Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters

by Unknown

But frequently longed to do so. Hateful memories of pressing buttons to illuminate things or make steam-pistons work.

  And then the questions after.

  ‘This Week’4 was a total waste of time, I thought. And I was pissed off that so much time and money was spent and everything shoved into a half hour of negativity.

  A pile of letters, naturally, today. Enclosing booklets in bad print called ‘AWAKE!’ or ‘THE SHINING ROAD’. (To god, of course. Silly.) and all of them missing the point entirely.

  Is the UK simply stuffed with ladies who ‘walk with the Lord’ and think I’ll be better off if I did?

  Seems so to me.

  I wonder what they’ll do with someone in their arms trying to tear their eyes out? In howling pain?

  A woman in Cale Street asked me if I minded her jumping the queue at the greengrocers on account of she only had twenty minutes to do her shopping because her husband’s ‘dose of Morphine’ would wear off and ‘he’ll try to chew the electric light cable again: ‘I’v moved the lamp away from his bedside .. but you never know ..’

  And, another lady, in Lennox Gardens, had promised to shoot her husband in the back somewhere on the south Downs, which they both knew from childhood and loved, when his pain became quite intolerable. It was ‘hopeless now because the pain is so great that I cant get him out of bed, let alone drive him down to Firle ..’

  Things like that, apart from personal rememberances, give one a degree of what you call ‘conviction’.

  The word that you have to remember is the one you use to me. ‘Volountary’.

  There is nothing hysterical about it: and no one can POSSIBLY kill Granny in her flat so that the ‘children can have a place to live’.

  But one was not given time to explain that the other night.

  Never mind.

  I am reading away like anything.1 It takes a hell of a long time to do. Half a book has, so far, taken five hours. But I am quite enjoying ‘me’.

  More on Monday and half Tuesday. After that I really must get on with my next. God! I am such a dreadful work-avoider you cant imagine.

  M. Major2 flourishes wildely. A real plant now .. glory be to goodness.

  White fly still on my fox-gloves; I long for the cold, hate this daft warm-muggy-flu-dark-at-four existance.

  With a real winter you can believe in a Spring.

  Get yourself to W.H. Smith soonest. They are selling excellent little electric typewriters like this. For only 69.99.

  And they really DO work.

  Love D.

  To John Osborne Cadogan Gardens

  8 November 1991

  My dear John –

  What a good fellow you are! Just as I was about to start the washing-up your splendid book3 arrived.

  I was pretty chuffed, as you must know.

  I enclose the review I did last week.4 I got you early from the good John Sandoe (or no ‘e’?)5 and, as you will see was ravished anew by your writing. Goodness me, how I admire you and your work.

  I have read all the reviews, or anyway the reviews so far published, with wry amusement. They are terrific really: just carping, as usual.

  I simply dont understand this country and it’s journals and it’s journalists. I know how much you love it, and rightly (for you) but I miss my ‘home’ most dreadfully. I suppose that after 21 years of bucolic life in an athmosphere of serenity and earth, water, stone and air … that I would.

  Cadogan Gardens is okay. Excellent in some ways, but it aint like my farm ..

  Never mind. Now and again a huge wind blows me into sense and awareness and you have done it this time!

  Still: we all have to start off again somehow, and it’s just got to be faced. Washing up with a ten thousand metre mountain just beyond the window above the sink is a little different to washing up with a fat Fillipino lady scraping out her saucepans just across the well above my present sink. But one copes!

  Next time you are at Oscars Dive call me? [ … ] and come up and have something to drink or eat. Whatever …

  I’m just up the road, as you know .. I go to do all my TV crap in the Langtry Room1 frequently. The flat is too small, and anyway private.

  Again thank you, and I’ll not bleat on about ‘ALMOST’. You must know what total delight, admiration and joy it has given me, and will give me again...

  Ever, from a long time ago ..

  Yours,

  Dirk

  To Susan Owens Cadogan Gardens

  9 November 1991

  Saturday –

  Dear S.O.

  It’s four fifteen and just getting dark. I really cant get used to this daft UK business of ‘turning back the clock’. Sod it!

