Ever, Dirk: The Bogarde Letters

by Unknown

Dirk

  Shall I bring you a bottle of olive oil in March? First pressing. Rather thick. But real? D.

  To Elizabeth Goodings Clermont

  12 February 1977

  Dearest darling Girl –

  Well. That was the lovliest letter I have ever recieved in my life … and I really do mean that. I have read it over at least five times! It is just about worn out.

  Darling, thank you so much for being so dear and generous. Now that you have written I can tell you that I said to the Publishers at Lunch in London that if you read it … or rather when you read it .. and IF you hated it or were upset by it or thought that it was beastly or vulgar to anyone, that I would insist that they [s]hould withdraw it!

  That caused a bit of a stir, I can tell you! But they were very sweet and put it down to sort of First Night Nerves! Although they were secretly just as worried about your reaction, after that! as I was. That is why you got the first copy .. and why I was sitting biting my nails until I dared to call you on the Sunday!

  What is so splendid about your letter is that you have written it in such an objective way … when it must have been extremely difficult to BE objective. I know EXACTLY what you mean by a ‘gentle writer’. It is precicely what I wanted to be. I wanted, very much, to write a book that I myself would enjoy reading … do you know what I mean? I am sure that you do … and for that reason I was very fastidious and tried not to hang onto things too long, a form of self indulgence in writing which I detest.

  After eight Chapters of Lally and You and all, I realised that it had to change … however delightful it was to ‘remember’ it could fast become ‘sicky’ … The big difficulty, which I think and hope I have managed to overcome, was ‘joining’ the two styles … writing as a boy of eleven and then as me at fifty six. Looking back .. but still keeping something of the First Part going. I think it has worked, and your approval of it seems to point to the fact that it ‘gets better as it goes on’… which was the idea.

  I dont think, or rather I hope I dont think! that Lally will mind .. or her children. I did, after all, offer to change her name at the very beginning .. but she wrote and said ‘Lally I was and Lally I will be’ .. (still have it) … so she cant be too distressed. I shall write to her when her book is on the way and gently explain one or two things to her … like Wimeraux1 and so on … I think that what has so far captured the ‘fancy’ of the people who have read it … professional people on papers and so on .. is the time we had which is now lost forever. People have said, rather sweetly, ‘We didn’t know life was like that … we never had it ourselves’ or on the other hand, as one young man said, ‘I was sure that MY sister and I were the only people in the world to make Hikers Wine! We thought we did it first in 1950!’ Recognition comes through so often … and they laugh too! Which is what I hoped for. I think Ma should be jolly pleased … and only wish that Ully could have read it because, as Russel Harty said before the programme the other day, ‘It is clearly a loving memorial to your Father, isn’t it?’ and I had to admit that really it was … however he was always such an old stickler for the ‘facts’ that he might have been a bit disconcerted by the ‘condensing’ of time which I have had to do … and the leaving out of so many people. The O’Sheas … Prebble Rayner … Newbolds .. the Dowds1 and so on … however it had to be done.

  The thing which interests people so much, so far, is the way that Parents are shadowy at that age to children .. always there and loved, but distant … and then they start coming into ones life as one gets older. I think that bit works quite well … God alone knows what Scotland2 will say. But since they refused to answer any of my questions .. as did Mamma I might add! I wrote them all, her included, a long, simple, questionair on the Nivens and got absolutely no answer from anyone. Sadie3 said she couldnt comment, and would pass her letter on to Roey!4 It was the same letter to them both .. and very polite and asking for careful help. Not a word. So screw them. There is an AWFUL lot I HAVE’NT said about my little Scottish trip, I can tell you ….

  The other thing, which is good, is that you and I have made such an, what is the word? impact, on people. As I told you, they speak of you, tremendously politely always, as just simply ‘Elizabeth’ … never ‘your sister’ … and Lally is the same. It felt rather funny the first time it happened, but I quickly realised that it was actually a compliment! And people have used the word ‘vile’ to me so often that even I roar with laughter now!

