Dirk Bogarde (1921-1999) UK actor

Stardom

During the 1950s, Bogarde was a matinee idol under extended contract to the Rank Organisation. His Rank contract began following his appearance in Esther Waters (1948), his first credited role, replacing Stewart Granger .[10] Another early role was in The Blue Lamp (1950), playing a hoodlum who shoots and kills a police constable (Jack Warner) while in So Long at the Fair (1950), a film noir, he played a handsome artist who comes to the rescue of Jean Simmons during the World's Fair in Paris. He also had roles as an accidental murderer in Hunted (a.k.a. The Stranger in Between, 1952); a young wing commander in Bomber Command in Appointment in London (1953) and a wrongly imprisoned man who regains hope in clearing his name when he learns his sweetheart, Mai Zetterling, is still alive in Desperate Moment (1953).

Bogarde featured as a medical student in Doctor in the House (1954), a film that made him one of the most popular British stars of the 1950s. The film co-starred Kenneth More and Donald Sinden, with James Robertson Justice as their crabby mentor. The production was initiated by Betty Box, who picked up a copy of the book at Crewe during a long rail journey, and saw its possibility as a film. But Box and Ralph Thomas had difficulties convincing Rank executives that people would go to a film about doctors, and that Bogarde, who up to then had played character roles, had sex appeal and could play light comedy. They were allocated a modest budget, and were only allowed to use available Rank contract artists. The film was the first of the Doctor film series based on the books by Richard Gordon.

In The Sleeping Tiger (1954), Bogarde played a neurotic criminal with co-star Alexis Smith. It was Bogarde's first film for American expatriate director Joseph Losey. He did his second Doctor film, Doctor at Sea (1955), co-starring Brigitte Bardot in one of her first film roles; as a returning colonial who fights the Mau-Mau with Virginia McKenna and Donald Sinden in Simba (1955); Cast a Dark Shadow (1955), as a man who marries women for money and then murders them; The Spanish Gardener (1956), with Michael Hordern, Jon Whiteley, and Cyril Cusack; Doctor at Large (1957), again with Donald Sinden, another entry in the Doctor film series, with later Bond-girl Shirley Eaton; the Powell and Pressburger production Ill Met by Moonlight (1957) co-starring Marius Goring as the German General Kreipe, kidnapped on Crete by Patrick "Paddy" Leigh Fermor (Bogarde) and W. Stanley Moss (David Oxley) and a fellow band of Cretan resistance fighters based on W. Stanley Moss' real-life account, (Ill Met by Moonlight), of the Second World War abduction; A Tale of Two Cities (1958), a faithful retelling of Charles Dickens' classic; as a flight lieutenant in the Far East who falls in love with a beautiful Japanese teacher Yoko Tani in The Wind Cannot Read (1958);The Doctor's Dilemma (1959), based on a play by George Bernard Shaw and co-starring Leslie Caron and Robert Morley; and Libel (1959), playing three separate roles and co-starring Olivia de Havilland.

Later roles

After leaving the Rank Organisation in the early 1960s, Bogarde abandoned his heart-throb image for more challenging parts. He starred in the film Victim (1961), playing a London barrister who fights the blackmailers of a young man with whom he has had a deeply emotional relationship. The young man commits suicide after being arrested for embezzlement, rather than ruin his beloved's career. In exposing the ring of extortionists, Bogarde's character risks his reputation and marriage in order to see that justice is done. Victim was the first British film to portray the humiliation gay people were exposed to via discriminatory law, and as a victimized minority; it is said to have had some effect upon the later Sexual Offences Act 1967 ending the illegal status of male homosexual activity.