  [ … ] I have just walked down the Kings Road (wanted to get a new CD of Gershwin. Its £22, and they had’nt got it. Just as well for me.) and the amount of humanity streaming along that road is amazing. Where do they all come from? Where do they go to? What have they to spend? Do they realize how tacky they look in their tights and Doc Martins? Or lacey stockings with Trainers AND shorts, plus HAT!

  I have never seen so many utterly plain people in all my life. And all drifting along like zombies. The stink of cheap fat frying, bottled coffee, Big Mac’s bulging everywhere. Oh dear!

  […] Yesterday I did a TV interview about Ralph Thomas, who directed all the ‘Doctor’ films as well as some of the others, like ‘Two Cities’ .. boring, but I could’nt get out of it. And on Thursday I was on, of all things, ‘Woman’s Hour’ talking about my Cancer Charity … so it’s all hustle and bustle which quite suites me as long as I can keep my own pace.

  […] They started shooting on ‘Voices In The Garden’ in the S. of France at the beginning of October. I reckon it’ll be finished by now. But it was quite a pleasant surprise coming, as it did, just before Christmas and just before I have to pay a hell of a packet for the re-painting and re-pointing of this bloody great house. We, the Tenants, have all been screwd silly. It happens once every six years .. so I reckon next time around someone else will have to pay MY whack!

  But for weeks now, since July, end of, I have had Builders Bums stuck on cradles at every window .. and I’ve been making mugs of tea and coffee like some old drab in the W.I … but it keeps the chaps in kind fashion and they merit it I reckon .. swinging about like apes five floors up.

  This Week was cut to ribbons, but it has caused a terrific response .. and we have had 10.000 letters of enquirey since the beginning of the year. Amazing. There are a lot of people who want help .. and who feel comfortable with the Advance Directive. It is legal, but it all depends on your Doc. You, ideally, should give a copy to your next of kin .. one to your Lawyers .. as well as your doctor. 3 in all. And get it witnessed by 2 witnesses. I suggest NOT members of your family .. because that can cause problems later sometimes .. just get 2 friends who have nothing to gain from your death to sign. I did that. Easier, and tidy.

  [ … V.E.S. will] send you the Living Will (Advance Directive) and all the info. you need. I think when you see it and read it you will see just how sensible it is. That poor family with the boy at Hillsborough1 is enough to break your heart. And there are TWO families like that still.

  It is now almost really dark … I think I’ll trail off and light the lights, settle down with a book, and have a read until Scotch-Time.

  Look after yourself, dont despair .. and battle on. There is still a lot to do in life, as I am finding out!

  Ever

  DB.

  To Philip Hoare Cadogan Gardens

  1 December 1991

  Dear Philip Hoare –

  Thank you for your letter of the 28th.2

  I hasten to reply before the onslaught of Christmas Cards.

  Noël Coward was very angry, in a totally un-violent way! when I left the Theater for the Cinema.

  He had seen the First Night of a play I did at the New Lindsey Club Theater, was overwhelmed by us all, and got it moved into the West End.1 He was passionate about the theater, and that had bet
ter be understood from the start. The Cinema in his eyes (in mine also at the time) was a ‘piffling business. You dont have to act, it’s all technicians’.

  He was wrong, of course, but that is how most theater people felt, and to some extent still do feel, about film-playing.

  His anger, mild though it was, was really a ‘reproof’ .. I had just come out of a six year, quite tough, war. I was, as he said, ‘new blood’ and the theater was screaming out for new blood.

  ‘Every old tabby with a varicose vein has been playing the Juvenile since ’39. We need new guts, a new breath, new wind.’

  Well: he did’nt quite know what that was himself, frankly .. he could’nt write the sort of stuff the ‘new blood’ needed after six years of knocking off Germans and Italians!

  He wrote a play ‘Peace In Our Time’ and included a decent part for all of us (7) who were in the Lindsey Play. I had by that time, that is to say when he was ready to let us see his script, signed a contract with a film company called Wessex. They were under the Rank Umbrella.

