Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters

by Unknown

  Anyway: anyway.

  I’m sorry A. did’nt win an Oscar. I did’nt know, as a matter of fact, that he had a Nomination1 .. but really: the whole thing is such a ‘fix’ .. I DO know that personally. And with Mighty Columbia behind it all there was little chance of anyone but Brother Gandhi,2 or whatever, scooping the pool. The Atts are down here this week resting up after the Press Attack which did, I admit, seem harsh. And shook them both greatly. But left them pretty rich. So who’s careing?

  I never saw the Epic; read it, and that was enough for me, and don’t think that I will. It’s not my kind of fillum, and I’m not in favour of the little man anyhow. Gandhi, I mean. I was in India during Congress Riots and I hated his bloody, cunning, little guts then. At twenty four. So I am not about to start liking what he did, and did NOT do, at this advanced age.

  But I sobbed myself to a fit during ‘ET’ … and adored ‘The Heat And The Dust’.3 It takes all kinds, dunnit?

  Saturday looms: Saturday means that the Festival opens in Cannes and that on the Opening Night I, with ten others, will be presented with a present for ‘contribution to the eclat of the Festival for so many years’ (which ACTUALLY means that we never won a prize) and also for ‘our contribution to the Art of the Cinema.’ Well: I don’t mind. Sophia Lauren, Liza Minelli, Michel Morgan, Vittoria Gassman,4 Glenda Jackson and so on … a nice, honourable, Line Up. It’ll be ghastly but possibly a bit amusing. We’ll see.

  […] I hear feet on the gravel and Bendo (boxer fart-face) barking and that means the Attenboroughs are arriving for their Sunday May Day beer.

  So I’ll go … if I can make my way through the rain … and get the ice-box opened. Thanks for super loving letter: I’m so depressed about Holland Park I think I’ll have a look at Twickenham.

  Great love, a hug to Andrew [ … ]

  Dirk

  To Norah Smallwood Clermont

  15 May 1983

  Norah dearest –

  And how it rains! A fine mist, which sends the grasses soaring and the weeds a-seeding.

  The snowball tree, just outside my Studio door, is a mass of giant white blooms, the Super Star blazes in the fine downpour, the roses in the potager, all of thirteen or so years old, flourish madly just because, this year, I did NOT prune them. They are swamped with huge heads of bloom. Champes Elysee, Toscanni, Whisky Mac and the rest. Edith Piaf has quite taken leave of her senses and riots in a most abandoned way, her deep crimson petals glowing among the yellow-gold of the splurge. Which I have not yet weeded out!

  I have just put in the forty quids worth of petunias (white) and begonias, (white and pink) and Forwood has retired to the big room with a motor paper, yesterdays Times, and a mug of tea.

  And I am here to write to you.

  The week […] in London [ … ] has jumbled my brains a little. I am not certain where, or even who, I am … but this will doubtless pass. The success of the week for Forwood was wonderfully relieving naturally. And I am anxious not to see another Waiting Room in Harley, Weymouth, or any other street for quite some time.

  We went round to Edward VII after Mr Todd’s1 verdict, to say Thank you to the Ward sisters and nurses, and to show off the well-again patient. It was greatly appreciated. I dont think that many people bother to do that sort of thing once they are ‘healed’. It is such a simple thing to do and causes much pleasure. Sad. And so here we are. The Festival still continues, inspite of the rain and generally ghastly muck-ups which go on. The new Festival Building is as hideious as you can possibly imagine and is already named The Bunker by the unhappy Cannoise who now have to face a monolithic, windowless, pink block right beside the Old Port where once the elegant, graceful, Casino stood. Designed, I am sad to say, by an English Architect who can only have been the same man who designed the Barbican!2 It is loathesome in the extreme. Now covered with spray-bomb graffiti calling for the Downfall of the Government, Higher Wages For Nurses and Doctors, and Various Wails from the Students. Actually it looks prettier than it did thus decorated.

  Until you read the inscriptions: which depress.