Other later roles included decadent valet Hugo Barrett in The Servant (1963), which garnered him a BAFTA Award, directed by Joseph Losey and written by Harold Pinter; The Mind Benders (1963), a film ahead of its times in which Bogarde plays an Oxford professor conducting sensory deprivation experiments at Oxford University (precursor to Altered States (1980)); the anti-war film King & Country (1964), directed by Joseph Losey, in which he played an army officer at a court martial, reluctantly defending deserter Tom Courtenay; a television broadcaster-writer Robert Gold in Darling (1965), for which Bogarde won a second BAFTA Award, directed by John Schlesinger; Stephen, a bored Oxford University professor, in Losey's Accident, (1967) also written by Pinter; Our Mother's House (1967), an off-beat film-noir and British entry at the Venice Film Festival, directed by Jack Clayton, in which Bogarde plays a ne'er-do-well father who descends upon "his" seven children on the death of their mother; German industrialist Frederick Bruckmann in Luchino Visconti's La Caduta degli dei, The Damned (1969) co-starring Ingrid Thulin; as ex-Nazi, Max Aldorfer, in the chilling and controversial Il Portiere di notte (a.k.a. The Night Porter) (1974), co-starring Charlotte Rampling, directed by Liliana Cavani; and most notably, as Gustav von Aschenbach in Morte a Venezia, Death in Venice (1971), also directed by Visconti; as Claude, the lawyer son of a dying, drunken writer (John Gielgud) in the well-received, multi-dimensional French film Providence (1977), directed by Alain Resnais; as industrialist Hermann Hermann who descends into madness in Despair (1978) directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder; and as Daddy in Bertrand Tavernier's Daddy Nostalgie, (a.k.a.These Foolish Things) (1991), co-starring Jane Birkin as his daughter, Bogarde's final film role.

In some of his other roles during the 1960s and 1970s, Bogarde played opposite renowned stars, yet several of the films were of uneven quality, due to demands or limitations set by the studio or their scripts: The Angel Wore Red (1960), playing an unfrocked priest who falls in love with cabaret entertainer Ava Gardner during the Spanish Civil War; Song Without End (1960), as Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist Franz Liszt, a flawed film made under the initial direction of Charles Vidor (who died during shooting), and completed by Bogarde's friend George Cukor, the actor's only disappointing foray into Hollywood; the campy The Singer Not the Song (1961), as a Mexican bandit co-starring John Mills as a priest; H.M.S. Defiant (a.k.a. Damn the Defiant!) (1962), playing sadistic Lieutenant Scott-Padget, co-starring Sir Alec Guinness; I Could Go On Singing (1963), co-starring Judy Garland in her final screen role; Hot Enough for June, (a.k.a. "Agent 8¾") (1964), a James Bond-type spy spoof co-starring Robert Morley; Modesty Blaise (1966), a campy spy send-up playing archvillain Gabriel opposite Monica Vitti and Terence Stamp and directed by Joseph Losey; The Fixer (1968), based on Bernard Malamud's novel, co-starring Alan Bates;Sebastian (1968), as Sebastian, a mathematician working on code decryption, who falls in love with Susannah York, a decrypter in the all-female decoding office he heads for British Intelligence, also co-starring Sir John Gielgud, and Lilli Palmer, co-produced by Michael Powell; Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), co-starring Sir John Gielgud and Sir Laurence Olivier and directed by Richard Attenborough; Justine (1969), directed by George Cukor; Le Serpent (1973), co-starring Henry Fonda and Yul Brynner; A Bridge Too Far (1977), in a controversial performance as Lieutenant General Frederick "Boy" Browning, also starring Sean Connery and an all-star cast and again directed by Richard Attenborough.

Bogarde claimed he had known General Browning from his time on Field Marshal Montgomery's staff during the war and took issue with the largely negative portrayal of the General that he played in the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far. General "Boy" Browning's widow, the author Daphne du Maurier, ferociously attacked his characterisation and "the resultant establishment fallout, much of it homophobic, wrongly convinced [Bogarde] that the newly ennobled Sir Richard [Attenborough] had deliberately contrived to scupper his own chance of a knighthood."

