Dirk Bogarde

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 30:11

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:28

My Castaway this week is a film actor and a writer. Forty years ago the Rank Organization cast him as the hero in their famous Doctor series, where, in the house, at large, and at sea, he became a national heart throb. But fame such as this did not bring satisfaction, and anxious for more serious roles, he enlarged his reputation working with Joseph Losey in films such as The Servant and Accident.

Presenter0:52

Eventually he left this country altogether for France, and under the direction of Visconti produced memorable performances in The Damned and Death in Venice.

Presenter1:01

The first volume of his autobiography, published in nineteen seventy seven, established him as an accomplished writer. He's written three more volumes since, and several novels too. Now back in England, he lives alone in Chelsea, a private man, protected, he's the first to admit, by a crab like shell. He is Dirk

Presenter1:21

A desert island would perhaps then not be entirely dissimilar to your present existence.

Dirk Bogarde1:26

Well, I don't know. I wouldn't be very near Stone Square, would I? That's quite early.

Presenter1:30

But you're obviously not worried about being alone.

Dirk Bogarde1:33

No, I never have been. I think I've been what what they call don't they call them a loner, um, which I quite enjoy being.

Presenter1:40

But can days go by when you don't see a soul?

Dirk Bogarde1:43

Oh, looks yes in London especially. There's long, long weekends and I can't get used to the English Christmas. I I think that.

Dirk Bogarde1:49

Five days.

Dirk Bogarde1:51

And you hear the cars all revving up and leaving the buildings, you know, outside, disappearing you know they won't be coming back for about ten days. It's very lonely.

Presenter1:59

Did you feel miserable then?

Dirk Bogarde2:01

No.

Dirk Bogarde2:02

No, I I got on with some writing.

Presenter2:04

And then there's this this um this shell you've confessed several times to having created. Tell me about that, your hermit crab-like syndrome.

Dirk Bogarde2:12

I used it in in in one of my books. I used to explain to people who who kept saying, Well, you never come out, you never come out I mean, they used to do that in France when I lived there.

Dirk Bogarde2:22

I don't like going. I hate parties.

Dirk Bogarde2:24

And I was in the worst profession possible, I suppose, for someone who really has an eye phobia.

Dirk Bogarde2:30

And doesn't like being looked at or stared at or spoken to in the street. I'm awful. I behave dreadfully badly. So.

Dirk Bogarde2:37

I wear silly clothes, you know, like great big things that nobody can really tell who I am.

Dirk Bogarde2:42

And usually a cloth cap. That gets me through. So that is a kind of form of protection.

Presenter2:47

And um again one knows from not least from your writing that you're a very tidy, a very orderly person. So your your shack on the island is going to be a very tidy little hidy hole, isn't it?

Dirk Bogarde2:58

Deeply tired. Even through the war, my tent was a bower of

Dirk Bogarde3:03

Neatness.

Dirk Bogarde3:05

And even my foxhole or split trench, whatever you've got, was tidy'cause I had little sh I dug little shelves to put my books and candles in.

Presenter3:09

The van

Presenter3:13

And what about your taste in music? Is that tidy and ordered?

Dirk Bogarde3:16

Oh, no, no, my taste taste of music's pretty, pretty bloody awful really. It's very Catholic. You know, if I hear a piece of music that I I think is lovely, I'll listen to it if it makes me cry, that's super. But I'm just as happy to hear

Dirk Bogarde3:28

A a modern contemporary piece of music is no piece.

Presenter3:31

What's the first one you're taking to the island?

Dirk Bogarde3:34

Well, I think what I'd like to hear, because I love her voice, and this recording

Dirk Bogarde3:38

is almost the last one she made before her voice began to get wobbly.

Dirk Bogarde3:42

And it's Maria Carlos in the last moments of Act Two of Puccini's Tosca.

Speaker 23:51

Simple.

Presenter4:47

Part of Act Two of Puccini's Tosca, sung by Maria Callas. You say you um hate being looked at. Is that why you found being a matinee idol terribly tiresome?

Dirk Bogarde4:58

Yes, I think it was, because i th there was a vast invasion of privacy.

Dirk Bogarde5:03

which I minded very much.

Presenter5:04

What did they do, the fans?

Dirk Bogarde5:06

Oh well this still load. Uh

Dirk Bogarde5:09

wandering round i in the house, or in the gardens, you know.

Speaker 25:11

The Goth

Dirk Bogarde5:12

breaking and moaning one's name in the night, claiming one was the father of their children.

