the final shooting in Berlin of ‘Despair’ ..... that ought to be quite amusing. Me and the Youthful Marxist-Red Brigade Set all getting on splendidly together!

  Talking of novels. I gave Elizabeth, last night, the glamorous Proof copy of ‘The Passing Bells’3 to pick through. There are some very splendid passages which make us ill with laughter. I once got Attenborough to read some of the best bits, including the Publishers Blurb, aloud after dinner one night. We were quite exhausted with laughter. And it is all, of course, deathly serious as you will know. Elizabeth, as indeed were Tony and I, was alas unable to read more than a bit here and there without stupification; and quickly took Iris M. off to bed.

  But this is already a HUGE best-seller! How? Why?

  800.000 dollars for the paperback rights before publication .... something is wrong. And I must let you go … and go myself.

  With much affection

  Dirk.

  P.S. I managed, very tactfully, to wriggle out of making any comment on ‘The Passing Bells’ for the British publishers – it was utterly impossible! D.

  To Norah Smallwood Clermont

  27 June 1979

  Dearest Norah –

  How wonderfully kind, and extravagant, of you to telephone me last night. I always feel so dreadfully guilty that it is ‘your call’ so to speak, and only hope that you dont put the money in the box yourself … since you have told me that all your trips out here have not been paid for by the Firm, and I cant imagine why not since, save for one private hol. they all had to ‘do’ with business … I get fussed at the expense. Goodness. Me! I am so sorry that I was out for the better part of the day; a most unusual thing. But I’d got sort-of summonsed to luncheon in St Maxime with Prince Bertil1 and his pretty, funny, wife Princess Lillian who is English, and [an] old friend of Tony’s from the early thirties and also of Kay Kendall. She had read ‘Snakes’ and loved it and wanted to ‘talk about Kate again …’ so we did. All morning.

  It was a long drive in great heat, Bendo gasping on the floor, and me in my only ‘good’ shirt and white trousers. And all of it a bit tedious frankly. Cold ham and salad and remembering manners.

  It’s been a bit of a Royal week in a way. And thats odd too for me. The day before P. Alexandra (or is it ‘ia’?) decided to come to tea. Staying secretly with a friend near here, had read ‘Postillion’ and longed to talk about it. That was rather pleasing. She was in a bit of a fuss and wanted to change from a tee shirt into a long frock for the event, was politely told not to, came and ate a vast amount of squashy shop-cake, many jam tarts, and was utterly adorable, funny and pretty as could be. It was a splendid afternoon and she was all for staying on to supper (cold ham pie, hot new potatoes with mint the idea of which made her cry out with pleasure!) but had left her husband in Monaco on some boring business job, and the taxi fare from there is quite prohibitive … so they went home at 7.30! having begged a mass of hollyhock seeds and four cakes of ‘your’ soap. She has promised to come back same time next year. Said the house was ‘her sort of place’. What I particularly loved was her sincere concern for Lally! If poor old Lally ever knew that she had been the subject of a very long conversation with a Royal she’d have had a ‘proper turn’ I can tell you … not to mention Elizabeth: who arrives tomorrow and has threatened to curtsey when we meet.

  [ … ] John C. called a little after you did last night with his Title idea … ‘JUNGLE GREEN’1 … which I, truthfully, dont altogether like.

  I was, I hope, very tactful. But he sounded a bit wistful.

  It is a sort-of ‘shock title’. I see absolutely what he means. ‘Dirk Bogarde and “Jungle Green”!’ Hard, crisp and very commercial I suppose. But it does sound to me rather like an Army Manual … and is a sight too ‘war-like’ I think. After all the book, if book it is, is not about a war. It’s about the people who are in a war. A comedy of manners rather than a ‘saga of people in a war-torn Island, awash with blood, sweat and tears … and sex!’

  Oh dear. I can ‘see’ the blurb now. Dont lets have any of that stuff they did for the ‘Passing Bells’!

