His father was an artist; his mother an actress; he became a matinee idol. He was born Derek van den Bogaerde in Hampstead, just north of London, 28 Mar 1921. He went to university in Scotland and London, worked as a scene designer and commercial artist while studying acting, and made his stage debut in 1939. During the war he served mostly the Far East, in army intelligence. Stage work after the war brought him a contract with Rank studios. Between 1947 and 1961 he played increasingly important roles in a wide variety of more than 30 films. After a disappointing stint in Hollywood, he
… More played two notable roles: the homosexual barrister in "Victim" (first British movie to deal with homosexuals in public life) and the decadent valet in "The Servant" (which won him the British Academy's Best British Actor Award). In Visconti's rendition of Mann's "Death in Venice" he played the nearly silent part of an old man infatuated with a beautiful teenage boy. He said of his part: "I didn't think I could do any better." Toward the end of the 1970s he bought a farmhouse in Southern France to pursue farming and writing (a seven volume autobiography and an equal number of successful novels). In 1990 he returned to London. He was knighted in 1992. He died of a heart attack, at his London home, 8 May 1999; his wish was that his ashes be scattered in France.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IMDb mini-biography by
Ed Stephan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trivia
Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#78). [1995]
The day before he died was spent with his friend Lauren Bacall Apparently they had a wonderful time together.
He moved to Europe in the late 1960s, when he saw his career path lay in the sort of films being produced in Italy, France and Germany, rather than England or America. He lived in France some 20 years, thus fulfilling a childhood ambition. Bogarde was also a prolific writer with seven volumes of autobiography and seven novels all becoming best-sellers. Going to the wrong room for a British Broadcasting Corporation audition, the young Bogarde accidentally got a part in a stage play that proved so successful he was hailed as a star overnight. Born Derek van den Bogaerde in the north London suburb of Hampstead to an actress mother and an artist father, he went to university in London and Scotland, UK. He made his stage debut in 1939 Never married or had children. He once wanted to marry the actress, Capucine
Made only one Hollywood film: Song Without End (1960).
Born at 3:20am-UT
Knighted by the Queen of England despite having left England for France 22 years earlier. [13 February 1992]
Made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des lettres. [1982]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Personal quotes
"I'll only work with new people. If you stick with your contemporaries, you're dead."
"I was as scrawny as a plucked hen. The Rank organisation did supply me with dumb-bells. All I did was put on two sweaters and then put my shirt on."
"I love the camera and it loves me. Well, not very much sometimes. But we're good friends".
"First there was the war and then the peace to cope with, and then suddenly I was a film star. It happened all too soon."
"Childhood for me was basically a backyard, a spade and a bucket of mud with someone to look after you."
"Geniuses are notoriously loony, because it's a very fine line between madness and genius."
"TV? Never! I don't want my audience going for a piss or making tea while I'm hard at work."
"Cinema just a form of masturbation. Sexual relief for disappointed people. Women write and say: 'I let my husband do it because I think it's you lying on top of me'."
"There's something wrong with actors, we've always been a suspect breed. Socially, I find myself more admissable now in England because I've written books."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Biography from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia:
You could call him effete, but that wouldn't capture the essence of his persona. You could call him handsome, but that wouldn't describe his features or physicality. Dirk Bogarde is one of the British cinema's greatest stars, a distinguished actor whose films were consistently among the best the British film industry offered for many years. A prolific performer whose screen career dates back to an extra job in Come on George (1939), Bogarde was one of the first actors to portray a homosexual without making the character a "type," in 1961's Victim as a gay lawyer going up against a gang of blackmailers. This brought him the credibility as a "serious" actor that had eluded him as the popular star of minor comedies and dramas released during the 1940s and 1950s. He is especially well remembered in the "Doctor" series, including Doctor in the House (1954), Doctor at Large (1957), and Doctor in Distress (1963).
During the 1960s Bogarde appeared in a number of films directed in England by expatriate U.S. director Joseph Losey, including the chilling c The Servant (1963), written by Harold Pinter. He was one of the male leads in Darling (1965), another quintessential 1960s British film. Never content to play the "stock" Englishman, Bogarde consistently took risks, some perhaps ill-advised-for example, playing a former concentration camp guard in the distasteful The Night Porter (1974)-but many of them paid off, such as his turn in Alain Resnais's diverting, cerebral Providence (1977). Bogarde retired from the screen after working on German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder's adaptation of Nabokov's Despair (1979), and turned to writing, his first love. He's now written several books, including some well-received volumes of memoirs (notably 1978's "Snakes and Ladders"), before returning to film work with a canny performance in Bertrand Tavernier's Daddy Nostalgia (1990).
OTHER FILMS INCLUDE: 1948: Quartet 1950: The Blue Lamp, So Long at the Fair 1953: Appointment in London, Desperate Moment 1954: The Sleeping Tiger, The Sea Shall Not Have Them 1955: Simba, Cast a Dark Shadow 1957: Night Ambush (original title, Ill Met by Moonlight); 1958: A Tale of Two Cities 1959: Libel 1960:Song Without End, The Angel Wore Red 1962: Damn the Defiant! 1963: I Could Go On Singing 1964: Agent 8 (original title, Hot Enough for June King and Country 1966: Modesty Blaise 1967: Accident 1969: Oh! What A Lovely War, Justine The Damned 1971: Death in Venice 1977: A Bridge Too Far 1981: The Patricia Neal Story (telefilm).
Copyright © 1994 Leonard Maltin, used by arrangement with Signet, a division of Penguin Putnam, Inc.
albowlly
TrickMeNot
