Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters

by Unknown

  Dont nudge my basket in Partridges1 … come and eat instead?

  Ever, with respect and affection.

  Dirk

  To Dilys Powell Cadogan Gardens

  15 November 1990

  Dearest Dilys –

  Oh dearie me! I know that you are going to think that I have quite forgotten you? Not at all. My silence has been imposed by a number of irritating, worrying at times, items.

  Well: to start with. ’Flu. Not desperatly badly but quite bad enough. Caught, of course, from my students during Workshop at the Guildhall. I realised, sitting like a toad in a circle of 34 young people, that thirty of them were reeking with the bloody germs. Red of nose, coughs, barking like seals: Nothing to do but carry on and try to make them understand the difference between a 5 lense and a 75 lense .... not altogether certain of the difference myself now. Technics alter.

  But I got through two sessions of three hours and got, in consequence, ’flu. Bed ridden for a day and a night, miserable and coughing for a week. No work done, no letters written, hence silence.

  I was unable to go and be capped and gowned at the bloody Guildhall for services to the Arts (!) which was almost a relief. Imagine the horror of the luncheon which preeceded it! My co-graduand was one Vivien Ellis (music)2 who at 87 is irritable and concieted in equal amounts. So he had the day to himself while I coughed gobbits in the Kleenex. Then: what then? Oh. A dear chum3 of many years, since ’47, called about some piece I’d written in a paper and I said ‘Have you got ’flu, you sound wretched’ and she said no it was not ’flu, but she had an appointment, on National Health, for her first Bariem (a?) meal at St Thomas on December 18th. This sounded grim. She was unable to swallow. In pain. So. I got her into private care, she was dealt with in FIVE days. Into the Cromwell .. operation for cancer, and telephoned me on Monday evening from her private room to thank me and say that she was sure that now all would be well. But she died next day.

  When I was told, by a brother of hers, I heard myself saying idiotically that she could’nt be dead because I had spoken to her the evening before. So are bad scripts written!

  But the worst part was the bill. Can you believe a private room at the Cromwell, without the surgeon and all that, cost £8.500?

  The total bill amounted to 12,700. Which I do not possess in this country. However, after a morning of suicidal despair about being over-generous and loving to someone outside the family (as my sister was later to point out!) Viking telephoned to say that they had bought my new novel … anyway the half I had by that time written, for a very decent sum. It is not a Sean-Connery-Amount, to be sure, but it got me out of the mire at the Cromwell! So you do see, I hope, that I have been fairly distracted. And that £8.500 was for FIVE days only. The poor lamb [ … ] only lasted five days. Golly whiz. Now I am back on my feet, almost, and trying to sort out the mail .. and your dear card was among it all … and hence this letter. I really do find that looking after the tax, the rates, the lawyers letters and so on is a bit of a chore. Spoiled, of course, for fifty years, or there abouts, it was all done for me. All I had to do was the acting part. Easy as falling off a log. Or, in some cases, a roof.

  ‘Daddy N.’ is now re-titled, thank God, ‘These Foolish Things’ which is slightly better. It was NOT a big success in Paris. Too sad, about two elderly people with a middle aged daughter … and everyone applauded and wept but told their friends not to go. Big hit in Italy and in Switzerland and, for the first time in my life, I won Best Actor at the International Critics Festival in Spain. We open here in Feb .. and at the London Festival on Sunday. I shall keep well away from it all.

  I have planted out the window boxes with winter things .. and am just able enough to have a meal for someone tomorrow who wants to dramatise a piece I wrote for The Independent. I DID suggest that I might quite like to do it myself .. But he says he has some ideas and can we meet. So … ham and salad and how to dramatise my piece. Hence silence!

  I hope this has filled you in? Anyway – Love, & love Dirk

  To Alain de Pauw Cadogan Gardens

  7 January 1991

  Cher Alain

  How good of you to write once more. To keep me in ‘touch’ with Clermont. Naturally I envy you greatly to know that you are still there and that it still gives you peace and shelter, as indeed it once did me.

  I spent my first Christmas and New Year absolutely on my own!

  The first time in 70 years!