Dirk Bogarde5:18

Oh, I don't know, being being tasked and generous and then bombarding one with

Dirk Bogarde5:22

Rarely, frankly, in the end, unwanted presents.

Dirk Bogarde5:26

I I think it was the sort of where people don't mean to be unkind, but they're just unthinking. They just

Dirk Bogarde5:33

are not aware that you are a human being, that you can see or hear. A little while ago in Peter Jones I went up you know there's a basement in Peter Jones, and I went into the electrics department which is on the floor above it.

Dirk Bogarde5:46

And I was standing in the checkout thing with a girl I know.

Dirk Bogarde5:50

And a woman came up to her and said, Oh, we've got Dirk Bogard down in the basement, isn't half short.

Dirk Bogarde5:56

And I thought, God, I'm here, right beside you, you know, look and see how short I am and ball on the top.

Presenter6:02

You've said since that they, the fans, ruined your theatrical career in a sense.

Dirk Bogarde6:07

Well, they didn't mean to. They did do it though, um, because every play I chose to do unfortunately I chose grown up serious plays by Hugo Betty or Jean Anui or someone like that. They weren't things for my

Dirk Bogarde6:19

pop image audiences, who were you little girls of

Dirk Bogarde6:23

Between twelve and sixteen.

Dirk Bogarde6:25

And every time I came on the stage, in whatever play I was in, they would sort of shriek out, We lap you, Doug.

Dirk Bogarde6:31

and and scream and whistle and yell. So the play was ruined. The company couldn't get the lines out. I lost my nerve.

Dirk Bogarde6:39

and showed my bad temper and pray,'cause I in panic, you know, you you react.

Dirk Bogarde6:45

with fury, because

Dirk Bogarde6:46

What you're trying to do is being misunderstood. So I gave up the thing. I really I lost my head, lost my nerve.

Presenter6:49

Too big.

Presenter6:52

But you had always wanted to be an actor, hadn't you?

Dirk Bogarde6:55

Yes, I'd always wanted to be an actor from the age of about three or four. I mean, I knew I was going to be an actor, but I didn't know it meant this. I never meant to be a star actor. I thought that.

Presenter6:58

Knew I was gay to him.

Dirk Bogarde7:03

I thought that I'd be a character actor.

Presenter7:05

You say you wanted to be a character actor. Weren't you patently far too good looking to be a character actor?

Dirk Bogarde7:10

You're always going to be a dreamer.

Presenter7:11

You're always going to be a dream boat, aren't you?

Dirk Bogarde7:14

No, no, no, I'm not. And I never was. I've got a very bad profile, a very an unreasonable profile there. My neck's too thin, head's too small. Uh and I mean, Rank even sent me dumbbells and things to to increase my physique because I was so skinny and scrawny.

Dirk Bogarde7:30

It was a total surprise to them, equally to me, that I ever became star at all.

Dirk Bogarde7:35

But one person did sum it up by saying, you know, well, you're you're like a teddy bear. People don't want to go to bed with you, they like to take you to bed.

Dirk Bogarde7:43

For comfort, which I thought was the downput of all time. Let's have some.

Presenter7:46

Let's have some more music there, shall we?

Dirk Bogarde7:49

This uh is is a piece of music played by

Dirk Bogarde7:52

An adopted godmother of mine. When I said adopted, she adopted me. Her name is Yvonne Arno.

Dirk Bogarde7:57

And she's playing this piece of music which I've always grown up with and loved very much, and she's playing it with Jean Barbaroli, and it's called La Filieuse.

Presenter9:03

Ivan Arnaud playing La Filieuse with string orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbaroli, and that was recorded in nineteen thirty two.

Presenter9:11

So Ivan Anna was your adoptive godmother, you said, so there were theatrical connections in the family?

Dirk Bogarde9:17

And well my mother was an actress.

Dirk Bogarde9:19

Her father was an actor and his father was an actor, so there's a connection.

Presenter9:23

And your father?

Dirk Bogarde9:25

My father was the the first and I think only art editor of The Times, the London Times, which didn't mean that he chose you know, he painted pictures, he meant he chose the photographs.

Presenter9:34

And you were meant to be the second art editor.

Dirk Bogarde9:35

I was supposed to be the second art editor, yes.

Presenter9:37

The f

Presenter9:38

But you didn't fancy that.

Dirk Bogarde9:38

No, I was going to be sacrificed on the red brick altar of Printinghouse Square, which I didn't want to be at all.

Presenter9:44

How many of you were there in the family?

Dirk Bogarde9:46

Uh three surviving.

