Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters

by Unknown

  However he appears to hold no grudge [ … ] I’m doing whatever [he] wants me to do .. merely, my beloved Dilys, because I consider it a signal honour to have been asked.

  So shut up and stop grovelling … you KNOW how much I love you.

  Reviewing, yes, not very well, but good therepy at a difficult time.

  Cant act because the Casting Directors all think that I am very aged, with white hair, a limp (always a stick!) or whatever. I get SO angry when they ask to see a ‘Vidio’ of my ‘last work’. Christ Almighty … but I did fill the Olivier Theater with my reading from Saki .. and I go off on tour in April, no, sorry, May … with the show.

  It’s fun .. and does’nt mean a whole whack … just Sunday nights.

  We have sold out the Yvonne Arnau Theater1 within one hour and a half for the first Perf. on May 7th. So SOMEONE seems to reckon me!

  The book is finished at last. Ready for first week in September.

  It’s alright, I think [ … ] not very long but they paid me enough money to keep this little flat going for a bit. I pray. She’d2 be glad, for she so much wanted them to be published … so now I have, but only a short amount. Letters, I think, unless they are brilliant, can be a bit of a bore. And mine are not brilliant. Amusing, perhaps, light, and loving but they aint Intellectual!

  I have very much got used to living alone at last … went through a boring patch, half a bottle, or more, of whiskey per night and THE most awful hangovers … but it was needed. I got ’flu and had ten long days in bed all by myself, crawling to the lav, unable to eat anything, and simply drinking bottles of Evian water. Cured myself and wondered why on earth I’d had so little courage that I drank so as not to think. Silly, silly. All better now, and I rather dread being asked to go anywhere … I rather like where I am and have even taught myself how to cook. (Could’nt boil water six months ago.) Now have a Wok .. and create AMAZING chinese dishes. Well: I like them, so who cares?

  Glenda J. and I May, only May, do another revival (TV or Film) of ‘Chalk Garden’ with Helena Bonham Carter, John G. and Lauren Bacall .. it could be fun? We’ll see … anyway, I’ll go and post this and hope that you get it and that we’ll meet for a modest, and it MUST be, lunch … or shall I bring you some sandwiches from Partridges? Terribly good .. and easy to eat. Unless ones ‘plate’ is loose … oh Lor’ ...

  With profound love as ever.

  Dirk

  To Brock Van den Bogaerde Cadogan Gardens

  20 May 1989

  My dear Brock –

  It was tremendously kind of you to drop in on Wednesday evening. I was feeling just a bit ‘saggy’.

  Perhaps you knew, perhaps you did not, (for we did not speak of it) that it was the eve of Tote’s death. The anniversary, if you can call it that, of the worst days of my life.

  So you can imagine that just being with you, and knowing how very deeply Tote had loved you, and all that you stood for, as indeed do I, made a curious feeling of ‘bond’ again. I felt not so much a sense of loss as, in an odd way, a sense of having made the year and got through it.

  There were times, and you may have guessed, when I was perfectly ready to fuck off … but it seemed such a damned cowardly thing to do, and Tote would have been really angry, and I felt that, after 49 years, I had been extremely lucky and should give thanks … rather than sulk and take a bottle of pills. I had them ready.

  But the marvellous thing was that it seemed to me that you were, very quietly keeping ‘an eye on the bloke’. Perhaps you were’nt .. but the feeling gave me great courage. The times when you dropped in for a beer and a bit of gossip restored, time and time again, a rather shakey existance. One I really did’nt want, and one which I could not see myself enduring all alone.

  You helped me over that hurdle often.

  For that, and so much more, thank you.

  When I said, the other evening as you were leaving, that you were all I had got left now, I did, actually mean it.

  No blackmail intended here, a simple statement of fact.

  Perhaps because in many ways we are rather alike (in being shits?) under the skin, perhaps because of the strange early days we shared at Clermont, and the days later when you came to Berlitz .. I dont know what it was, but it has remained and will do so.

  You are very much a part of the life I was given to share with Tote and, like a hidden thorn under the finger nail, so to speak, you stay. I am immensly proud of you: respect you above all else, and love you very much indeed.

  Thank you for the care, for the courage you have offered me.

  I know, now, that I can manage what may lie ahead because you have carried the lamp and shown me, in an odd way, that I’ll manage the path, lonely or not... I’ll do it. And I’ll do it for you.