  We have been through all this in dear Mr Wilson’s time … it is sad to see the same thing happening again in a country which I so love and to which I fled to avoid the plague which now besets us here. If ONLY they had listened to me! I kept telling them not to vote for the Socialists .... but they paid no heed. Silly fools. However I am told that the Miners in the North love it all: so that must be that. The prolateriat must win.

  I see that Attenborough has answered, in no uncertain terms, that rather silly bashing from Rushardie … or however he is spelled .. and it is quite clear that Attenborough has read the book, which got the fellow the Booker award,3 and does’nt think it up to much! But I DO wish that they’d stop using the bloody film as if it was a political event [ … ]

  Olga telephoned me this morning to say that my reception at the Opening Night of the Festival was the longest and warmest of any others! And there were a line of very Big Stars present. I realised, while it was happening, that a tremendous wave of warmth and affection was sweeping towards me … and I was moved, finally, to tears. In so far as I could barely speak my thanks when I was handed my, quite repellant, award! Not bad considering that I have not made a film for over six .. or is it five actually? years.

  Never mind. I got it. And a most moving tribute from Michele Morgan who, apparently, was as moved and surprised as I, so that she forgot her words and just embraced me!

  I tell you this because I know that it will please you. But we shall keep it quiet together. I was particularly happy that Forwood was attending in the wings while it all took place. He has helped me so greatly over the many years of struggle, and my reward that night was as much his as it was mine. So that was pleasing.

  The next morning we left for London and Mr Todd … our mouths dry, and that fearful uncertainty masked properly.

  Probably why, today, I feel utterly drained. The stress, for the moment anyway, is relaxing […]

  The Japanese Film with Bowie (L.V.d. Posts book)1 has not been well recieved here I gather, principally because of Bowie who worries people by his oddity. Hamaphrodite, I believe.2 And I’m buggered if I can spell that!

  But the Japanese emerge well, and it is, apparently, brilliantly shot. But that, as we know, is not enough. However Cannes is a capricious Town … perhaps it’ll fare better with the British Press. Although they are’nt what you might call reliable either.

  Having taken a long, slow, look around the terraces, it has been decided to let things be as they are and then get a team in to do the lot at the end of May and once again in September … I cant face it all alone … and it really has got out of hand because of the two winter months I spent in London when I should, by rights, have been bustling away keeping things under control.

  I suppose a house in London will be bearable. One must make it so.

  But I do insist on a small garden .. even if it is only sixty by ten! A house we saw in Kensington, which was pleasant and had just what I would need, plus LARGE garden, and facing south … was up for £850.000 for a long lease. So ...... I’ll have to lower my sights!

  And go and set the fire and sweep up the muck on the terrace which planting out 100 white petunias has made.

  But this to you with my love … as ever.

  I’m mulling about with an idea for a further ’Bio! Not chronological as much as episodic .. possibly to be called ‘Something I Forgot ..’1 but we’ll think of that later!

  Meanwhile great love,

  from your very

  devoted

  Dirk XXX

  To Susan Owens Clermont

  21 May 1983

  Dear Mrs O –

  Your letter of the 13th has just arrived and given me great pleasure. Pleasure because things seem not to be quite as terrible as they did when you last wrote.2

  I think that Faith, which really CAN move mountains of trouble, is extraordinary, and even though I have no ‘real’ religeon I do
know that the power of prayer can work. I’ve been through a bit of that business myself!

  I think it is amazing that your husband has progressed so far and so well in such a very short time. Naturally he has’nt done it all on his own: he’s had your help and sensible-point-of-view to lean on and to encourage him. That is the most important part of the ‘cure’ possible. The encouraging. A stroke-victim is prone to appalling bouts of depression and lonliness, and it is this which is perhaps the hardest thing to overcome for the family: as well as for the victim. But encouragement helps a hell of a lot. And you MUST remember, and so must he, that he is not a cabbage sitting in a heap.

  Even buttoning up a shirt, his trousers, tying his shoes, any little idiotic thing can be done and must be done, and is a tremendous step towards getting the brain sorted out.