Dirk Bogarde9:49

A brother, sister, and me.

Presenter9:51

Can you then describe to me your your childhood in deepest rural Sussex?

Dirk Bogarde9:56

That was holiday time, and it was

Dirk Bogarde10:00

Oh, total magic. It was the most magical time of one's life, I suppose.

Dirk Bogarde10:04

It was also very fortunately the formative years of one's life.

Dirk Bogarde10:07

Because um

Dirk Bogarde10:09

out from the age of five or six.

Dirk Bogarde10:12

Until 13, when I was booted up to school.

Dirk Bogarde10:15

Uh that got me on the way. I mean, we had no television, we had no wireless.

Dirk Bogarde10:21

So we had to make our own entertainment. We had the country. We had the land. Nothing was ruined. We went gleaning. We we we just lived

Dirk Bogarde10:30

Not brown rag muffins.

Presenter10:32

And what what about your education then? You say you were booted off to education.

Dirk Bogarde10:35

Well, I I behaved so badly as a child always that um I just I didn't care, you know, I was just head in the air, I suppose.

Presenter10:42

So you weren't any good at school at all?

Dirk Bogarde10:43

It's dreadful. Absolutely dreadful. So hope for all of you listening that have no

Dirk Bogarde10:48

Awful children. I was an awful child and so my parents got panic stricken by the time I was thirteen.

Dirk Bogarde10:54

And sent me up to Scotland for a really tough Scottish education, where I stayed with uh my aunt and her husband, who

Dirk Bogarde11:04

I didn't much care for and they didn't care for me.

Presenter11:06

But you've described it since as a very suffocating experience, that Scottish experience.

Dirk Bogarde11:11

Well, Glasgow is a very different city to day, I'm told. I never want to see it again, because the grief of the three or four years I spent up there was so intense. That was my fault.

Dirk Bogarde11:22

I couldn't understand them, they couldn't understand me, I was bullied unmercifully because of my English accent.

Presenter11:28

Is that when you then began to develop your shell?

Dirk Bogarde11:31

Yes, absolutely.

Dirk Bogarde11:33

I used to go and build altars in in sort of rather dreary, boggy little bits of landscape outside Glasgow, and pray at them assiduously.

Dirk Bogarde11:42

To get me out of the bloody place.

Dirk Bogarde11:44

Uh God never listen.

Presenter11:46

So you protected yourself from from the intense grief that you described?

Dirk Bogarde11:50

You you have to, I think, in life, protect yourself from grief, and the only way to do that is to be very s very strong and rather harsh.

Presenter11:57

Let's have some more music before we go on.

Dirk Bogarde11:59

Right.

Dirk Bogarde12:00

Well, this is um

Dirk Bogarde12:02

A piece of music I'm only going to play because I I was given a very bad review in a film by uh a rather unpleasant New York critic.

Dirk Bogarde12:10

It was said that my performance was like Cesar Frank's Symphony in D minor.

Dirk Bogarde12:16

And I didn't know if that was good news or bad news, so I I rushed out and got it and bought it, and here you here it is, and you make up your own mind.

Presenter13:23

The opening of the third movement of Cesar Frank's symphony in D minor, played by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini.

Presenter13:31

Sounds like a rather fine piece of music to me.

Dirk Bogarde13:32

Well it wasn't bad, was it? I mean I thought God it must be a chronicle performance.

Dirk Bogarde13:36

She meant it as a compliment.

Presenter13:36

She meant it as a condiment.

Presenter13:39

Eddie.

Presenter13:41

Can we talk about your war years? You were 18 and a half, I think, at the outbreak of war. And you ended up winning six medals. How did you do that?

Dirk Bogarde13:48

Well we all got we all got metals.

Presenter13:50

I'm sure we all did.

Dirk Bogarde13:51

Yeah.

Presenter13:53

What were they for?

Dirk Bogarde13:54

Being in the right place at the right time, that's all. Nothing brave.

Presenter13:58

Is this this modesty?

Dirk Bogarde14:00

No, no, no, no, no, not at all. I mean, even my mother had one of them for being an ARP warden.

Presenter14:06

You were also, though, weren't you, one of the the first people to enter Belson after the war ended.

Dirk Bogarde14:11

Yes, I would.

Presenter14:11

You also of course saw the results of British bombing raids in in France, didn't you?

Dirk Bogarde14:16

I saw a lot of that, yes, and our own bombing was error really, because uh I used to be in the position, can you believe it at twenty four picking targets to try and stop tanks getting through, panzer tanks getting the Germans getting through.