  He was seriously angry that I turned down the role which he had very especially written for me. I never read it, but was told, by him, in the most intense detail what it was all about. I privatly thought it was pretty frightful. But did not say so.

  When I told him about Wessex he was, I think, more astounded really than angry that I could actually, after six years away, turn down his play. Written, the part, especially for me. I explained that after six weary years on a Captains Pay .. and in debt anyway to the Army (who had apparently over-paid me at some time) that the security of the Cinema was very comforting and inticing.

  He eventually, reluctantly, saw my point. He was sad, but understanding. ‘It was bound to happen.’ was all he could finally say.

  We had made it quite clear between us, at a very early supper at the Savoy Grill one night early in the run of the play, that I did not share his predilictions. He was immensely graceful and no more was ever said .. apart from one smiled, regretful word. ‘Pity’.

  He was very tough about THE VORTEX2 .. we had to be word perfect after the first (agonizing) read-through. Remember only he and John G. had had a bash at Nicky before. I was not about to do a replica of them. This he sensed at the read-through. I think he was alarmed. Never said so, just went off to Jamacia and sent me a telegram on the first night which simply said ‘Dont Worry Dear Boy It All Depends On You’.

  My notices, I seem to remember, were mixed. Some excellent and some, from elder critics who remembered (or pretended to) his perf. disaster. The cast, made up of many of his friends, cant have made him totally comfortable in Jamacia. We had a great success anyway .. even though Isobel Jeans (playing Florence) glued her wig on every night after the first one during which I SHOOK it off her!

  We got a standing ovation (rare in those days) but she refused to do it again, or have it done, because, as she said, ‘I frequently have very adorable friends in front. They would be terribly distressed.’

  We finished the run .. successfully .. but I never heard from Noël again until he suddenly arrived one day at my house in the country, quite unexpectedly, for tea. There were a crowd of chums and family down. He was enchanting and enchanted them … we did not refer to the play.

  Years later I did ‘Blythe Spirit’ for CBS TV in New York with a quite wonderful cast.1 He was in Jamacia. And remained mute.

  So I dont suppose that my Charles Condamine had pleased him.

  But, after 1946 he had lost his way. A whole new world of players had arrived and what he had always apparently wanted, new blood, new guts, and a crowd of young players to take over from the ‘old tabbies’ he pretended to despise but for whome, alas, he still wrote copiously.

  His time was over and it bewildered him greatly.

  I last saw him in his last play.2 Dined with him afterwards in his rented house, or flat. He was ill, clearly, frightened of death; worried about his performance. Had I liked it? Had the American part worked? Was it moving? (It was hideiously moving. He had been helped to his feet at one agonizing moment.) Did I feel that there was a film in any one of the plays?

  We parted comfortably, affectiontly, I think that he liked me and I know that he was almost surprised that I liked him.

  It was very, very difficult not to. I never pretend, and this I think intrigued him, and more than that, comforted him.

  But we never discussed my performances in HIS works. He was passionate about some of my film stuff. But we left the theater where it belonged for me.

  On the back boiler.

  Yes he was a hard taskmaster, but he was also a genius ..

  I was one of the most fortunate of mortals in that I was allowed to work for him, be accepted by him, be amazed by him .. and on one simply amazing evening at my house, have him play to Judy Garland, and sing with her, his entire repertoir (SP?) for two unforgettable hours. Alas! no tape recorder. A blinding, glorious, Heart Stopping! performance from them.

  Thats all I know.

  Goodness! How lucky I was. How rich I am!

  Sincerely1

  Dirk Bogarde

  Sorry about typing & spelling and all the ‘amazings’. DB.

  To Dilys Powell Cadogan Gardens

  1 December 1991

  Dilys dearest –

  Feel deprived no longer! I aim to come to your table immediatly I am summonsed … so that, rather unfairly, leaves the ball in your court.

  Apart from having to wait in all bloody day for the man who will ‘help you with your washing-machine’ (and who NEVER comes) my days are dullish.

  I have just had my contract with the Daily Telegraph renewed for the third year, and at a bit, not much but a bit, more money. Which makes me feel, quite erroniously, more like a writer than I did.