  I thought that I should try it … just the once .. to see if I could manage it, and I did. I apparently had a far better time than most of my family and my friends! People had terrible rows, got stuck in traffic or snow, were bitten by dogs, got flu, were burned by the fire (logs falling from a too-big fire) and God knows what else. More marriages seem to founder at Christmas than at any other time .. but then in the idiotic UK the wretched holiday lasts three weeks! Only today do people crawl back to their offices .. can you believe it?

  And so, with a probable war ahead, let me wish you and Christine and your family safety, above all peace, and health in this New Year.

  And again, my most sincere thanks for your thought of me ..

  As ever

  Dirk

  To Julie Harris Cadogan Gardens

  18 February 1991

  Julie dear –

  […] Darling: frankly No. I wont be at your party at the Garrick.

  I honestly dont see any reason to celebrate the fact that one has reached seventy!1 Why? It is’nt the end of the line for God’s sake .. lots of time ahead, and lots and lots of things to do.

  I, for my part, will have nothing whatever to do with my birthday if and when I hit the mark! Balls … it’s like any other old birthday, best forgotten, it only makes one FEEL old … the day before one is 69 the day after 70. So whats the big deal, it’s all a matter of calanders and that sort of nonsense.

  Anyway, love, I would not know anyone there, save for you and Mu2 I expect, and I NEVER do the Evenings, only ever Matinees .. I was forced to hand Natasha Richardson a prize at some ghastly ‘do’3 and did so only because I adore her and it was her first award and I have known her since she was, well … BEFORE .. she was born. Never again.

  I dont expect you to forgive my refusal, it is not because I dont value you and your freindship, it’s just that it’s not my scene, not reclusive, just selective.

  Celebrating a birthday in that manner seems a bit daft to me.4

  Now eighty is something else. That is REALLY a landmark … I know a lot of people who retire at seventy five! And move to France or Spain or go off to China and walk along the Wall!

  There is a lot of life left, darling. Promise you.

  Love

  Dirk

  To Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council Cadogan Gardens

  6 February 1991

  Planning application/listed building application.

  DPS/DCS/GA/TP/90/2180/2182. 49 Kings Road.

  Dear Mr French1 –

  I write to protest, very strongly, about the apparent decision to install a branch of McDonalds hamburger, take-away on the above site.

  It will completely wreck a well-loved Conservation Area, cause intense distress to those who live in the area, plus dirt, pollution and added noise.

  The Kings Road, which I have known all my life, has steadily declined into a Down-Market area. The arrival of a McDonalds will finally bring about a feeling of total desolation to this sad street.

  I beg of you to use your good offices to try and alleviate this Conservation disaster .. we managed in Paris and other Continental cities where the take-away’s were jammed into areas of particular historic and national attraction.

  Even though much of the Kings Road is now squalid and dirty, the prospect of Royal Avenue to the Hospital is STILL one of our jewels. Can you do something to help preserve this?

  Your help in this worrying matter would be most gratefully appreciated by us all who live in the borough.2

  Very sincerely,

&n
bsp; Dirk Bogarde.

  To Olga Horstig-Primuz Cadogan Gardens

  14 March 1991

  Darling Olga –

  As I write this poor Jane is down the road, not very far from here, in the church for the burial of her beloved Pappie.3 Nothing I fear will hurt her as much as this, for she absolutely adored him, and nothing that I can think of will heal her grief. Neither Jacques, Charlotte or Lulu4 … It is desperatly sad. I did not go to the funeral because I dislike them[,] funerals, and also because I am not a part of that very big, rather distinguished family.

  And they are ALL a bit cuckoo!

  But afterwards I will be here to help her, if I can.

  I am typing this so that you may understand it easier! What is this about your ‘view getting worse’ as you say? I am in the same boat ma belle! I have to wear glasses to peel potatos! And now that I have learned (amazingly) to cook .. and enjoy it! … I wear glasses all the time. Except at public functions like the Variety Club Award, or the Evening Standard (our only evening newspaper) awards. They are all on TV so I dont wear my glasses. I’m about to be 70 in a day or two but that is of no consequence. The next ten years are the test!