  I just think, and I do so hope that you do, that ‘A Gentle Occupation’ has a bit of style to it, is wonderfully ambigious, and has a bitter connotation … It can, on the one hand, apply to the Japanese Occupation, which was, to start with, gentle … it can apply to Miss Foto’s whoring … her intriguing and general use of her wiles and sex .. another Gentle Occupation … or Nettles and Rooke searching her out, so to speak … a sort of ‘spy catch spy’ business done in quiet serenity … another Gentle Occupation ... it can equally apply to the supposed Gentle Occupation of the British Forces who thought that their war had ended four weeks before, and that they were off to a Treasure Island where all they had to do was herd the wretched Internees home and sit in the sun with a glass of gin and tonic.

  I think it can apply to all kinds of things in the ‘book’ … and I have promised John that I will slip the words into three or four paragraphs throughout the ‘book’ to see if he can come to terms with it in the text.

  […] I look forward tremendously to getting my ‘Corrections’ in a few days and will apply myself dilligently. I have made a number of my own too … I find I use ‘admonish’ and ‘serried’ more than I use ‘and’ or even the dreaded ‘really’! And I think it should be ‘The Geneva Conventions’ rather than ‘The League Of Nations’ … about prisoners of war … and there are many more to come. What a time I shall have. I shall also, if inspired, have a try at a suggested ‘cover’ … with little hope of success … but I do, terribly, lean towards ‘Gentle O.’ Not so commercial, but .. shall I say? ‘Good taste?’

  Well, anyway, I said it.

  This is, as you gather, a private letter. It requires no kind of reply.

  As you know.

  With my devoted love.

  Dirk.

  To Norah Smallwood Clermont

  7 July 1979

  Norah my dear –

  A personal letter. Needing no reply. Mainly in response to your lovely long one written in your wild hurricane under the duvett.

  […] I had a foul, well NOT really foul, but terribly full week .. Elizabeth and her tribe [ … ] and we had to feed eight daily for a week. They left for Como on the Sunday morning as a beloved cousin of Forwoods arrived, six exhausted hours late, from San Fransisco and took over the bedroom with a welter of long dinner dresses and Louis Viuton baggage .. she stayed five days, leaving yesterday morning for Monaco just as four hideious Americans arrived for luncheon. We did not know each other but were ‘arranged’ by a mutual friend who telephoned me from N.Y and begged me to entertain them since they had rented a house near Grasse … two ghastly children of eight with the mental intelligence of Bendo who terrified them into shrill squeals all day; as did the ‘bugs’ (butterflies) and ‘snakes’ (poor little lizards!) Awful.

  In fareness I suppose the parents were’nt too bad really. If one had had the remotest chance of speaking with them.

  It was difficult to hold any form of conversation with the two pale children clustered on their knees begging to “go home now” [ … ] ‘You’ll adore [the husband] ..’ said my N.Y friend on the telephone .. ‘he’s wildley sophisticated and very, very intellectual .. he’s just written a book on “Decadence” ... ’

  I was abashed.

  And he brought the book, suitably inscribed. This is a habit which begins to worry me. Is it correct manners for a writer to hand round his books like cheese-biscuits? I’ve had no less than three in this last ten days ...... seems MOST odd.

  The one relief in the tedium was Elton John who came for a drink in a track suit and a Mercury cap .. with little green-felt wings on the side. Wonderfully civilised, amusing, wise and interesting about his recent, electrifying trip to Russia … which has been an amazing
success. And must have worried the Polit Bureau very much indeed for it clearly proved that all Russian Youth manages to listen to the forbidden radios of the West. Free Europe, BBC World, and the Voice Of America. For although his audiences numbered many thousands not one single record of his has even been allowed into the country. When he left for the airport his car was followed all the way by thousands of weeping young people … all the way mark you … crying out ‘Tell more people to come to us!’ and throwing at him all their most cherished possessions ranging from blue jeans to Biro pens ...... terribly depressing and sad. He was much moved. However he managed to spend three days, all day, in the Hermitage and was shattered by what he saw. An immensly pleasant, cultured, wise young man. Odd for a Pop Singer. But of course he is a little more than that.

  So that has been a tough ten days .... plus the Correcting!

  […] I wait, in some anxiety [Peter Cochrane’s1] comments [ … ] what pleases me tremendously, as far as I remember from your call, was the fact that he ‘recognised’ this odd, awful, cruel non-war. So few people know it happened, or if they do, have forgotten. I think I am perhaps the only British person who has written it down.