Speaker 214:30

Jem

Dirk Bogarde14:31

And if we found a village with a crossroads they're all filing through, we would some idiot thought it was a bright idea to bomb the village so they couldn't get through.

Dirk Bogarde14:40

And so we used to drop leaflets on them, say we're going to bomb your houses and get out of the village and um very often the wind blew the leaflets away.

Dirk Bogarde14:49

And they didn't get out of our houses and there they all were. And of course the Germans went on merrily going over in their attacks because all we'd done was to clear the flatten the village so they could go over it.

Dirk Bogarde15:00

War is very unnecessary and evil.

Dirk Bogarde15:03

Situation, I didn't recommend it to anybody.

Presenter15:07

All of which must have had a a a profound effect on a young man in in his early twenties. How and how much did it change you?

Dirk Bogarde15:15

I think it may be very strong. Um

Dirk Bogarde15:17

It made me face up to what the rank organization could chuck at me later.

Dirk Bogarde15:22

Nothing could frighten me after that.

Dirk Bogarde15:25

And nothing did.

Presenter15:27

Record number four.

Dirk Bogarde15:28

Record number four is a particular favourite of mine, Yvonne Pranto.

Dirk Bogarde15:33

People will know her, and she's singing here one of the most lovely songs from a film called Les Trois.

Speaker 215:42

I want if we not forgive the s

Dirk Bogarde15:44

What if we got forgiven

Dirk Bogarde15:59

I believe that

Presenter16:11

Yvonne Prenton singing Je tême from Les Trois Valse, and that was recorded in nineteen thirty eight.

Presenter16:17

Actually a very important meeting occurred in your life round about then, I think, Dirk, um, just before war broke out. You met the person who was to be your friend and companion for the best part of the next fifty years. That was a very good idea.

Dirk Bogarde16:28

Oh yeah, in search of nine, so to nine.

Presenter16:30

How did you meet?

Dirk Bogarde16:31

Um I was in a very bad play called Grief Ghaz Ghazov in Rep, wearing my father's tailcoat, which didn't fit, so we did it out with pins.

Dirk Bogarde16:41

And this bloke was in in the front row, and at the end of it he sent his card round, and he was an agent, and his name was Anthony Forward, and he said um he'd like, you know, see me.

Dirk Bogarde16:54

Uh because we didn't think the war was going to last very long, you see. None of us did.

Speaker 216:57

I don't know.

Dirk Bogarde16:58

And he said when it's over, you know, like Easter or whatever.

Dirk Bogarde17:01

Would you like me to look after you? Because if you won't, I he said you've got a quality. I don't know what it is, but there's something there. It's not very good.

Dirk Bogarde17:09

And you look god awful in those terrible things you're wearing. I was what's my father's?

Dirk Bogarde17:13

Tail goat is where that's exactly what it looks like.

Dirk Bogarde17:15

And he said, You're going over the top too much. But he said, I could do something with you and and um I signed with a handshake.

Dirk Bogarde17:22

And he died uh last year, so we had fifty years of that sign with a handshake.

Presenter17:27

Let's talk about living in France. You you went off there with um Tony Forward. Forward, you called him Tony Forward.

Dirk Bogarde17:32

Forward.

Presenter17:33

Um, in the late sixties. You went to Italy first and then to France, to Provence, and you you bought a farm.

Dirk Bogarde17:37

People

Presenter17:39

Yeah. But

Dirk Bogarde17:39

Doors

Presenter17:39

Yeah.

Dirk Bogarde17:39

Uh

Presenter17:40

What did you farm?

Dirk Bogarde17:41

I had four hundred olives, three hundred sheep.

Presenter17:44

And what was the house like? Can you describe it?

Dirk Bogarde17:46

The house was a an old shepherd's house which was falling down and I knocked it about and with a very good local village man.

Dirk Bogarde17:54

Um, and and made it into a one big one or big room. But we didn't have any central heating or jokey things like that.

Presenter18:00

It was your kind of paradise, was it?

Dirk Bogarde18:02

Mm, totally.

Presenter18:03

And did you and Forward intend to live there for the rest of your weekend?

Dirk Bogarde18:05

Well, I I was going to live there for good. He gave up. Um he'd already by this time married and had a child and and was a grandfather.

Dirk Bogarde18:13

And I thought, well I don't think I'm going to go back to the cinema or the theatre, I'm going to pack it up.

Dirk Bogarde18:18

This is where you can be silly. I thought it was going to be the rest of my life, and I had my plot up in the cemetery.