  ‘Daddy Nostalgie’ (title changed here to ‘These Foolish Things’) will open here at the top, top, cinema, the Mayfair Curzon, as soon as ‘Mr Et Mme Bridge’1 come off … very boring. That is the film with Joanne and Paul Newman. I have’nt seen it but have been told that it is ‘stultifing’. Not a good indication! It had wonderful reviews from all the critics, but who wants to go and see two elderly Americans regretting their lives and wondering what a bidet is for?

  On the other hand, who wants to see an ageing Daddy dying with his miserable daughter and boring wife living in Bandol!

  Merde ….

  ‘Jericho’ will not be published until next spring. England is SO slow … and this afternoon my editor from Viking arrives to start the cutting and rearrangement. This is the part I hate. They like the book but say that it is a little slow here and there … so. I wrote very hard for five months. 86.350 words. Pas mal? I like it .. it is set in the Var so that I could keep in touch with my beloved France and it brings me close to Clermont just to write about the flowers which were growing in April/May. It is so strange how quickly I forget my garden and the work I had to do there. Age, I suppose?

  NEXT DAY.

  A full day yesterday: I had to start the Editing of my book […] I was very afraid that they would ask me to cut a great deal. I wrote far too much: but they only want small cuts and one or two ‘scenes’ extended. So that is alright. I am VERY relieved. I have lived with the book for two years .. actually I started it in ’86 just before we discovered the bad news about Tony. So it was set aside. Anyway; now it is done. Today my niece and her husband for lunch .. ouf! and then tomorrow Thomas, my ‘adopted’ grandson, of Tony’s, comes to lunch. He asks for my ‘special’. A chicken in the bricque with eight bulbs of garlic and six lemons, stuffed with wild mushrooms. I admit I do it rather well, and it is easy and came from a recipe we got in Chateauneuf.2

  Apparently there was a re-peat of the Visconti show on Antenne 2 .. I have had a lot of mail congratulating me on speaking French so well. I feel very ashamed! But, somehow, I seem to speak better now that I am in London .. idiotic, but true. Or perhaps the years have finally got ripe. Like a good Camembert? You think it possible?

  No news from Jane today or yesterday and nothing in the papers. She is very little known here and Gainsboroug not at all .. except for that idiotic song.1 Ah well .. we are different countries twenty miles apart. I must go and lay my table for lunch [ … ] All my love always ..

  Ever

  Dirk XXOX

  I was awarded a special prize, by the Variety Club, for my ‘World Wide Contribution to International Cinema’! Finney won Best Actor, Natasha Richardson (Daughter of Vanessa Redgrave) Best Actress. Nonsense, but fun!

  To Nicholas Shakespeare Cadogan Gardens

  21 April 1991

  Nicholas –

  Of course I was very saddened when I heard that you were about to slide out of the Editors Chair.2

  But I absolutely understand, and agree, that you should.

  After all books have to be written so that they can be read. Simple.

  I’m really only writing to say a rather belated ‘Thank you’.

  It is a thank-you which might seem trivial but which was, to me, very important that I convey. Because, quite honestly, I am not absolutely certain where I would have been today had you not come to see me in that foul little house in Kensington three years ago. You did, without knowing it, pull me back from a chasm so black, so deep, that all could very well have ended in ashes for me.

  Or, frankly, a pill-bottle.

  It was, that evening, a pretty bloody time. I had learned earlier in the day, that cancer had reached the lymph-glands in my patient, and that it was simply a question of time.

  I suppose that I should have called and asked you to cancell your meeting with me, but, for some strange reason, I did not do so.

  I did’nt exactly know how to cope, where to go, what to do, how to adjust. Fifty years companionship was about to end; a whole future so comfortably planned had hideiously, and suddenly, come to an end, and I was frankly a stranger in an alien land after twenty two years abroad. Radiently, happily, glowing, wonderously, abroad. Never to return. Idiot me.

  And then, that sorry evening, you arrived. Doctors had come and gone, the patient dozed. I, in despair, had to work out what to do.

  And you arrived with a plank, and hand-rail, to help me across the chasm.1 It may seem odd to you that being asked to review books for the Telegraph can reach such a giddy height of meaning.