  Bertrand Tavernier wrote last week to say he ‘longs to work together again’ and have I thought about his idea for a film based on What Happened To Ealing Studios? I have thought. But dont really know what did happen, apart from the fact that [Michael] Balcon hated all his successes because they were ‘vulgar and un-British’ and pined to make lots of ‘Passports To Pimlico’s’. But I cant see this making a film.

  Can you? Even his daughter wont discuss what Really Happened.

  So I feel that we wont get much out of that subject.

  Joanne Woodward wrote yesterday and said wistfully, ‘Will we ever get to work together?’ and I had to write back and say that even if they re-made ‘On Golden Pond’ she and I, being un-bankable, would never get the parts. And anyway; I cant swim. Nevertheless I wrote the news to Tavernier. You never know what can happen by planting a little acorn. Or, at least, seed.

  I have watched the two hourly programmes which I have filmed for Channel 4. To my dismay I was not appalled.

  It is not a discussion, just me talking to camera (five hours in fact, two for the ‘cut’) about my work and film acting in general.

  It’s quite funny. And quite instructive I think.

  It goes out in January, over two weeks, on a Saturday night.

  We’ll see.

  I pulled out of the ‘Saki’ show finally … it really was not quite up to snuff. And I seemed to be carrying the show so that if I did’nt make the performance, because of a cold, flu or the dreaded bronchitis the theater would empty. Too much responsibility … I think Alan Bates took over. He’d be alright. A pleasing voice.

  I have just sent in my Christmas Offer1 to the Telegraph, plus a large illustration! I must be mad. Or they are … and now I just have one trio of books (on Evacuees!)2 to deal with and then I can get down to my new book. A fictional-autobiographical extension to ‘Postillion’ which most people seem to like the best. And it’s fairly easy to do now that I have licked the trick of going back to being eleven or ten. Anyway: the person I was in 1929–30. History!

  I do hope you are completely flu less .. and love you dearly .. D

  To Penelope Mortimer Cadogan Gardens

  31 December 1991

  Penelope – />
  The last day of a fairly perplexing, but not awful, year for me. I write to you now because I got your letter this am and also a Knighthood.3 Both were pleasing. The Knighthood expected (sort-of.) I angered the Queen M. by my portrayal of bloody Browning in the Attenborough Epic and the cries of outrage could be heard from Clarence House and Glamis.4 Really it was a kind of ‘off with his head’, and the Queen cut me dead at a Royal Line up5 .. so, one way and another I felt they might, as they have done in the past, have drawn a line through the family name. Which would have incensed my Pa who never thought anything good could come of ‘being a theatrical’. Anyway, I’m writing because you asked me to, and also to say how good it was to have your humble-grovel-fatuous .. (third attempt) note.

  [ … ] Dont, for God’s sake, be totally crushed by events.1 It seems sometimes to me as if you are. And I dont KNOW what the events were. Merely hazard sliding guesses and feel wretched. Sticking your hands into the earth does heal: but not all of the body, and not ALL of the soul.

  Do get above the murk. You’ll perish otherwise .. and the clear spring which supplied your fountain with so much glory will become polluted by bitterness and/or hoplessness. And that is monstrous of you. Self destruct?

  Write what you remember, pain and all; when I was starting, timidly, to attempt my first (I’ve done five) vol. of autobio., I remember whining to K. Tynan, who was being patient and driving at the same time, that I did’nt know how to eliminate libel. He just said ‘Write it all down. Someone else will deal with the libel.’ I did. And they did. And there you are.

  Do likewise, as they say. When I say ‘tact’ I mean, I suppose, discretion .. a gentle form. [ … ] Dont bother about sticking knives in wounds. Have a jolly good pick away at the scabs. Under a scab, have you noticed? the flesh is often pink, shining, and clean. Altogether lovely and secure, hidden under the ugly crust which kept on ‘catching’ in your ‘woollies’. Understand?

  Your Christmas sounds rather woeful. [Mine] was wonderously selfish. Alone entirely .. boudin blanc (Harrods) with mashed and sprouts just as I always had them for Christmas lunch in the halcyon days. The big dinner came later at nine-ish.