In 1977, Bogarde embarked on his second career as an author. Starting with a first volume A Postillion Struck by Lightning (an allusion to the phrase My postillion has been struck by lightning), he wrote a series of 15 best-selling books; nine volumes of memoirs, six novels, as well as essays, reviews, poetry and collected journalism. As a writer Bogarde displayed a witty, elegant, highly literate and thoughtful style.

The Servant Original Trailer

THE SERVANT

The Servant: a 60s masterwork that hides its homosexuality in the shadows

Joseph Losey's superb 1963 film about class and sex is once again in cinemas – but to locate its elusive gay gene, you have to revisit its source in Robin Maugham's extraordinary and disturbing novella

Peter Bradshaw

 @PeterBradshaw1

Wed 27 Mar 2013 16.21 GMT First published on Wed 27 Mar 2013 16.21 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2013/mar/27/the-servant-homosexuality-harold-pinter

Homosexuality is everywhere and nowhere in The Servant. Harold Pinter's superbly controlled, elliptical, menacing dialogue is able to hint, to imply, to seduce, to repulse, in precisely the manner that gay men were forced to adopt in 1963, when homosexuality was still a criminal offence, and when representing homosexuality on screen was forbidden. To locate the gay gene in The Servant, you have to go back to its source, the 1948 novella written by Robin Maugham, the nephew of W Somerset Maugham. The Servant has its spark in an extraordinary event in Maugham's own life, to be treasured by connoisseurs of British sex and class.

Maugham had rented a house, which came with its own servant, a man who unnerved him by gliding about almost invisibly. One evening, Maugham went on a date with Mary Soames, the daughter of Winston Churchill. He took her back to his flat and she asked for a drink: a cold lager from the fridge, as opposed to warm ale. (Interestingly, this drink recurs in the movie, but not the novel.) The fridge was just next to the manservant's room in the basement, the door of which was open; Maugham glanced in and saw a naked teenage boy on the bed. The servant appeared from nowhere and said in his odd drawl: "I see you are admiring my young nephew, sahr. Would you like me to send him up to you to say goodnight, sahr?" Maugham pretended he hadn't heard and simply went away without replying.

The trap was plainly set for blackmail – financial or moral, or both. In the book, of course, Maugham heterosexualises the trap. Barrett brings in a young woman he describes as his "niece"; in the film it is his sister, and the misplaced suspicion of incest between Barrett and Vera becomes the "unnatural" act. It is a woman who seduces Tony. But it is Barrett who is pulling the strings. It is Barrett who effects the seduction at one remove, in the hope that he can use this as leverage over the master. In the film, it is as much about power as pleasure, but this manipulation is replete with sexuality.

Maugham's book is far more candid about the homosexual act. He has a character, Richard Merton, who does not appear in the film: a concerned friend of Tony who is the narrator (Maugham even implies that it is their relationship that is the bond of true love). Merton asks Tony outright if he and Barrett have sex, and Tony laughingly denies it, though without being offended or shocked. His passions are to become centred on Vera, who is absurdly and rather naively depicted as a nymphomaniac. But students of linguistic history might be interested in the use of the word "gay" in the book. After Barrett's redecoration, Tony's "chairs had been covered in a gay yellow chintz". Tony is asked by his friend if he is at heart a roving bachelor or a "gay wolf". "Moderately gay" is how Tony replies. The word did not yet mean "homosexual" but is in the process of transition. Harold Pinter avoids it entirely. His movie is about more than sex.

What did audiences make of this extraordinary, disturbing and compelling story? They may well have been alive to its literary echoes. Everyone adored PG Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster. They understood how Jeeves had the upper hand. But Jeeves was entirely benign and discreet. He knew his place. JM Barrie's play The Admirable Crichton showed a butler taking power because he is the only one with practical knowhow when his aristocratic employers are shipwrecked with him on a desert island: but the status quo is ultimately restored.