Dirk Bogarde18:24

And then

Dirk Bogarde18:25

Uh Ford got Parkinson's disease.

Presenter18:28

So you came back to Britain, both of you?

Dirk Bogarde18:30

Well, what could I do? I couldn't drive.

Dirk Bogarde18:32

Because I can't drive,'cause I killed some people in a car crash.

Dirk Bogarde18:35

and lost my nerve again.

Dirk Bogarde18:37

He couldn't drive by then.

Dirk Bogarde18:39

And it seemed to me the best thing to do was to come back. Then, of course, you got cancer of the colon.

Dirk Bogarde18:47

Well that was the end of the end of it all.

Presenter18:49

You've made it very plain from time to time that that yours and and his was not a homosexual relationship. Nevertheless, there'll always be those who will choose to believe that it was. Do do you mind? Now do you resent it or does it?

Dirk Bogarde19:00

I resented it enormously for his family.

Dirk Bogarde19:04

his grandson, whom I look after now, who's sixteen, and for my own family, of course I do.

Dirk Bogarde19:10

But wha what can you do? Especially in this country.

Dirk Bogarde19:14

uh with the press we have here and the cruelty of it.

Presenter19:19

He died, as you as you said just now, um, quite recently. Um, and and you've been quite poorly, haven't you? I mean, do you

Dirk Bogarde19:25

I had a stroke one day wonder after you had to shoot the dogs. They got a disease from the sheep.

Dirk Bogarde19:32

which was in their pads, and if they'd come to Dover they'd have been put down anyway.

Dirk Bogarde19:36

So we had to put them down and then I had to get rid of the sheep, I had to get rid of the and sell the place and pack it up. Well, having planned to live there for the rest of one's life

Dirk Bogarde19:46

and at sixty five or whatever I was.

Dirk Bogarde19:49

It was and then with a very sick man.

Presenter19:52

So it's all a terrible strain.

Dirk Bogarde19:53

It was a a bit of a strain, yeah.

Presenter19:55

But you're fully recovered. You had a

Dirk Bogarde19:56

Oh yes, I'm fine now. I mean I've got splinter physiotherap therapists laid in. I can manage. I can't run.

Dirk Bogarde20:02

But, um, I don't have to.

Presenter20:04

Do you do you dislike the idea of growing old?

Dirk Bogarde20:07

Yes, I do feel it. I I yes, I I resent it very much. Of course I do. I think anybody does.

Dirk Bogarde20:12

There are compensations for growing old, of course there are.

Dirk Bogarde20:15

Not many, but there are some.

Presenter20:17

To fear death.

Dirk Bogarde20:19

No, not at all. I fear the method of it. I don't want to be in an aeroplane slowly spiralling down. I don't care for that idea. And I don't really want to go through what Ford did with with Parkinson's and and Cancer, because there is nothing more undignified and more hideous than that. And that's why I'm totally for euthanasia in in those circumstances.

Dirk Bogarde20:40

Um and I've taken

Dirk Bogarde20:42

precautions for myself it won't happen to me.

Dirk Bogarde20:46

But I didn't mind dying, no.

Presenter20:49

Let's have your next record.

Dirk Bogarde20:52

Number five. This is all right. This is a bit of my favourite person. The opening of the fourth movement of Mahler's Fifth Symphony.

Presenter22:04

The opening of the fourth movement of Mahler's Fifth Symphony, played by the New York Philharmonica conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Music, of course, which was the theme music of the film Death in Venice. It was a wonderful and very moving film. I was still very proud of it.

Dirk Bogarde22:18

I've only seen it once ever in my life because I won't watch it on video.

Dirk Bogarde22:22

or television and I only saw it once when it was the at the press show in Cannes, which was a fairly extraordinary, um, day because we didn't realize that everybody

Dirk Bogarde22:32

knew about it and they all came in in their hundreds and the theater was absolutely jammed.

Dirk Bogarde22:37

Jam, jam, jammed with young people.

Dirk Bogarde22:40

There was nobody really over over forty in in the whole auditorium.

Dirk Bogarde22:44

and they were hanging from the balconies and all round.

Dirk Bogarde22:47

And

Dirk Bogarde22:48

There's one moment in in the film, the only piece of direction that Lucchino ever gave me in the whole six months of Turning.

Dirk Bogarde22:56

We were on the Grand Canal, and I was going towards the Rialta Bridge.

Dirk Bogarde23:00

Returning to Tazio, going back to the leader.