  But that is what happened. Instead of packing it all in, as I very likely would have done when the fuss was over, I suddenly found a perfectly good reason for ‘going on’. You offered me that.

  So for that incredible boost to courage, moral, and belief in self, I must say ‘Thank you’. And having done that, causing you a wincing embarressment .. (SP?) I’ll let it go.

  But thats how it was. For my new belief in self, for my get-on-with it, and start all over again .. for that at least.

  Thanks.

  Ever

  Dirk

  To Penelope Mortimer Cadogan Gardens

  29 April 1991

  Penelope –

  Perhaps this will find it’s way to your trembling hands among the beastly builders and the debris and the STUFF.2

  If I had not had a stroke (due to moving at an advanced age) I’d have pissed off back to France after Forwood died. But simply could’nt face another move.

  Willesden sounds alright. Not sure about P. O’Tool.3 Terrific bore, rather a good actor. Once. But if you have a garden and grandchildren (all South facing?) [ … ] then you are wiser than moaning in the peat and mire of the Post Office.

  If there was peat and mire? There usually is. I was up to elbows in both yesterday on my titchy balcony. Changing the earth in pots (what a fucking chore THAT is four flights up) and planting my Lavateria (SP?) and a whole flock of dancing, nodding, violas. It all looks v. pretty and smells super.

  Wallflowers. You see. Odd, is’nt it, how once one has had a garden it is almost the most impossible thing to give up. I know I have to have a sort of litter-box .. anything where I can see light and breath the air. And plant a pot.

  [ … ] What is this Mac Classic?1 Never heard of it. Should I? I could’nt wind up my Hornby train. Would that count against me?

  The only thing is, it looks a bit soulless. But then so, I suppose, does this electric job. Took me months to find something simple enough to use.

  My old Smith Corona, strong as an ox, and travelled the world (Literally) finally blew a gaskett, or whatever they do, and died.

  I managed to get this through a kind editor at the Telegraph (for whome I review books) who told me to go to W.H. Smith in Notting Hill Gate where they had SERIOUSLY simple typewriters. Hence this year .. or ye
er2 .. thing.

  I did the whole of ‘JERICHO’ on it. 86.533 words exactly. Finally I mean. According to my [ … ] typist in Hitchin. She has a vast machine which does everything. Including count. Cant spell, neither can she (Nor me) but it does amazing things like, if you want to change a characters name two thirds of the way into the epic, all that you have to do is press a button ONCE and you get ‘Abrahams’ changed to ‘Aronovich’ in a flash.

  I do reckon thats good.

  [ … ] Yup. Saw first episode of ‘Marriage’3 .. was v. impressed. Then the awfulness of the acting and direction took hold and I squirmed out of the 2nd. Sorry.

  Not your fault .. but those lump un-ladies [sic] and that DIRE Harold!

  Poor Nicholson .. he was a wet, that was true, but not wringing-wet.

  We’ll talk about that one day. It’s one of the reasons I wont do TV.

  My new film, with Tavernier, opens at the Curzon next month. We are the RAGE and toast, of New York. Words like ‘unforgettable’, ‘magnificent’ ‘triumphant’ and ‘unmissable on all points’ sound pretty to the ear and look lovely in print. After 12 years away! I DO hope this finds you in the pink … as it leaves me. For the moment ..

  My love D XXXXX

  To Wallace S. Watson Cadogan Gardens

  2 May 1991

  Dear Professor Watson –

  I was facinated to get the packet of mail1 from you today. [ … and] amazed to find the copies of the private letters which I had written to Fassbinder after all these years. Amazed for two reasons: that he had bothered to keep them, and that they had surfaced in Pittsburg!

  The advice I offered him in these letters still holds good today, the great sadness of ‘DESPAIR’ is that he, finally destroyed a marvellous movie.

  Willfully, I sometimes think. The letter of 24th September ’77 was written shortly after I had returned home from Paris after having dubbed the final cut. Not a lot .. but pieces here and there. The cut-version staggered me. It was so amazingly good, so tremendously sad and, this is important, so wryly FUNNY!

  The film was selected, as it stood, for Cannes and for the German Entry in the following year. May.