0:00:18 > 0:00:22The idol of the Odeons was how they described Dirk Bogarde.
0:00:22 > 0:00:24Handsome, charming and stylish.
0:00:24 > 0:00:25In Britain of the mid-'50s,
0:00:25 > 0:00:29he was the nation's biggest box office draw,
0:00:29 > 0:00:33his popularity outstripping that of any star from Hollywood.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36Under contract with the Rank Organisation,
0:00:36 > 0:00:40he started out playing villains in films like The Blue Lamp.
0:00:41 > 0:00:43But his star soared after
0:00:43 > 0:00:46he was cast as Dr Simon Sparrow
0:00:46 > 0:00:49in the hugely successful Doctor series
0:00:49 > 0:00:53and from that moment on, pin-up status was assured.
0:00:53 > 0:00:57In the early '60s, Bogarde had just left Rank.
0:00:57 > 0:01:00And he went to Hollywood to play the composer Franz Liszt
0:01:00 > 0:01:04in Song Without End. The film was not a success.
0:01:04 > 0:01:08But the role earned him a Golden Globe nomination
0:01:08 > 0:01:10and is the starting point for this conversation with
0:01:10 > 0:01:14Robert Robinson from the programme Picture Parade.
0:01:15 > 0:01:20You're one of the few English screen actors who command attention in
0:01:20 > 0:01:24America, command real attention which is underwritten with real money.
0:01:24 > 0:01:28And I wonder what it is over and above your capacity to act
0:01:28 > 0:01:32which singles a person out for that kind of attention.
0:01:32 > 0:01:33I don't know.
0:01:33 > 0:01:37Um... You said international stardom but I don't know what that means.
0:01:37 > 0:01:40- I'm not an international star. - No, command attention in America.
0:01:40 > 0:01:42- Command attention... - With that in view, I suppose...
0:01:42 > 0:01:44I don't really know what you mean, though, Robert,
0:01:44 > 0:01:47because I've only done two films in America.
0:01:47 > 0:01:49One they wanted me
0:01:49 > 0:01:52desperately for because they couldn't get anybody else.
0:01:52 > 0:01:55- I'm sure you're being...- Well, they wanted a special type of actor,
0:01:55 > 0:02:00which had to be an actor, sort of, known in Europe, the Commonwealth,
0:02:00 > 0:02:02for that market,
0:02:02 > 0:02:05and who spoke English with an English unaccented accent
0:02:05 > 0:02:07For Liszt, you know, because they didn't think it would be
0:02:07 > 0:02:10acceptable if he came from Milwaukee.
0:02:10 > 0:02:14But they could have picked almost anyone for that, yet they pick you.
0:02:14 > 0:02:19I think what I'm really referring to is the quality of watchableness
0:02:19 > 0:02:21which allows an actor to walk into a room
0:02:21 > 0:02:26and read the telephone directory and somehow it's exciting, just that.
0:02:26 > 0:02:31It's...it's this quality that I'd be interested to ask you about.
0:02:31 > 0:02:33I'd wish you tell me what it was
0:02:33 > 0:02:35because I know exactly what you mean.
0:02:35 > 0:02:39I have the same compulsion myself when I see somebody on a screen
0:02:39 > 0:02:41or in the theatre.
0:02:41 > 0:02:43I don't know why I'm looking at them, very often.
0:02:43 > 0:02:46I suppose it's this extraordinary and ill-used
0:02:46 > 0:02:48and much overworked phrase "star quality" which
0:02:48 > 0:02:52I don't believe anybody's ever been able to find.
0:02:52 > 0:02:55I know that when I was in Hollywood, I was absolutely amazed to see
0:02:55 > 0:02:57how many of the great
0:02:57 > 0:03:03and lasting stars were in fact NOT frightfully handsome people
0:03:03 > 0:03:07or beautiful women, but had quite qualities of ordinariness.
0:03:07 > 0:03:11Maybe it's something to do with that quality of ordinariness,
0:03:11 > 0:03:14of high sophistication, if you can call it that.
0:03:14 > 0:03:16That means high simplicity, sophistication,
0:03:16 > 0:03:17or have I got that quite wrong?
0:03:17 > 0:03:20I think it's a quality of relaxedness, perhaps.
0:03:20 > 0:03:27And something to do, too, with sureness and, I suppose, sincerity.
0:03:27 > 0:03:32For a film actor, you live a rather retired and private life.
0:03:32 > 0:03:35We seldom read of you in the show columns.
0:03:35 > 0:03:39- Is this... Do you avoid publicity? Is it distasteful to you?- No, no, no.
0:03:39 > 0:03:40I don't AVOID publicity,
0:03:40 > 0:03:43that makes it sound like something really horrid and unpleasant.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46I don't think publicity's always necessary.
0:03:46 > 0:03:50I think sometimes publicity is ugly and I think it's vulgar.