Dirk Bogarde23:03

And Lucchino was in another boat, a little motor boat beside me, with a megaphone. I suddenly heard him shrieking at me in Italian.

Dirk Bogarde23:10

When you get under the bridge

Dirk Bogarde23:11

You feel the shadow, and when you feel the sun stand.

Dirk Bogarde23:15

Which I did, and of course I didn't know that music was behind it.

Dirk Bogarde23:19

that he was choreographing everything I did to that piece of music.

Dirk Bogarde23:23

and that tremendous surge of music.

Dirk Bogarde23:26

when you get when when I went under the bridge.

Dirk Bogarde23:29

When it when it happened in the cinema that day, I was completely bewildered.

Dirk Bogarde23:34

Because, um, the whole place blew up.

Dirk Bogarde23:36

The auditorium just exploded with rapturous applause that that I was returning.

Dirk Bogarde23:42

And I remember saying to Tavis Conti in a very humble voice, I think we've won his certo.

Presenter23:51

It didn't go down quite so well in in Hollywood, did it?

Dirk Bogarde23:54

Yes, that no, that's true, absolutely true. Uh Poor Elkino went out to try and flog the movie to the Americans, who didn't, as I gather as you gather or wanted.

Dirk Bogarde24:02

And there was a screening of it in Warner's in California, and at the end of the film, it was total and utter silence. And Lucchino thought.

Dirk Bogarde24:11

Well, it's either disaster or, you know, they can't move for for emotion.

Dirk Bogarde24:16

And somebody did move, and his name was mister Greenbaum.

Dirk Bogarde24:19

And Miss Greenbaum got up and said, Well, I think the music was just great. Who who did the theme music?

Dirk Bogarde24:26

And Lucina realized the film was a bomb.

Dirk Bogarde24:29

and had died.

Dirk Bogarde24:30

And so he gained all his courage, and he simply said

Dirk Bogarde24:33

Uh it's by Gustav Mahler.

Dirk Bogarde24:36

And mister Groombaum turned to the assembled audience and said, Well, I think we should sign him.

Dirk Bogarde24:42

And that is true.

Presenter24:44

You went you you made your film about List in Hollywood, didn't you?

Dirk Bogarde24:48

I did.

Dirk Bogarde24:50

Rubbing in the wounds today, aren't you? Well, I think I read that you

Presenter24:54

Well I did'cause I'cause I read that you you said it was one of those hi Mr. Schopenhauer's list

Dirk Bogarde24:59

Well he was, you know.

Dirk Bogarde25:01

Hey, George George, George Sand?

Dirk Bogarde25:04

Now when you meet Chopin, Chopin's got a bad cough.

Dirk Bogarde25:07

It was that kind of movie. It was appalling. But it was apparently going to make me a great star in America, and I thought I better have a chance. I was getting old, I was in my 40s. It didn't.

Dirk Bogarde25:17

But he did teach me to play the piano.

Dirk Bogarde25:20

And I played eighty six minutes of music, and it took me nine months to learn it.

Dirk Bogarde25:25

And I can only tell you quite seriously that

Dirk Bogarde25:29

I couldn't play a Jew's harp or a comb with a piece of lavender paper in it.

Dirk Bogarde25:35

So how the hell I did this, I don't know. I can only say with true respect and deep honesty.

Dirk Bogarde25:41

that it happened suddenly.

Dirk Bogarde25:44

In the middle of a performance.

Dirk Bogarde25:46

And I think it happened because God ready leaned up heaven.

Dirk Bogarde25:50

And I was touched.

Dirk Bogarde25:52

Because uh it it's not possible when I did.

Dirk Bogarde25:55

But I did it, and you can see it.

Dirk Bogarde25:58

Because there it is on the screen. I mean, the camera starts my hands and pans up to my head, and it's me. But I will say this to you, I wasn't actually playing real.

Dirk Bogarde26:07

I was playing Liszt's own pianos, which came from various museums, Trust Hollywood. But they put foam rubber underneath the, um, you know, the keys, so they didn't actually hit the the string.

Dirk Bogarde26:20

So in fact I was of note out.

Dirk Bogarde26:22

Very often, but you've never noticed.

Presenter26:24

We better hear it played properly.

Dirk Bogarde26:26

Just a little bit.

Presenter27:28

The end of Liszt's Piano Concerto No. One in E-flat, played in fact by Lazar Berman, with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra conducted by Carlo Maria Giolini.

