In several letters he downrated his performance in Victim, but forever extolled the role he played for Visconti’s Death in Venice, which he felt was his finest hour. I admit that I am not neutral where Victim is concerned, since I was closely connected with the making of the film and felt Dirk’s decision to accept the central role was a brave one in the sense that, until then, he had been the darling of the blue-rinsed matrons and risked alienating their devotion to him.  But he had always been drawn to the darker roles, especially the opportunities handed to him by the Marxist American director, Joseph Losey, one of Hollywood’s blacklisted who quit his native shores to forge a career (anonymously at first) in England.  The letters reveal Dirk’s love-hate relationship with Losey, always a difficult man, quick to take offence, with a permanent chip on his shoulder and granted an inflated reputation by some critics by reason of his political past. Bogarde worked with him early on in his new life, risking censure from the film establishment. Subsequently they worked together on several films — notably The Servant — but when it suited him, Losey abandoned Dirk quickly, succumbing to the siren call and life style of the Burtons with whom he made two expensive turkeys (Boom and Secret Ceremony).

In spite of this, Dirk’s affection and regard for his talents persisted. If I have any regrets about this collection it is that, inevitably, it is all one-way traffic: many times I longed to know what had prompted Dirk’s replies, but I accept that even with judicious editing Coldstream still ended up with 531 pages. However, I applaud him for coming up with an innovation: at the end of this long volume he has placed a section called ‘Dirk’s Out-Takes’ — pithy comments on life culled from letters which did not make the final cut. I particularly liked ‘We are moths, we actors’ and the confession that ‘I spend more time at this machine than I do in bed’.

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