  Certainly the Dutch will have covered it I am sure of that … but there were’nt many of us out there at that time.

  It deserves, if only in fiction, to be remembered and recorded.

  None of us who survived Europe and Burma wanted to do anything about this local-war which was not our business. All we wanted, so near to the time, was to get the hell home. Intact. Alive. I think I have made this clear enough in Rooke’s last speech to the old General … but a great many of us failed. And there they lie in the graveyards of South East Asia totally forgotten: dead a few weeks before Demob. For what good reason? Or bad?

  Which brings me to a point. It is correct, I believe, to write to the persons or person to whome one wishes to ‘dedicate’ a book? Would you accept ‘A Gentle Occupation?’ I know that you have done so in the past, therfore perhaps you’d rather not. It might be embarressing for you .. I dont know .. however all I do know is that you are the only person to whome the book actually belongs. I shan’t go into all the reasons, they’d weary you, and anyway I expect you can guess what they are yourself. [ … ] It would give me the greatest pleasure. But that is not the point.

  [ … ] I shall rest up for a bit today … Elizabeth and the family come back from Como on Monday; I gather, from a crackly telephone call the other evening, that it has not been a great deal of delight. Storms, lightning, low cloud, black skies over the lake and too many American tourists … and Italy is now desperatly dirty and seems to be falling down everywhere. At the Villa d’Este the gardens are slowly reverting to a wildreness. George was very distressed with his experts eye. But apparently the gardeners have downed tools and gone to strike for Fiat or protest for the Red Brigade.

  Who wants to work for the rich anymore?

  It’s a sad world.…

  I must be off.

  I hope that I’ve not tired you .... I’ll take down the sketch block and rough out yet another possibility for the cover. I’ve got a few ideas sculling about in this senile head of mine.

  With very much love

  Dirk.

  XOXO.

  P.S. Just had a note to say that the piece I did for the Guardian Travel Suppliment (on Jamaica)1 has been accepted without cuts! Very pleased. They are. And, can you believe it, are flying a photographer all the way there to photograph the particular place of which I wrote. About which I wrote.

  Sounds wildely extravagant to me. But fun. He’ll love the place!

  Quite good company I’m with. A. Burgess and P. Theroux .... D.

  To Ann Skinner Clermont

  10 August 1979

  Anne love –

  Breathless, I am, from the splendour and wealth of your super-super letter of the 1st … arrived this morning. See how long it takes from U.K?

  [ … ] Self History. Well. Not a great deal here to report. The Festival was even more ghastly than ever, and I stayed away inspite of the fact that I DID rather long to see the ‘Apoclypse’ thing2 and sundry others … it was a very good net of films, but deathly short on Glamourous Ladies and Gentlemen. Everyone in filthy jeans and sequins and stinking of pot. Or else corpulant Jews with cigars … and the Grades3 did a tap routine on the Croisette for the press with straw hats and cigars jammed into slurping lips … not an edifying sight. Rank spent £250.000 on promoting the same films they were promoting last year. IE. the Wombles and Micheal York in everything. They had two stars present at every function. Herbert Lom and Jenny Fishgutter. Where, oh where! are the Diana Dors all gone to … I did a huge Telly, 55 min. for ABC’s show ‘20-20’ which was fun .. talking about acting, if you please. The bit in the Mail4 was pinched out of contex, naturally, from that … so you can imagine how wrong it was. I’m in the market for a comedy, and Woodey Allan is my last ambition … but he, like John [Schlesinger], only works with Americans …

  Lots of jolly guests hit the terrace, now looking rather splendid after ten, can you believe it? years … ranging from Old Hollywood in the amazing-still-shape of Alexis Smith and Ingrid B. to sundery Royals [ … ]