Presenter27:37

And the

Presenter27:38

Let me just ask you why you did leave um Britain back in in 1968. I mean, it was to an extent that you felt less than appreciated, wasn't it?

Dirk Bogarde27:47

Well, no, it's just because there I there was nothing for me to do here. I mean, uh I I think Sam Spiegel said if I hear I think Dirk's a great kid, but if I hear his name made on mentioned once again, he said, I'll just throw up.

Dirk Bogarde27:59

They'd seen me to death. They'd hadn't the audiences hadn't.

Dirk Bogarde28:04

But the people making the movies had.

Dirk Bogarde28:07

And the only offers I was getting were from France, from Jean Renoir, who wanted me to do a film there with him, which I wanted very much to do. That was at the beginning of the Eventmont in'sixty eight, so it collapsed.

Dirk Bogarde28:19

Visconti wanted me to do his big magical production of Macbeth, which turned out to be a something called Gotta Dammarung, and I was cut out of practically, and it became The Damned.

Dirk Bogarde28:29

I mean, there was a tremendous amount of work to be done in Europe. And my point of view then was, why not go and live there?

Presenter28:37

When you got to France, you discovered quite early on, I think, that that you could write, write well enough for quality consumption.

Dirk Bogarde28:44

Well, I'm good. I'm glad you got to that, because I suddenly found in the first year of farming

Dirk Bogarde28:50

But farming it wasn't, it was just getting the place in order. It'd been left derelict since the war. That's quite a long time.

Dirk Bogarde28:55

So by time I'd got the the the 400 olive trees pruned, not all of which I did myself, and got the septic tank found.

Dirk Bogarde29:02

and laid the water on and did this, that, the other. That was the first year over. The second year began to s slowly steal off and was lovely and things were coming right. But

Dirk Bogarde29:14

I was on the snow line, which means that the snow came and the frost came.

Dirk Bogarde29:19

And it wasn't south of France.

Dirk Bogarde29:21

It was in the south of France, but not what the British call the south of France. And from the 1st of January.

Dirk Bogarde29:29

Really until the end of April, you were trapped.

Dirk Bogarde29:33

Now, what do you do in a rather dark

Dirk Bogarde29:36

Pheasants charge up five hundred meters up a mountain.

Dirk Bogarde29:41

not being able to drive.

Dirk Bogarde29:43

No television, except listen to music, which is quite a bit boring.

Dirk Bogarde29:47

And so I thought, well, I don't know the hell with it. I I'll I'll start to write, because I had been writing to this extraordinary woman in America.

Dirk Bogarde29:54

She was a librarian.

Dirk Bogarde29:56

And her knowledge of literature was extraordinary, and she was a wonderful teacher.

Presenter30:02

So you wrote to each other over many years and

Dirk Bogarde30:03

I read to her until she died in'seventy three' from'sixty seven.

Presenter30:07

And she became your sort of literary mentor, but you had a pact never to meet.

Dirk Bogarde30:10

The ma

Dirk Bogarde30:11

We never asked each other questions, except she never stopped.

Dirk Bogarde30:15

Uh, because she didn't know who I was, she'd know I'd uh she didn't know any bad actors, she was totally untheatrical, she was a literary person, and and thought it was very, rather common to be an actor.

Dirk Bogarde30:24

Which it is.

Dirk Bogarde30:26

She never for one moment gave me a clue until one day she wrote and said that when she was twelve she'd fallen deeply in love with a a really scrumptious steward.

Dirk Bogarde30:36

On board the Lusitania.

Dirk Bogarde30:38

Well, I worked it out then that if she had fallen in love at the age of twelve with somebody on Lusitania, which went down in nineteen sixteen,

Dirk Bogarde30:45

Then I was writing somebody who was approaching her late seventies, would you say? In sixty seven. I I mean I can't I'm not I'm no good at maths. But I knew that she was not.

Dirk Bogarde30:56

I was 46. There was no relationship possible, and we should not see each other. And she realized that too, and didn't want to.

Presenter31:04

But it was nevertheless a kind of love affair, wasn't it?

Dirk Bogarde31:06

It it was a total love affair without carnality, and it is possible.

Dirk Bogarde31:11

One can.

Presenter31:13

Record number seven.

Dirk Bogarde31:15

This is Richard Strauss's The Wals theme from De Rossen Cavalier. I first heard this as a full opera just after the Vienna Opera House was rebuilt, which is very exciting and that's why I want to play it now.

Presenter32:30

Part of Richard Strauss's Der Rosen Cavalier, played by the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Lauren Marzel.