Insidious and insinuating, Barrett is more like a subtler Uriah Heep, and in their claustrophobia and hysteria, Tony and Barrett have something of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, or perhaps Lord Henry Wootton and Dorian Gray, or even Edward II and Gaveston in Christopher Marlowe's play.

As far as movies go, Joseph Losey's previous film with Dirk Bogarde had a similar cuckoo-in-the-nest theme. The Sleeping Tiger (1954) starred Bogarde as Frank, a criminal who is invited by a trendy psychotherapist to come and live in the family house, believing that a stable environment will help him. Frank makes himself at home and begins an affair with the therapist's troubled wife. In later years, when live-in servants are less common, parallels with The Servant are less common also, but there is Curtis Hanson's The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992) featuring Rebecca De Mornay as the nanny who tries to take over the household. And a mention should go to Tinge Krishnan's social-realist drama Junkhearts (2011), which features Eddie Marsan as the ex-soldier who befriends a young homeless teen and gives her a platonic bed for the night in his council flat, only to discover she wants to bring in her boyfriend, who has been planning from the outset to take over his property.

Even in context, however, The Servant looks unique: its formal, theatrical elegance, combined with the ugliness of its emotions and fears, looks sharper and fiercer than ever. With its dark shadows, and faces distorted in convex mirrors, it looks like a scary movie, which is what it is. In Britain in 2013, even with Old Etonians in charge, the master/servant dialogue of 50 years ago seems impossibly arrogant. It was not unusual for instructions to be brusque, and the word "please" to be avoided, and a sentence rounded off with a curt "… would you?" And so the servant classes might well take refuge in an enigmatic mask, or take revenge with little gestures of pique or cheek, and generally store up resentment. In Britain the rhetoric of class, like that of sex, was largely in code. This is what the outsider Losey orchestrates, what Pinter writes and what Bogarde embodies.

• This is an edited extract from Peter Bradshaw's essay on The Servant included in the film's DVD booklet. The Servant is out now in cinemas, and will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on 8 April.

Paris La Vie Parisienne (1965)

This Is London Reel 1 (1950)

This Is London Part 2 (1950-1959)

Wimbledon Opens (1954)

The History of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships

by Ben Johnson

https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/The-History-of-the-Wimbledon-Tennis-Championships/

The Championships, Wimbledon, or just Wimbledon as it is more commonly referred to, is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and arguably the most famous. Since the first tournament 125 years ago in 1877, The Championships have been hosted by the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London and take place over two weeks in late June – early July.

Of the four major annual tennis tournaments known as the ‘Grand Slams’, Wimbledon is the only one to still be played on grass, which is where the name lawn tennis originated. Grass is also the surface which provides the fastest game of tennis. Of the other three, the Australian Open and the US Open are both played on hard courts and the French Open is played on clay.

In stark contrast to today’s sporting extravaganza, the first year of the Championships took place with very little fanfare. The All England Club had originally been called the All England Croquet Club when it opened in 1869, but as the new game of lawn tennis – an offshoot of the original indoor racquet sport known by traditionalists as ‘real tennis’ – began to grow in popularity at the end of the nineteenth century, the club decided to provide tennis courts for their visitors. On 14 April 1877 the Club introduced the first of a number of name changes to become the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club.

Unlike today’s tournament, which involves four junior and four invitation competitions alongside the five main contests – the men’s single and double matches, the women’s single and double matches and the mixed doubles – the first Wimbledon championships had one event, the Gentleman’s Singles. As it was not permissible for women to enter the tournament in 1877, the first Wimbledon champion from a group of twenty-two male competitors was twenty seven year old Spencer William Gore. In front of a crowd of 200, who had paid a shilling apiece to attend, Gore beat his opponent William Marshall in a decisive 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 defeat lasting only forty-eight minutes. As would also be the tradition for many Wimbledon tournaments to follow until a retractable roof was installed over centre court in 2009, the final was postponed due to rain. When it was eventually played three days later the weather conditions had not greatly improved.