  We are, after all, Bogaerdes, and that aint to be sneezed at.

  Remember the motto we hold, ‘Ever green’1 .... Why not?

  With gratitude & love always

  Dirk

  To Alain de Pauw Cadogan Gardens

  8 June 1989

  Cher Alain –

  Helas! I have forgotten almost all my French, so this will have to be in English which Christine will have to translate. Alain, thank you. It was a wonderful, if moving, surprise to have the magazine.2

  So strange to see, once again, so many familiar things which I never expected to set eyes on again, nor wished to, for that part of life is over for me.

  But I am charmed, ravished, and jealous all at once! You have made the house (YOUR house, not mine now) so beautiful .. it is clear and un-cluttered and warm and loved: that is clear to see. And the pool is ravishing!

  I was amazed to see the tiny tree in the front lawn, on the edge of the wall almost, which I planted as a seedling years ago. It is, if it is the same one, huge now. I often wondered if I had put him in the wrong place. But he looks splendid right infront of the view. I call him ‘he’ always because he was a baby from the big cypress outside the old dove-house and laundry-room … I planted him when we moved in in 1969 … he was then over thirty years old, and the first ‘baby’ he had I stuck down on the wall.

  In the long room, as we called it, you will find, under the arch at the far end by the kitchen-fireplace, a strange blue and black tile which I had set into the floor. I dont think that I ever told you what it was, did I? I stole it from the very top step of the old Rhul Hotel3 in Nice under the eye of a cross policeman! I told him, because he thought I was crazy, that at some time every crowned head had once trodden on that tile … and that from it you could re-create the entire floor of the hotel … it is a pattern tile. So he let me keep it, and when we were digging up the earth floor and laying the tiles, old ones I had found, I set him in. Voila!

  Truly, Clermont is gloriously beautiful now, and I am so wonderfully happy, as I was the first day that we met, that you and Christine had it.

  For I knew that your love for it was as great as mine.

  I am now in a modest flat with a wide terrace, a view over great trees and a private garden, with just enough furniture and room for one person.

  I sold the house I bought, thank God! to two very rich Americans … and thus was able to afford this flat in the Snob Area of Sloan Square and Knightsbridge which is fine by me, because I can walk everywhere I need.

  Loneliness, of course, is the cruellest blow. But that has to be coped with.

  Sold all my furniture, well: nearly all … and all the paintings I had … so it was funny to see the Georgian round table still in the cock-pit at Clermont .. George II … the wood at anyrate … and the Italian chairs … which I wish I had brought here! They would have fitted the flat wonderfully, but not the house.

  Again, thank you both.

  [ … ] Be happy there this summer: I will think of you, and look at the pictures often. You were wonderfully kind to think of me.

  With warmest wishes and love to you both …

  Always

  Dirk

  P.S. I shall be working on a film with Tavernier1
in Sanary in September/October but, have no fear, I will NOT come near Grasse. Too painful still –

  To David Frankham Cadogan Gardens

  14 July 1989

  David my friend –

  Super good to have your letter: I regret to tell you that the ‘Telegraph’ has now become 2 papers!2 One Saturday and one on Sunday, and I never quite know when I’ll be printed. I have done a hell of a lot from Hellman (no pun –) to Capote, now on the Goldwyn book,1 very funny and AWEFUL [ … ] and did a lengthy review for the new book on Carrington2 (Strachey’s wife.3 Lytton I mean.) which caused a bit of a flutter and a lot of mail.

  When I say aweful above, I merely mean that the La La Situation4 is, was, well still is, aweful. So evil and crooked, and the little shivers of fear still run up and down ones spine. I have had my share, as you know, of the visciousness from Head Office … it was even nastier with Goldwyn. God!

  I am typing badly because I am jammed full of anti-biotics on account of teeth. While Tony was so desperatly ill it was impossible for me to think of being unwell myself, so I have let things lapse too long, and now reap the whirlwind [ … ]

  This country: honestly. I wish I could go back to France but darent risk another move. Three in 18 months practically killed me. Anyway DID give me a stroke. Thats okay now; I’ll never be able to Stride Over The Downs again, but, frankly, at my age, I dont give a fuck.

  As long as I can get to the off-market and get my whisky I’ll manage.

  The Saki readings became boring. One evening on stage, sitting waiting for my que, I suddenly thought, ‘Sod this. I’m bored rigid and it’ll be the same tomorrow, and I hate hotel-in-the-Provinces-Life and want to go home to London.’ So I did just that!