  Anyway. There it is darling .. as you know with all my love and gratitude for the years we had together, and which, thank the dear Lord, we still are able to share in very much the same way … I mean we still behave, I know, like a couple of idiots even though we are into middle age .... our holidays here in France were very much like our times in Twickenham or Lullington … with the moods and everything. It is marvelous to have such a relationship.

  The second book is almost sad, as Chatto said the other day (I have done the first four chapters) the war is suddenly over … you are talking of getting married, and I’m wondering wheather to go to that school at Windlesham which John Nelson1 got me an interview to … as a prep-school teacher! It is all so dreadfully suddenly Grown Up … and in such a short time … but I think, and they do at Chatto, that Elizabeth and Dirk still ‘come through’ … and thats the part they all like the best! When you and I have a ‘talk’ .. naturally it is made-up from remembering … could’nt be anything else could it, but it has the feeling of Truth. And thats what makes the difference between a Real Book and one which is simply amusing to read.

  Anyway .. we still have the dreaded critics to face … I must say I shall wish I had never started when they get at me with the choppers!

  [ … ] Next week the BBC arrive to record, in the new studio, seven instalments for A Book At Bedtime! A bore .. but apparently wonderful publicity, especially BEFORE the book has been reviewed .. is’nt it odd? However Tote will have a hell of a lot of work to do .. because I shall be locked away all day for five days! Oh dear!

  [ … ] The film –‘Providence’– is a TRIUMPH in Paris! Marvellous reviews and interviews and I am sailing with pleasure after the filthy things they wrote in New York … they just dont know. So, darling, I’ll be off and set the table and have a beer and start getting the Cannelonies out of the icebox for tonights supper … and wash the lettuce and so on. And generally get back to earth .... thank you, dearest girl, for your super, marvellous, encouragement. I feel so much more able to face the critics and things with your sweetness and belief behind me.

  Your ever devoted & loving bro’

  Dirk XXXXXX

  These are hugs!

  OOOOOOO

  P.S. I just thought: after so many years of just being ‘Dirk Bogardes Sister’ … you now REALLY ARE! And I hope that you will be as proud to be that as much as I am proud that you are.

  To Dilys Powell

  (Postcard) Clermont

  13 February 1977

  No need for a reply to this; simply to tell you that ‘your’ film is a great success here in Paris. I dont think that I have ever been in a film which has culled such splendid reviews. Which is wonderous for Resnais, because he had a long time in the shadows. Now he is really, without doubt, the top … I might, had he not been given the title by me already for ever … remove Luchinos Emperors robe and drape it on the slightly bowed shoulders of Resnais! In N.Y, where it was unwisely opened before Paris, we were, naturally, butchered by Canby, Kael and Simon1 … but the rest flew to the attack and it is now a ‘snob’ success there … what a lot they are. I have no way of knowing what you will feel about it … some of it almost shocked me .. all of it amazed me .. the full architecture, for that is what it amounts to really, is staggering. It is so pleasing to be able to write to you like this! I would never have been able to in the past … but IF it gets to London, and under the Delfonts and Cohens2 I have fears it wont, … I hope that your belief in the Cinema may be restored .. supposing that you ever lost belief! Which I very much dou
bt!

  Much devoted love as ever ..

  Dirk

  Dirk had agreed to star opposite Andréa Ferréol in Despair, adapted by Tom Stoppard from Nabokov’s novel, for the German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

  To Lucilla Van den Bogaerde Clermont

  7 March 1977

  Keeping In Touch Letter.

  Cilla dear –

  Rather a long silence from Chicago … I suppose ice and fog and Bibles must be inhibiting, to say the least!