  I think that if he finds the newspaper difficult, as he will .. even I do! it is not a bad idea to start him off with reading by the use of very simple, large printed, childrens books. This may sound a bit cissy, and he might resent it, but it would be interesting to see if, with larger print and simple words, he can hold a sentence and discover that the ‘print is not running all over the page’ … this kind of therepy is very basic and simple, but if he manages just to make one simple line sit still on the page he’ll gain a great deal of courage to read more, bit by bit.

  It wont be easy for you of course. Patience is one of the toughest requirements … and it wears one out pretty quickly.

  Buy a packet of ‘Smarties’ one day, spill them on a saucer, make him try to put the red ones together, the blue ones, so on … that sounds silly too: but it is not. It is FORCING the mind-muscles to function when they would far rather relax and become inert. Any little game of this kind can be a big help. But it takes time, and it takes a lot of patience. Long conversations will exhaust him just because he has to listen to them. But short, firm, determined speech, with a question placed which he has to answer will stimulate a sluggish brain.

  What you have to remember is that, as I was told in America when we were doing the research on the Neal Story, if the brain has been damaged severely all it really wants to do is give up and sleep, and that is the WORST thing that could happen.

  So, when you are able, or if the kids can take turns, small, silly little games like the one with Smarties or reading or asking questions like ‘What colour is this sweater?’ or ‘Look for the green pencil among all these’ stimulate the mind, as I have said.

  I know what a haul it is going to be for you, I equally know that if you have anything to do with things it wont be a failure.

  Recently I had a difficult experience with someone who was taken gravely ill. Operations, drip-feeds, plasma, all the rest. But that person began to fight back and finally was able to leave hospital. The Nurses, as always, were simply wonderful and so indeed was the Matron, but her remark was perhaps the best of all.

  When my friend thanked her and the Staff for pulling him through she said, very firmly, ‘Listen. We only did a bit of the work. You did the rest for yourself by your own willpower. We know that there are people who come into this Hospital and immediatly start to give up. We knew, from the very first day you got here, that you were not one of those, and so you would have a fighting chance because you would go in fighting. Remember that!’

  It seems a very good bit of advice to offer you at this moment.

  Dont let your husband give in, feel that he is useless, unwanted, a burden. Get him to fight back and he’ll win out. I’m positive.

  Glad, to turn to other things, that you enjoyed the Lecture1 … it was quite fun really. Two and a half hours with a very warm and affectionate audience. I enjoyed myself a lot. Now I dont want to make you unhappy! But in ‘SIMBA’ I never once left Pinewood Studios! It was all made on the Floor with a lot of backprojection! So I have seen as much of Africa as you have! The Magic of the Movies I suppose.

  Glad that ‘Night Porter’ was alright. I think that it is a jolly good Movie … based on a true fact as it happens … Max was really a man to pity more than hate. But a mixed up fellow for sure!

  […] I wont go on any longer: people coming in for a drink in half an hour, so I had better go and wash down the garden chairs.

  It rained last night fairly heavily, the wind came from North Africa, so EVERYTHING is covered in a fine coating of red sand! Somehow the stuff is sucked up into the clouds and comes racing across to fall on us in the rain. It’s a rite booger!

  Courage, remember!

  & my very best wishes

  Dirk Bogarde.

  To Joanna Lumley

  (Postcard) Clermont

  1 July 1983

  Dear Miss Lumley –

  I have to type this because I really do want you to be able to read it! I have received a number of Happy-Fannie letters recently which have been anxious to let me know that you were on the BBC (with Maria Aitken?)1 and that you said very many ‘really nice things’ about me! So insistant have the letters been, and so pleased, that I feel compelled to write and thank you!

  Forgive me: but in an age when being clobbered is the fashion it is so super to know that someone like you, far away on the BBC, bothered to speak kindly of one.

  But it was reeely nice of you! And thank you very, very sincerely …

  Dirk Bogarde

  To Norah Smallwood Clermont

  4 July 1983

  Norah dearest –

  It was such joy hearing your voice again, even though it crackled and barked, from time to time, and to know that you were safely back again after your trip into the Twentieth Centuary.2

  It is so irritating to me that, as you said, people have remarked that you probably did’nt ‘hear from Dirk B .. now’ … rather as if you and I had had a Publishing Relationship and that I had discarded you the very moment that you left Chatto.