0:03:50 > 0:03:52And I think then you SHOULD avoid it.
0:03:52 > 0:03:56And I think it's wiser perhaps to leave it all alone
0:03:56 > 0:03:58than to dabble with a little of it.
0:03:58 > 0:04:02I think that to publicise your film is absolutely splendid.
0:04:02 > 0:04:04You should go to a premiere, if you have to.
0:04:04 > 0:04:07I don't like it because I don't like crowds.
0:04:07 > 0:04:09And you should go and talk about it to the press
0:04:09 > 0:04:10if they wish to see you.
0:04:10 > 0:04:14And you should speak to you on Picture Parade, as we're doing now.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17But I don't think it's of any concern to anybody but me
0:04:17 > 0:04:20whether I take my dogs for a walk on my head, in my hat,
0:04:20 > 0:04:23or in a basket or what I had for breakfast or how I go to bed.
0:04:23 > 0:04:27- You must teach your colleagues that. - I know, that is the trouble
0:04:27 > 0:04:30because there are other people who absolutely love everybody knowing
0:04:30 > 0:04:33exactly what they do with their dogs and where they go for a walk.
0:04:33 > 0:04:35We can't all be exactly the same.
0:04:35 > 0:04:37It would be a very dull world if we were.
0:04:37 > 0:04:39I was always brought up, which sounds very pompous,
0:04:39 > 0:04:41but I can't help it, with that old saying,
0:04:41 > 0:04:44"Little boys should be seen and not heard."
0:04:44 > 0:04:47It was very deeply drilled into me as a child and indeed
0:04:47 > 0:04:51to all my brothers and sisters and I'm afraid it kind of sticks.
0:04:51 > 0:04:52I can't put it any better than that!
0:04:52 > 0:04:55Do you think that the public should...do you think there's
0:04:55 > 0:04:59anything against the public getting to know the actual man
0:04:59 > 0:05:02behind the illusion which appears on the screen?
0:05:02 > 0:05:05It's a terribly tough one to answer, you know, that one,
0:05:05 > 0:05:09because I don't agree anyway, and I'm quite alone on this,
0:05:09 > 0:05:12I think the excitement of the cinema
0:05:12 > 0:05:16and the theatre is its quality of illusion, of magic,
0:05:16 > 0:05:19of "not quite of this world".
0:05:19 > 0:05:22And I think that if you know that your favourite actor's bald,
0:05:22 > 0:05:24or that he's got spots, or he's shorter than you were,
0:05:24 > 0:05:27you know, the illusion's gone.
0:05:27 > 0:05:28But if it's a good illusion,
0:05:28 > 0:05:31it wouldn't depend on knowing the mechanics.
0:05:31 > 0:05:35I think it's a great mistake to know about the mechanics.
0:05:35 > 0:05:37And yet you know your fellow film actors very well
0:05:37 > 0:05:41and I imagine this doesn't spoil your enjoyment of the films they make.
0:05:43 > 0:05:46That's a tricky one, isn't it, really.
0:05:46 > 0:05:50I think in a way...I think in way truly it does, not destroy,
0:05:50 > 0:05:54but I think it does harm it a little, my enjoyment of their work.
0:05:54 > 0:05:57I remember with Kay Kendall, who was one of my greatest
0:05:57 > 0:06:01and dearest friends, I was never absolutely convinced that Kay...
0:06:01 > 0:06:05I was never quite satisfied, which sounds conceited and impertinent, but you understand what I mean,
0:06:05 > 0:06:09I never quite satisfied that Kay had done the best possible job in a film
0:06:09 > 0:06:12because I knew her far too well, I knew every trick, every mood.
0:06:12 > 0:06:16And I was able therefore not always to see the work that she really was doing.
0:06:16 > 0:06:19So it did kind of...familiarity did...
0:06:19 > 0:06:24kind of blunt the brilliance of her work for me a little.
0:06:24 > 0:06:26You do little stage work now
0:06:26 > 0:06:27and I think I read somewhere
0:06:27 > 0:06:31that the last three occasions you appeared in the theatre,
0:06:31 > 0:06:33you became ill and that as a consequence,
0:06:33 > 0:06:36you decided that you'd do no more stage work.
0:06:36 > 0:06:39- Is this resolution holding good? - Yes, it is. It's a great temptation.
0:06:39 > 0:06:42I made everybody promise faithfully that if I ever looked as though
0:06:42 > 0:06:46I was moving towards a stage door, they had to shoot me.
0:06:46 > 0:06:49The thing about it really was that I'd been off the stage for far
0:06:49 > 0:06:51too long, a too long a gap.
0:06:51 > 0:06:56To be off the stage for three years and do, say, 12 pictures,
0:06:56 > 0:06:59which is what I've easily been doing, three a year,
0:06:59 > 0:07:01or nine pictures, whatever it is, my mathematics...