  [ … ] It is no joke being in U.K now … and even the weather has gone wrong-er than ever. Rain and floods for weeks … and grey skies and when will it be Spring, and all that sort of thing. Here we are, oddly, basking in summer heat. A great big Lunch on the terrace on Saturday for Fassbinder, his Butcher Assistant chum (it takes all sorts!) and nice Tom Stoppard. We all sipped iced Ricards and watched the butter and paté melt slowly … wallflowers, stocks, primulas, almond and white freesias … all made it very un-German. I like Fassbinder very much. He’ll be in N.Y. shortly I gather for a retrospective of his 30 films … he is almost that age himself! Fattish .. like a red-haired buddah … black leather jackets, boots, chain smoking, nicotined fingers, shrewd eyes, onthe-ball and how. I liked him immediatly. Shy though he, and I, was. So that is a big help. We start shooting in Munich on April 14th … then Keil … then Locarno … then Berlin .. then Hamburg and Hamburg [sic]. I have asked him if I can look like an Egon Sheile drawing1 .. and he was delighted! I had all my hair cut off in Cannes that morning to show him what it would be like. Well. It’s like an elderly hedghog. So there. And I’m stuck with it now. What I shall look like on the Telly in London when I have to go and do the ‘Tonight’ show, ‘Aquarius’ and the rest I care not to think about. And anyway thats another thing I’m not relishing really … the signing at Hatchards and all the brouhaha which seems to be building because of ‘Postillion’. I expect you got your copy? The English have .... Lally despondant because I called her ‘ignorant’ … I did’nt but she thinks I did … Mamma deathly silent. Hating Lally and unable to remember anything. She gave the book to ‘a lady down the hall who is very lonely’ to read the day it arrived, and we all wonder if she ever bothered to get it back. Not enough about herself I fear. Everyone else v. kind … and rumbles from Chatto pleasant so far. I read the fucking thing here in seven installments for Book at Bedtime. Awful chore. One BBC Sound Mixer called Harold .. who arrived with enough equipment to make a full length Movie … a bossy [ … ] Lady Producer who, thankfully, got the runs on the second day and was kept weakly in her hotel up the road. But she wobbled back, alas! and made us do retake after retake. ‘You sound so DULL!’ she kept crying, ‘There’s no LIFE’ (no wonder) .. ‘No EXCITEMENT!’ In a desperate endeavour to be rid of them and their wires and plugs and tapes I did as she asked and feel sure that I must sound like an hysterical Governess with a class of autistic, black, two year olds. Joyce Grenfell would have done it MUCH better!

  Well; it’s all my fault anyway … so I have only myself to blame.

  What else? Oh yes … Arthur Miller asked me to ‘do’ his new play,2 with Bibi Andersson, in Washington on April 20th … then open in N.Y. September. I was flattered but firm. Never the theater again, and never America if I can help it. Then a film in Cape Cod in the Summer with Lauren Bacall and so on … and again no. I want to be here this summer .. and although the money is always vastly exciting from the States, most of it will go in Tax here anyway .. and why have a place like this if I’m only ever in it in the fucking winter?

  ‘Under the Volcano’ arrived yet again … and a new script. Tote says it’s better but still wont do … so no Mexico in October. Perhaps I can really get down to the second book … done the first 100.000 words and Chatto are pleased. So am I. I think I am getting better as I work on.

  Lady, our daily that is, is bonking about with the Hoover … and sniffing hard, a cold coming? Tote is busy outside sowing grass seed where the winter, and our nightly peeing in one place, has caught the lawn … the sun is brilliant ... I’v trussed, and cleaned, a chicken for lunch, stuffed him with thyme all in flower, got the new totties in the old steamer and some fresh broccoli waits glossy green. I dont know why the Hell I got into all THAT! Probably because I am running out of steam … I really need a beer. So I think I’ll do just that and go down to the Saloon, as Lady calls it, reminding me of a cross-channel packet! and have one.

  I hope that all is happy and well with the family … and that the Bible Belt has belted up a bit. Are you down to ‘work’ of your own yet? I mean restoring, not washing Ulrics1 knickers …

  A big kiss to you and to Gareth … and to whoever else is about the porch or house in general …

  Much much love

  Dirk.

  To Tom Stoppard [Clermont]

  16 March 1977

  Dear Tom –

  Run out of letter paper so this2 must do [ … ] I enclose some snapshots of your Luncheon with the Krauts. Not a fearfully glamorous party one thinks. However it may be useful one day for your ‘book’.

  I had a long read of ‘T’3 and was stunned that anyone in the world could learn so many words and say them! You are a bit difficult as an Author. And I though[t] Mercer was a bit hard! Goodness! He’s Beatrix Potter in comparison. I do wish I’d seen it rather than read it … but I always loose out on the few occasions I get to London. Maybe the English Play Society of Nice, run by the British Leigon, will do it one day … when I am very old. But at least I’ll be able to understand it since I have read it.