  It’s like the little note that Visconti sent me after I had gone up to Lake Como to see him on my way home from Munich.1

  ‘ … to come all this way to see me, now that I am no longer of any use to you.’

  I think that that remark, although I understood why he had written it[,] in my heart, hurt me more than any other he had ever made, or anyone had ever made!

  Did he, I wondered, really think that my admiration, my awe, my respect, for him was simply founded on his ‘use’ to me?

  It was an alien feeling for him: one that he found hard to understand in the sometimes ugly world in which he lived when people DID only love him for his ‘usefulness’ or ‘influence’.

  But it was not, and could never have been, that with me.

  As it is with you.

  As you know, I trust by now … (for it has been written down by me to you often enough) … I simply love you.

  I love you, respect, admire extravagantly, and depend, still, on you.

  Even though Chatto (with it’s purple painted doors) is light miles from us both now. People would ADORE to think that I had cleared off. Why are people so rotten! So un-understanding.

  Enough! I get so furious. And it’s really a waste of time and effort. One knows ones own heart. That must be enough.

  Now [ … ] this is for your eyes only, three weeks ago we sold Clermont.

  But: four days later, so distressed were we both, in particular T, that I withdrew it from the Market!

  A perfectly enchanting young couple, Belgian, two small children, saw the house, loved it instantly, asked no single question, accepted to the last sou the asking price and went away showering me with gratitude.

  Oh Lord! You may imagine my distress four days later when I had to say the deal was ‘off’. And theirs, alas!

  But it just could’nt be done. I dont know why … T. was clearly deeply sad and I feared that he might become ill again. Is’nt it strange to love a place so deeply, solidly?

  [ … ] One day, of course, Clermont will have to be sold. We shall not be able to cope with the land or, for that matter, the house.

  But not at the moment. We stay
.

  I think I’ll have two months in the winter in either London or New York. A madness, but a winter here is too harsh now: and I have learned, because I have had to, a short-cut to Instant Terrace Gardening which does’nt cost the earth, and one has cut down here and there. I get a Team in to mow the terraces which we can no longer manage … or wish to manage!

  And they are expensive!

  But so is a house in Parsons Green! God forbid!

  Dutch elm is rife again, the trees which I had injected last year have, alas! not survived the malady … and blaze like scarlet torches among the olives. It is really bloody. I have lost over sixty. Not great Stoke Poges Elms … but pleasant young trees anyway. Otherwise we are in fair nick: T. manages a bit of mowing, which is very rewarding to see … and I bustle about watering things and dead-heading and all the rest. We manage. In October we come over for his second, important, ‘check’ … and if that is good, and I pray and think that it will be both at the same time, we shall adress ourselves to the autumn when I have to go to Paris to do a whopping big Television Show from The Louvre. Rather in the style and manner of [Kenneth] Clark’s ‘Civilisation’. I hasten to add that I do not mean that I shall be near that brilliant mans work! The programme will try to be like that. I am speaking about ‘The Golden Age Of Flemish Art’ (which I honestly dont really care all that much for!) Rembrandt etc etc .. and Greek Art in the Mediterranian Basin … (A lot of pots and dusty bits of terracotta) But I think it will be fun … I hope it will be! And to have the Louvre entirely to oneself from six pm until mid-night (the only time we may work there) sounds fairly tempting. We’ll see …

  It has already got a vast distribution from America to Japan .. and the money is pretty decent. So ..

  An odd letter the other day, from South Africa, from a pleasant lady who once worked, or rather her father and mother did, in the service of Mrs X in Sussex! And it was she who sent the fatal womans magazine to New Haven! Thereby giving me a first chance at ‘writing’. Is’nt it odd?

  Apparently Mrs D.W. Gordon .. her real name as you know, wrote to thank her for the marvellous friendship which she had enjoyed by that simple action. And then there was silence. This letter simply asked if anything unpleasing (an odd word!) had happened to Mrs Gordon, and could I write and say what? The woman retired from service, and England, some years ago and went to live with a daughter in South Africa … she had not read ‘AOM’ only ‘Snakes’ .. so I told her that the full story was available in her nearest book-store. I hope it is!