A collection of Bogarde's writings from the last eight years, with pieces on fellow actors and directors, reminiscences of the French Riviera, a satirical piece on London dinner parties, reviews of books about the Holocaust and more.
The second half of this really made the whole book for me. All that idyllic nostalgia of the first half was very well but it was vaguely disturbing me how absent Dirk himself was in the narrative, and when he did allow himself to appear was with some fairly alarming sinister negativity.But the An...
‘An evocation’ says the cover, and evocation is exactly the right word. This is a childhood memoir, written from old age and it is quite lovely.Dirk Bogarde was undoubtedly blessed. His father was the art editor of the Sunday Times, his mother was a former actress, and the family was more than co...
Bogarde, poet, autobiographer and novelist, began his acting career on the stage. Here he recounts his life growing up in London. "I learnedvery early in m y life that nothing was forever; so I should have been aware of disillusion in early middle age: but, somehow, we try to obliterate early war...
There was not enough room for the pair of us to move about with soap and razor or socks and shirts. So I got myself ready first and, knotting my tie, called him to wake up. ‘I am awake. I’ve been awake for hours.’ ‘Why didn’t you get up?’ ‘Nothing to do. What would I do?’ He clambered slowly out ...
Those of us who were permitted to get fairly close to Ian Dalrymple in this unlovely profession of the cinema all knew him as that. He was modest, cautious, calm and in every way a gentle man. A gentleman is how he would best be described, but sadly that word is now out of date, perhaps one which...