  See you in Munich I expect … glad you have done your writing .. did’nt think that you had much to do really. It [Despair] is all so well constructed.

  Love to M.

  Love to You …

  Dirk

  Dirk had returned to London for the launching of A Postillion Struck by Lightning. The highlight of a triumphant week was his signing at Hatchards in Piccadilly.

  To Norah Smallwood Clermont

  31 March 1977

  My very dear Nora –

  Dont be silly dear; you cant get rid of me as easily as that! I’m for ‘keeps’ I fear … how could I just fade away from a Family I cherish as much as I do my own? And that is NOT being sentimental.

  Your dear, cherished, letter came this morning .. my first day Up, as they say, since I arrived back here with a sort of blazing throat and high temperature and had caught, inevitably, a ‘bug’ .... but that, even, was a delightful, if messy, souvenier of three quite extraordinary days. I dont think, in all truth, that I have [ever] had such a time.

  Terror, and there was a great deal of it … the dry mouth bit, the palsey, and running to the loo .. all before we bravely set off to Hatchards .. and then very gradually it began to wear off and I really started to enjoy myself. I could have gone on signing for hours. It was the complete joy of the welcome which I recieved which so moved, and humbled, me .... it was quite, quite unexpected. The kindness of people there in the line astounded me and very nearly unmanned me at times. To be still remembered, to be constantly thanked for the pleasures, however small they might have been, that I had given people over the many years, to be treated as almost a friend and not as a Film Star was overwhelming. Someone wrote today and said that I must have noticed her, I simply MUST have, because she was the woman who left the shop six feet off the ground! I was able to assure her in my note this morning that I was unable to recognise anyones levitation since my own was so titanic! I was fifty feet above Piccadilly … and have’nt really touched base again yet!

  I told you at supper that it was probably the most important day of my life .. and I hope that you believed me. For it was … there have been, of course, in the thirty or more years, days of splendour … the first showing of ‘Death In Venice’ here in Cannes to 3.000 roaring people with Visconti sitting beside me in silent tears, was one … but Thursday last (was it so long ago?) was MY day … not Visconti’s, not Mann’s … this was all mine … from cover to Fin. And the warmth, en
couragement, and even pride which you all about me radiated simply filled my brimming cup to the point of spilling happiness such as I have never experienced before.

  I dont give a fig about the Reviews … except that they might harm sales for you of course … but I do give a fig for your profits! At least, I pray, not your losses.

  I am deeply stuck into Notes for ‘Exits’1 .. being in bed has been very, very useful … cant remember when last I was! … and all I long to do is get back here from Munich, Interlaken and … can you believe it! Lubeck … by June 20th so that I can push on with the next bit. It was with singular pride and pomp that I said ‘no’ to a very highly payed offer for some idiot film in July … I told John [Charlton] to tell you, which I am sure he did, just as a joke … I mean you dont HAVE to be burdened with any responsibilities … but I want the time … I WANT to write. I WANT. I WANT. And it’s all your fault.

  But you can just shove it back in Febuary if you dont like it … and I’ll try again.

  Now; you have other writers and other books to worry about … our little moment of time has passed for a while. So get on and be lovely to them, as you have been to me … I’m ‘launched’ … you broke the bottle across my bows and I’m off into a misty sea of self-discovery. I’ll try to bring you back a worthy ‘cargo’ ….

  Always, with the most devoted love –

  Dirk.

  To Brock Van den Bogaerde Clermont

  14 April 1977

  Brockalino –

  The boy is altering! Can it be Growing Up? How splendid .. and what a good, and funny, letter. Thanks. I dont expect you to write, as you know … it is just a super bonus when you do.

  See your point about the Americans. I cant bear them … and never want to set foot in their immature, undiplomatic, plastic, mutilated land again. Nor will I. Made myself quite clear? Good. I do think, however, that they write super Musical Shows, make reasonable ice-cream, and sometimes make excellent Movies. It is not enough, I think, for The Greatest Nation In The World. However … it takes all kinds, I suppose. And they do pay well. Usually.