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Thursday 4 December 2008

Ever Dirk: The Bogarde Letters edited

In his own words

Ever Dirk: The Bogarde Letters by John Coldstream (editor)

Sexually cautious at a time when, professionally, it paid to be so, he was most revealing in intimate letters sent to women, notably the doyen of film critics during his lifetime, Dilys Powell, the author Penelope Mortimer, the film producer Ann Skinner, and close friends such as Jill Melford. To them he revealed his innermost fears, nor did he shy away from exposing his hates.  He could be kind, he could be generous, he could be poisonous in his opinions, pulling no punches, and yet I knew him to be unsure and vulnerable. With Forwood gone he formed no new relationship, and when the slings and arrows of age came at him fast and furious from all directions, he suffered loneliness and ill health with remarkable courage; occupying a small Kensington apartment, confined to a wheelchair after a stroke, cut off from most forms of ordinary intercourse, he still retained a sense of humour about his condition and until the last two years kept correspondence going at his usual pace. I recommend the very last entry in this engrossing book in which he lists all his hates and some of his loves, the final love being ‘long letters’. His many fans, blue-rinsed or not, will happily agree.

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