Biography of Dirk Bogarde

The face of the decline

28 March 1921 8 August 1999 son of art director of the London Times Ulric van den Bogaerde and Margaret Niven, Scottish actress, Dirk Bogarde was born in Hampstead, England, on March 28, 1921. Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde (this is the name of the actor anagrafe) became during the span of his career the symbol of that refined and somewhat nihilistic authorial theaters away from the clamor of the star system, thanks to the careful choice of interpretations (after starting with bright and romantic roles, she always favoured themes crepuscular or decadent). Before arriving on movie sets of popular filmmakers Bogarde attended Allen Glens Glasgow College and University College London. Graduated from the Chelsea Polytechnic School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London then completed theatrical production designer to debut as an actor only in 1939. During World War II he served in the British Army Intelligence after the war he lived in several far eastern countries. After the war, Dirk Bogarde appear in the play "Power without glory" to then sign a contract with the Rank, from 1947 to the early ' 60, won him a dozen film roles. In 1961 the British actor plays the homosexual lawyer Melville Farr in Basil Dearden "Victim" (1961), while two years later is the valet Hugo Barrett in Joseph Losey's masterpiece "the servant" (filmed in 1963, based on the novel by Robin Maugham and penned by none other than Harold Pinter). Directed by Losey and scripted by Pinter (which, let us recall, is one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century) is also in the subsequent "accident" (1967) that Bogarde plays with Jacqueline Sassard, Michael York and Stanley Baker. The years ' 60 is also due the crucial encounter with Luchino Visconti, familiar to him of crucial importance: Visconti will make a sort of actor-fetish. Rueful and resigned look of Bogarde looks perfect for the roles that Visconti has in mind. Before using it as the protagonist (alongside Ingrid Thulin and Helmut Berger) in the apocalyptic "the damned" (1969), then in 1971 entrusted him with the difficult and controversial role of Gustav von Aschenbach, the musician who in "death in Venice" had an adolescent boy of thirteen. Three years later he was with Charlotte Rampling in the film by Liliana Cavani "the night Porter (1974) and in 1977 he plays Claude Langham in" Providence ", by Alain Resnais. Bogarde could not fail to attract even a filmmaker as extreme as Fassbinder, who in 1978 entrusts the central role in disturbing "Despair", a film based on a novel by Vladimir Nabokov and obsessive theme of identity-centric. In the late ' 70 Bogarde has settled on a farm in the South of France where he wrote an autobiography and several successful novels (including "West of sunset"). Resumed working for films playing in 1987 "The Vision of Stone". It's in 1990 that the great English actor, at sixty-nine years, turned on his latest film, "Daddy nostalgie" by Bertrand Tavernier, are history between a father now ill and a daughter (Jane Birkin) too long. He retired permanently from acting Dirk Bogarde died in London May 8, 1999 of a heart attack.

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