Ladies at Wimbledon

The game of lawn tennis was still in its infancy at this stage, with players using basic handmade equipment and imprecise strokes, unlike the slick powerful serves and top of the range rackets we see today. However, modern day Wimbledon spectators would be sure to recognise many of the rules of the game which were first introduced by the All England Club’s Committee in 1877 as an adaptation of those put in place by the Marylebone Cricket Club, perversely the then controlling body of ‘real’ tennis.

Whilst no tournaments were held at Wimbledon during 1915-1918 and 1940-1945 because of the First and Second World Wars, the game continued to grow in popularity. In 1884 the men’s doubles competition was introduced and the same year women were also invited to join the tournament. In the fifties the club moved from its original rented site on Worple Road to the larger, present day Church Road site and in 1967 the tournament made history when the event became the first broadcast to ever be televised in colour.

Trophies and prize money

Following the completion of the five major competitions the winners are presented with the traditional Wimbledon trophies. Having had to replace both the Field Cup in 1883 and the Challenge Cup in 1886, the All England Club decided that future trophies should no longer become property of the Championship winners, who would instead receive a replica of the trophy whilst the originals were housed in the Wimbledon museum.

For the men’s singles winners the trophy was a silver gilt cup engraved with the words “The All England Lawn Tennis Club Single Handed Champion of the World” and inscribed with the name of winners dating back to 1877. In 2009, when there was no more room for the names of future Wimbledon Champions, the addition of a black plinth adorned with a silver band was incorporated so that more names could be commemorated.

For the ladies’ singles winners the trophy is a sterling silver salver, known as the ‘Rosewater Dish’, which was first introduced in 1886, and for each of the doubles tournaments a silver challenge cup is presented to the winners.

Whilst the coveted trophies were highly prized it wasn’t until 1968 that prize money was awarded at Wimbledon. This was also the first year that the Club allowed professional players to compete. However, surprisingly it was only as recently as 2007 that the prize money for men and women became equal! As you can see below, there is quite a difference between today’s prize money and that received by the winners in 1968!

Prize money won by Wimbledon Champions in respective events:

Year       Men’s Singles     Men’s Doubles  Ladies’ Singles   Ladies’ Doubles Mixed Doubles  Total for Tournament

1968      2,000     800        750        500        450        26,150

2011      1,100,000           250,000               1,100,000           250,000               92,000  14,600,000

Wimbledon Fashion

The accepted outfit of choice for Wimbledon players in the nineteenth century was plain white long-sleeved shirts and trousers for men and full-length corseted white dresses and hats for women. It was not until the 1920s and 1930s that the players, and particularly the female players, began to experiment with their clothing. Shorter skirts, shorts and sleeveless tops were all introduced, some more daringly than others, to provide ease of movement and a sense of individual personality.

As far back as the nineteen thirties the French grand slam winner René Lacoste promoted his own eponymous label by wearing his crocodile emblazoned shirts whilst on court. However, today Wimbledon is besieged with the current sports logos of choice as tennis outfits seem to be less about comfort or individuality and more often than not, a result of the multi-million pound sponsorship deals with sportswear giants. Indeed even the ball boys and girls have left behind the traditional Wimbledon colours of green and purple and have sported navy and cream uniforms created by the American fashion designer Ralph Lauren since 2006.

Wimbledon traditions

Although much has changed since the Wimbledon Championships were first introduced in 1887, today when we think of Wimbledon fortnight there are a number of traditional images that still spring to mind. The obligatory strawberries and cream (of which it is estimated that 28,000 kilos of English strawberries and 7000 litres of cream are consumed each year!), the white or almost all white dress code which is still a requirement, or the strong ties with the Royal family to name but a few. All of which combined continue to preserve Wimbledon’s place both in British heritage and at the forefront of the tennis world.