0:07:01 > 0:07:04It's too long a time to go suddenly straight into a play with all
0:07:04 > 0:07:06the intensity and the work and the emotion.
0:07:06 > 0:07:08You're tired before you start.
0:07:08 > 0:07:10Then you've got to go on tour and kick the play into shape,
0:07:10 > 0:07:12and it's a tremendous concentration.
0:07:12 > 0:07:15And if you ARE a bit run down at the time, you know,
0:07:15 > 0:07:18you're liable to pick up a bug and then you get this panic of,
0:07:18 > 0:07:22"Gosh, if I'm off, what'll happen?" So it's not worth it.
0:07:22 > 0:07:23I must confess, too,
0:07:23 > 0:07:27I am appalled at the length of time a play has to run.
0:07:27 > 0:07:30I think this year's run or more is absolutely appalling.
0:07:30 > 0:07:34Isn't this part of an actor's...rather the green for an actor?
0:07:34 > 0:07:37It is, but you're not talking to one of the great dedicated actors.
0:07:37 > 0:07:40It is indeed part of an actor's trade,
0:07:40 > 0:07:43but I don't think it's ever a part of an actor's trade to play one part
0:07:43 > 0:07:45without any break or any relief for over a year or more.
0:07:45 > 0:07:48I think this is absolutely insane.
0:07:48 > 0:07:51I think to do what Peter Hall is doing with Stratford,
0:07:51 > 0:07:53switching over to the Aldwych, is terribly exciting.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56The actors get a rest, they get a break in between.
0:07:56 > 0:07:57They can prepare the next production.
0:07:57 > 0:08:00And they're amused always because they're constantly being
0:08:00 > 0:08:02entertained themselves by the news of the part.
0:08:02 > 0:08:06But to stamp on, night after night, in My Fair Lady, I don't know how anybody ever does it.
0:08:06 > 0:08:08You've been successful for a long time.
0:08:08 > 0:08:14Apart from talent, has luck played a part in it as well as talent?
0:08:14 > 0:08:17Yes, I think luck plays a tremendous amount in everybody's life,
0:08:17 > 0:08:21but particularly in our life, in the movies.
0:08:21 > 0:08:23It's a sort of mixture of all the things
0:08:23 > 0:08:26but it's being in the right place at the right time,
0:08:26 > 0:08:29maybe even a silly thing is meeting the right man at the right party.
0:08:29 > 0:08:32You suddenly says, "My God, you're just what I want."
0:08:32 > 0:08:34Luck has a tremendous part of our job.
0:08:34 > 0:08:36I mean, you can plan it all ahead very carefully, say,
0:08:36 > 0:08:40"I'll do this kind of picture and then that one and various other roles,"
0:08:40 > 0:08:42but at the end of it all, you know,
0:08:42 > 0:08:45there's this awful element of luck, which still comes in.
0:08:45 > 0:08:49A few months after that interview came the release of a film
0:08:49 > 0:08:54that arguably changed Bogarde's career for ever. Victim.
0:08:54 > 0:08:56I played Bogarde's wife.
0:08:56 > 0:08:58It was directed by Basil Dearden
0:08:58 > 0:09:03and the first movie to ever use the word "homosexual".
0:09:03 > 0:09:09Many now say Victim helped change attitudes to homosexuality in Britain.
0:09:09 > 0:09:14Bogarde's part was a sympathetic gay character, a successful married
0:09:14 > 0:09:18barrister who risks his career fighting a ring of blackmailers.
0:09:18 > 0:09:21Here he talks to Barry Norman about what drove him
0:09:21 > 0:09:24to tackle such a controversial role.
0:09:26 > 0:09:30I thought there's a point, a statement you can make in the cinema
0:09:30 > 0:09:34and you might as well use the cinema to make a statement as opposed to...
0:09:34 > 0:09:37just flopping around with, you know, left profile
0:09:37 > 0:09:41for every shot and your hair permed and your teeth capped and... Oh!
0:09:41 > 0:09:45It was self-disgust, I think. I was too old, you see.
0:09:45 > 0:09:47I didn't start at 18, I started at 27.
0:09:47 > 0:09:50You've always looked very young, of course.
0:09:50 > 0:09:53Well, fortunately, that's been in the family.
0:09:53 > 0:09:57But then you were, what, about 40 playing 30-year-olds?
0:09:57 > 0:09:58I was about 40, 41.
0:09:58 > 0:10:00I was always playing 30...
0:10:00 > 0:10:02They said, "You can get away with 25,"
0:10:02 > 0:10:04which made me even feel more disgusted.
0:10:04 > 0:10:08There were always little kids writing letters saying, "We love you, we want to marry you."