  We played to packed houses nightly, it was decent pay, but we all agreed that it was, frankly, pretty dreary after the first euphoria had worn off. Readings are NOT like a play. You just read. Dull.

  So I packed that in and am off home to France to do a film for Tavernier in September. He’s written it especially for me, so I could hardly refuse.

  He made ‘The Lacemaker’, ‘Around Midnight’ and ‘Judge And the Assasin’ and ‘Sunday In The Country’ etc. I don’t know if they hit L.A or Calif. or even the U.S. But he’s choc a block with Awards and I think he’s terrific. So. After 12 years I return to the Cinema. Rather a drag, but about time I got up off my ass, arse, and got to work. I have a new book coming out in September here, wont allow it to be printed in the U.S or for that matter, any of my books. The Critics are anti-British, say I’m anti-Semetic, and dont write ‘gutsy’ books. So sod them. This is an edited collection of some of the letters which I wrote to Mrs X, my unknown saviour in Connecticut. It’s fairly slim, a decent cover, Snowdon photograph of ageing writer, and it’s very sad. It is Viking’s Book For The Fall non-fiction. So that is decent. As soon as I have done the promotion, a signing at Hatchards and one at Heffers in Cambridge and a Questions and Answer evening at the National (theatre not cinema) I go straight to France. To Bandol, near Marseilles … which in September, should be alright. If my teeth get mended!

  All in all I am TRYING to come to terms with a full-life, as they call it, but it aint easy and the worst thing is the loneliness, and as I am not a bit gregarious I suffer in utter silence from Friday evening until Monday.

  My fault entirely. But I hate social life now; done it all and been there.

  Just been interviewed for a vast Bio on Judy G, by the guy who did the Capote book.1 Very nice, and took two days chatting and asking .. he’s NOT about to bash her, the opposite … but, sadly, it always comes down to pills and the potions. I gather Liza has’nt done too well from the Warhol book2 .. silly child. She is utterly distant now as far as I am concerned, because, she says, I’ll be angry with her for ‘screwing up the chances’. She’s right.

  I’m off .. thanks for the letter. Hope the CBS was’nt too awful, hope the loot helps, and I admire you for being able to contemplate Another move!

  As ever Dirk –

  To Bertrand Tavernier Cadogan Gardens

  19 July 1989

  My dear Bertrand –

  Thank you so much for the ‘new’ script.3

  I have read it with care … it is difficult for me to fully understand the French after two years away! It seems to be much better than the first one, and there are some very moving moments.

  I regret that I am NOT thin and gaunt, I’m rather plump!

  But I dont want to be as old as the Papa in ‘Sunday In The Country’,4 so perhaps it’s just as well.

  I pray that you do not expect me to play the role speaking French?

  I always understood that Daddy would speak English to his daughter whenever possible. I simply could not manage to learn a role in a foreign accent now: it is too long since I left France, and it’s difficult enough for me to act, for God’s sake, let alone act in a different tongue.

  I would never be able to use the ‘nuance’ which I need: but we will see how things are with the English script. You can always dubb me for France.

  Tell me, when you can, if you want me to supply costume .. it’ll mean extra luggage .. and perhaps Daddy does’nt need much in the way of clothes.

  I too am very, very proud to work with you; after all I have refused to do a film for almost 12 years, preferring to concentrate on my books than to work with ‘second class’ directors! So you may find me rusty, but I will do my best.

  With grateful thanks, my love in abundance to Jane [Birkin], and warmest regards as ever to you ....

  Ever

  Dirk

  To Eileen Atkins Cadogan Gardens

  21 August 1989

  Glum1 dearest –

  Oh dearie me! Your v. glum card arrived and I dont quite know where you are, so will send this to the waterside and hope that Bill,2 or a cat or something, might send it to wherever you are struggling.3 […]

  I’m about to leap into action, in a VERY glum way, for the book and then for the film with Tavernier in France. I rather dread that. I have’nt made a film, per say (is that how you spell it? I dont know) since 1978 … which is altogether too long ago. I am not afeared of forgetting ‘the acting’ but it will be the first time I have travelled away on my own for over forty years! There’s a thought. And what to do hanging about every weekend alone? Oh well …

  I have had a v. jolly time with teeth. Whole lower jaw infected by a desease called septecimia … so ALL my teeth except four stumps left in the front, were yanked out, and a splendid new half moon of teeth glued onto the said stumps. Filed down to sort-of pins. All this took rather longer to do than to tell. Went into the chair at 2 pm and crawled out, with a battered face, at 6 pm. I felt very brave indeed. And was rather amazed that I had new teeth and no septecimia any longer.

