Dirk Bogarde (along with Klaus Kinski) ranks as one of the two greatest screen actors of the post-War era. I realize that this may be somewhat controversial given what Hollywood (I include the Brit luvvies) take to be its finest. Bogarde was very bright, literate, articulate, dignified, brave, philosophical, had integrity and importantly was very scathing — he didn’t suffer fools gladly especially Hollywood and TV interviewers. Below is the definitive Borgarde documentary enhanced by Anthony Forwood’s terrific home movies, supplemented by thoughtful and frank insights by DB’s family and colleagues. Especially notable, for me at least, was a glimpse of DB’s sketchbook which showed an artistic maturity very early on and is far superior to the usual actor-or-musician-turned-painter schlock. Also, I’d always wondered whatever happened to Björn Andrésen (Tadzio in Death in Venice) — great to see that despite the albatross that the role was, he’s alive and well and living a “normal” life.
The DB website claims that:
Given the VERY modest sums involved in maintaining a website one would have thought that DB’s sizable estate would cover this in perpetuity since Brock Van den Bogaerde was the main beneficiary and indeed runs the website. Very odd.
manwithoutqualities 