Presenter32:37

You mentioned your family a lot. Is that something you've ever regretted that you haven't had children of your own?

Dirk Bogarde32:44

No, I don't regret it because I'm a deeply selfish person and I I'm too too into it and I I'm on better on my own, you know.

Presenter32:50

So is there nothing is there no love in you to give?

Dirk Bogarde32:54

They know there is, I think, for my family an enormous amount, yes. I mean, I do love them. I've got fortunately my my brother and sister have had lots of children.

Dirk Bogarde33:04

And I'm a great uncle, and God knows what.

Dirk Bogarde33:07

That does take its place, but I I can't say I'm an unloving person, if that's what you're trying to say. No, I'm not. But I don't really want.

Dirk Bogarde33:15

anything further than that. I want anybody in my life. I never have.

Dirk Bogarde33:19

I couldn't have done my career.

Dirk Bogarde33:21

If I'd had someone, if I'd been married to someone. It would have been total disaster. I've fallen deeply in love with every leading lady I've ever worked with, except Monica Be Viti, who was a beast.

Dirk Bogarde33:31

But all the others I simply love.

Dirk Bogarde33:34

Um and I've just finished one now with with Jane Birkin who was an incredible creature. And that was enormous fun. I loved going back. I hadn't been back to the movies for thirteen years.

Dirk Bogarde33:45

So I loved everybody there, ye okay, Uncle Doak's full of love.

Presenter33:50

But in your life you've allowed people into your life, but only so far and no further. A point defined very much by you.

Dirk Bogarde33:57

Shall we put it this way that people come to meals?

Dirk Bogarde34:00

They're gonna stay the night.

Presenter34:02

You were paid a a glittering tribute by BAFTA, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts a year ago, and people have been heard to speak of you in reverential tones. Do you feel now um

Presenter34:13

rather warmer and more loved than you did when you left us twenty years ago.

Dirk Bogarde34:17

I didn't feel unloved. I've never been through such an embarrassing night in my life.

Dirk Bogarde34:21

There's that one. I never want to see it again. I'll have it near me.

Dirk Bogarde34:24

It was totally silly. It was very sweet of everybody to come, but it was quite unnecessary.

Dirk Bogarde34:29

It should have gone through on Connor or something like that, not me.

Presenter34:32

Let's have the last record.

Dirk Bogarde34:33

Well, the last record is ready only for me because it sums up

Dirk Bogarde34:38

I don't think I shall ever go there again, but it sums up.

Dirk Bogarde34:41

a a a a city of such extraordinary glamour and horror.

Dirk Bogarde34:45

But it is one of the best and most evocative pieces of music about it, and it simply is New York, New York.

Presenter35:22

New York, New York, played by the Boston Pops, conducted by John Williams.

Presenter35:28

Which of the eight, um, Dirk will you be playing most as you tidy up your little shack on the island?

Dirk Bogarde35:34

I'm beastly about my tidings.

Dirk Bogarde35:36

Make me sound like an homemade.

Dirk Bogarde35:38

I shall be playing the malla.

Dirk Bogarde35:40

Because it'll last a long time. It's very long. There's a rather boring screechy laid in the middle of it somewhere, but I can cut her off and cut her.

Presenter35:47

And every time the sun shines you can rise up and lift your face to the sun.

Dirk Bogarde35:51

I can do that.

Presenter35:53

What about your book?

Dirk Bogarde35:55

I think I'd take Roland Blythe's book Akinfield.

Presenter35:58

Why?

Dirk Bogarde36:00

Uh well I think it's the most beautiful and perfect documentation of England, of an English countryside.

Dirk Bogarde36:07

That I've ever read.

Presenter36:08

What about a luxury?

Dirk Bogarde36:10

A distillery.

Dirk Bogarde36:11

Probably didn't see any point sitting on the island with nothing to drink, either.

Presenter36:15

Why can't you just have something simpler, like a large case of whisky or something?

Dirk Bogarde36:18

Won't last me long. But a distillery, so I can use all the berries and the grapes.

Dirk Bogarde36:23

Oh, I can go on for hours, and I like to use my hands. I'm a busy little fellow.

Presenter36:27

So you'll be busy and pleasantly tipsy the while.

Dirk Bogarde36:31

Well, I don't know, I don't drink till six, when the sun goes down.

Presenter36:34

And you stop at eight?

Dirk Bogarde36:36

I stop when I may not stop on the island with eight, and I think I should probably find that really a bit boring.

Presenter36:41

Dirk Berger, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you for asking.

Speaker 336:54

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.