  The novel is finished and off to the printers. Publishing in March under the ambigious title of ‘A Gentle Occupation.’ Naturally I’m a bit pleased that it got ‘took’ right off … no fuss, no corrections, no damned editing .. just my ghastly spelling and punctuation to put right. It took fourteen weary months work .. and sometimes I was near to tears: most times I was IN tears … however God leaned out of heaven or something, and it was finished and delivered on time .. and now I am at the ‘cover’ … a pretty thing of bamboo poles barbed wire and butterflies … Dickie A. keeps wondering if ‘there is a movie in it’ I keep replying that I [am] not absolutely sure that there is a novel ‘in it’. Anyway it would’nt be right for him I think. Not patriotic, anti Ghandi (!)1 and totally unsentimental. He is a good sort, really … but he does seem to have so many irons in the fire that one wonders if he has opened a forge. Probably has. Ghandi; as of last evening [ … ] it was firmly ‘on’ and he seemed to have spent most of the week wrestling with his script-changes […]

  I rail away; and yet I got the best reviews of my life last month for poor Fassbinders ‘Despair’ in N.Y. When the Critics are lovely the sods are just glorious … what hypocrits we actors are! I have the idea to get one line ‘blown up’ and pasted round the studio wall here: to comfort me when I get to a ‘block’ in a chapter. ‘One Of The Great Screen Actors Of Our Time ..’2 But I think it would look immodest. Like telling you. I saw a good deal of ‘AGATHA’ .. which I did’nt awfully care for I confess, but did think your director was rather fine. And the sets and costumes, no joke intended, and the ‘athmosphere’ were marvellous … and that awful, silly twit, Miss [Vanessa] Redgrave once again managed to prove that she is probably the very finest actress on the screen today. She leaves me stunned with her beauty and her mind … how CAN she be so silly in private life?

  I have just recorded, on cassett, an abridged version of the first half of ‘Snakes’… for Warner Bros.3 Quite fun and exhausting too .. we do the second half in January. But who really wants to HEAR a book read to them? I mean, of course, apart from the blind and the physically handicapped (which is why I did it really in the first place) but I cant see someone slotting in Side Two at the Hogarth Roundabout or belting down the autoroute to Valence .. maybe I’m wrong. I hope so. There is a hefty royalty … and now, while you bash away at glamourous old cinema I start, with some weariness I confess, Vol. 3 of the Bio. For this time next year. Seems a life sentence. But then I cheer myself up by remembering Visconti comes in again, a dotty Cavani, and extraordinary Resnais and the total and utter fantasy of working for my black-leather and studded booted Fassbinder who is one of the most exciting directors I have ever worked with in all my life … and ten years of a very different life to set down on paper. This time I think the book has to be funny .... cross
fingers!

  Dearest Annie … I must go. Dogs to feed, a beer to open, lunch to lay … and the first tapes of the cassette to hear. They arrived at the same time as your letter .. and, guess what? Yes … thats it … Dickie wonders if ‘it would be any use to Capitol Radio?’ well … thats up to them. But I’ll ask him in after I’ve done a quick shufti myself, and see what he thinks … I am sure his mind is swamped with dhoties and pupperdoms ..

  Allloveasever –

  Dirk XXX

  To Kathleen Tynan Clermont

  11 October 1979

  Dearest Kath –

  I have just received your mammoth-thing on a post card which clearly states that you have not heard from this side for a long time. And thats maddening: because I wrote you a long letter in July […] So I had better try and do a re-cap .. although by this time you may have got the wayward letter.

  [ … ] A glorious, hot, rain-less summer … we lived outside all the time and ate and drank vast quantities of food and wine, which seemed to cost the bloody earth. And did!

  In the middle of all I had to finish off the novel … which I managed to do by date-time, first of June … and fell apart. After fourteen months it came as a shock to have nothing to do mentally. Apart from arranging beds and food and ice for peoples drinks. But I have no doubt you know that feeling well already?

  However ‘A Gentle Occupation’ comes out in England in March and in the U.S (Knopf … was’nt I lucky?) later. Probably summer. At the moment Plon are reading it, with a dictionary, for France … so I am very chuffed, and have let the healthy advances go to my head rather. Covering every single thing in the sitting room in heavy white cotton. At VAST expense but feel it is decidedly nescessary after ten years wear and tear. White I insist on. Virginal. The fact that we shall not be able to sit on it ever does’nt, at the moment, worry me. It looks ravishing .. very Siri Maughme1 .. and is totally impractable with a huge log-burning iron stove and a boxer dog, Totes, which thinks itself to be a kitten and is, in full reality, a raging wild-stallion. Hopeless.