Dirk Bogarde

 
Quote: First there was the war and then the peace to cope with, and then suddenly I was a film star. It happened all too soon.

---

Sir Dirk Bogarde, distinguished film actor and writer, was born Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde. His father was Flemish and his mother was of Scottish descent.

In September 1939 World War II broke out, and in 1940 Bogarde joined the Queen's Royal Regiment as an officer. He served in the Air Photographic Intelligence Unit and eventually attained the rank of major. Nicknamed "Pippin" and "Pip" during the war, he was awarded seven medals in his five years of active duty.

His first lead in a movie came that year when Wessex Films, distributed by Rank, gave him a part in the proposed Stewart Granger film Esther Waters (1948). When Granger dropped out, Bogarde took over the lead. Rank subsequently signed him to a long-term contract and he appeared in a variety of parts during the 14 years he was under contract to the studio.

Bogarde as the only cast member of A Bridge Too Far (1977) to have actually served at the battles depicted in the film. He turned down an offer of $150,000 from MGM to star with Natalie Wood in Penelope (1966), in order to make Accident (1967) with his friend, director Joseph Losey.

He was an intensely private man by nature, the actor seldom granted interviews and never courted publicity.

Personal quotes;"I've got a good left profile and a very bad right profile. I was the Loretta Young of my day. I was only ever photographed on the left-hand profile".
"I simply love the camera and it loves me. But the amount of concentration you have to use to feed the camera is so enormous that you're absolutely ragged at the end of a day after doing something simple - like a look."