  It may amuse you to know, should you wish to indulge yourself in the same kind of activity, that it cost £7.000. There. At the Devonshire Clinic I was assured that a top and bottom, done the same way, would set me back £35.000. Ring-a-bloody-ding. Anyway I now can chew. I can smile without cupping my hand over my fangs and so on. I let things go too far while Tony was so ill … and too far they finally went. It is a silly, silly, thing to do. Dont. Had the flat painted out. My salary at the Telegraph doubled per Review, 25.000 copies of my new book had to be reprinted because of one line which ‘could’ have been defamatory1 … so that has been jolly, and generally done fuck bugger all. Seen a bit of Chatty Bags Angela,2 whose new book has been rather a worry to her sons .. and their wives, but thats Angela .. and bought myself a lot of new frocks from Aquescutum, or whatever they call themselves, which cost a lot but I had not had a new suit since ’81 and now that I have put on a STONE in weight something had to be done. I now have new dresses and feel better. I dont know that I LOOK any better, but who cares. I am going to be fat and eccentric and they’ll all have to lump it.

  I’m doing a platform at the Littleton with my buke. I cant imagine why or what I must do. Read bits, I gather, and answer questions. I
t all seems to me very silly indeed, but it’s rather lonely not having you up river, so there is no reason to sit about here waiting for you to return to the Playhouse, or wherever, with P. word perfect.

  Rex. H[arrison] is doing the revival of ‘The Circle’ with Glynis Johns and Stewart Grainger. He said he thought he’d made a ‘bit of a cock up’. I reckon he’s right there ..

  Great love D.

  Dirk returned to the South of France at the end of September, to begin work on Daddy Nostalgie. He was there for five weeks.

  To Eileen Atkins

  (Postcard)

  Hotel Ile Rousse

  Bandol

  7 October 1989

  THE MISTRAL (GHASTLY WIND 100 MPH) BLEW IN THIS A.M. BRINGING YOUR SAD/FUNNY LETTER [ … ] YOU HAVE NOT LOST A SCRAP BY DOING THE PIECE. AND, ANYWAY, YOU STILL HAVE OLD HAG V.W3 TO HANG ONTO WHEN YOU FEEL YOU ARE DROWNING. FILMING IS ALL VERY WELL BUT. 6.45AM TO 7.PM IS PUSHING IT A BIT. AND PLAYING IN FROG UTTERLY TERRIFYING. BIRKIN A DREAMCHILD (OF 40!) AND TAVERNIER SMASHING. AS HE WRITES ME LETTERS TO SAY THAT I AM THE GOLDEN HAIRED BOY I CANT COMPLAIN. AFTER 12 YEARS AWAY I SEEM TO HAVE IT ALL STILL IN PLACE. V. ODD! DAY OFF TODAY AND TOMORROW. Oh God! EATING ALONE IN CRYSTAL PALACE, SCRIPT AGAINST THE CRUET, IS WEIRD AND I GLUE MYSELF TO THE TV AND SWITCH CHANNELS ALL NIGHT. AWFUL JUNK. I DO MISS SLOAN SQUARE. TALK ABOUT GLUM AND GRUMBLE. BACK VIA CANNES-NICE. IT’LL BE A BIT RUM TO GO THERE AGAIN. I DO LOVE YOU. GLUMMER THAN GLUM.

  To Hélène Bordes Cadogan Gardens

  6 November 1989

  Hélène ma cherie – (familiar!)

  Home at last. Happy in a way, sad to leave my dear France, glad the film is finished, and is good I believe, and happy, happy, to get your ‘cards’ this morning.

  What hellish little creatures some women are! How awful for you to be so troubled by such an idiot.1 There seem to be so many lonely, lost, silly creatures in the world … and here it is the same, especially after the book-signings which I had to do. Cambridge, Oxford, London … mad women who brought flowers, letters, gifts of abominable shapes and sizes, ties, socks, handkerchiefs … oh dear! The sadness and the irritation in the middle of intense work. Signing as I did, 700–800 books in two hours is intense – or is for me. And trying not to be impolite. But sometimes ..... the idiots win.