0:10:08 > 0:10:11I was a sort of pop singer. Anyway, all that was beginning to change
0:10:11 > 0:10:15and I decided the wind of change was coming with this pop thing.
0:10:15 > 0:10:16When Bill Haley started to come in,
0:10:16 > 0:10:19I realised the film stars were going to go out.
0:10:19 > 0:10:22- So, at least I was absolutely right on that score.- Yes, indeed you were.
0:10:22 > 0:10:25And I cleared off into the right kind of movies
0:10:25 > 0:10:28before the bottom fell out of popular cinema.
0:10:28 > 0:10:32Because all the fan admiration I'd had for years and years
0:10:32 > 0:10:35from little girls and teenyboppers, you call them, and things like that,
0:10:35 > 0:10:37and people like Maggie Lockwood
0:10:37 > 0:10:41and Stewart Granger had before me. They disappeared,
0:10:41 > 0:10:46they went into a sort of mist after four little boys from Liverpool,
0:10:46 > 0:10:50- called The Beatles.- By that time... - By that time, I'd cleared.
0:10:50 > 0:10:52Yes, because you'd make Victim by them.
0:10:52 > 0:10:55Yes, I'd made all of those films.
0:10:55 > 0:10:57And Victim, of course, was a considerable breakthrough as a film.
0:10:57 > 0:11:00It was a big breakthrough. The film is a very brave film.
0:11:00 > 0:11:04Something Basil Dearden's never been respected or awarded sufficiently for.
0:11:04 > 0:11:07When Basil died and he got that obituary, I was so ashamed,
0:11:07 > 0:11:11they didn't even bother to say he'd actually altered the course of English cinema,
0:11:11 > 0:11:13as much as Lacey did.
0:11:13 > 0:11:16Cos it was the first film, actually, to take homosexuality
0:11:16 > 0:11:18as a serious subject, wasn't it?
0:11:18 > 0:11:20It was the first film to take it as a serious subject
0:11:20 > 0:11:22and present it as a serious subject.
0:11:22 > 0:11:27To present it as a problem that was solvable and that everybody had.
0:11:27 > 0:11:30You know, it wasn't sort of like having some dreadful unknown
0:11:30 > 0:11:32disease. Lots of people have it.
0:11:32 > 0:11:34It was a reasonable thing to have.
0:11:34 > 0:11:37You can't hope to keep this out of the press.
0:11:37 > 0:11:39It's not as though you can go to court as Mr X.
0:11:39 > 0:11:41You're too well-known.
0:11:41 > 0:11:42I don't want to.
0:11:43 > 0:11:46I believe if I go into court as myself,
0:11:46 > 0:11:49I can draw attention to the fault in the existing law.
0:11:50 > 0:11:52Knowing it'll destroy you utterly.
0:11:52 > 0:11:53Yes.
0:11:58 > 0:12:00We're going to need each other very much, aren't we?
0:12:03 > 0:12:07No, no. I'm going to go through this alone.
0:12:07 > 0:12:09I don't want you here when it happens.
0:12:09 > 0:12:13I started this thing, I've hurt you terribly, I know that.
0:12:13 > 0:12:15But I can just get through it to the end
0:12:15 > 0:12:18if you're not here to face the final humiliations.
0:12:21 > 0:12:23They're going to call me filthy names.
0:12:24 > 0:12:28And my friends are going to lower their eyes and my enemies say they'd always guessed.
0:12:30 > 0:12:32I don't want you to a part of that.
0:12:33 > 0:12:36But it was particularly bold for you, I would've thought,
0:12:36 > 0:12:39because you had had this sort of following of little girls
0:12:39 > 0:12:41and then to appear in a film as a homosexual...
0:12:41 > 0:12:44They didn't mind...they didn't mind me being a homosexual at all
0:12:44 > 0:12:47because most people think that being queer means that you've got flu.
0:12:47 > 0:12:51They didn't know anything about that at all.
0:12:51 > 0:12:54What did bother them very much was... Anyway, it was beginning
0:12:54 > 0:12:55to break away, that pop thing,
0:12:55 > 0:13:00because I said the boys, the kids were coming, a new form of adoration
0:13:00 > 0:13:02was coming in through the pop singers.
0:13:02 > 0:13:04That's rock 'n' roll, that's music.
0:13:04 > 0:13:08But they DID get upset because I had grey temples.
0:13:09 > 0:13:12I was being a 45-year-old man when I was only 40.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15And that really bugged them, frankly.
0:13:15 > 0:13:19I thought, "Well, now here it comes." I've got the lines here and all the wrinkles coming,
0:13:19 > 0:13:21and the make-up going, the white temples stuck in.
0:13:21 > 0:13:23They got a bit leery cos I was too old.
0:13:23 > 0:13:25When they wrote and said, "You're older than my dad,"
0:13:25 > 0:13:28I knew that I was out.
0:13:28 > 0:13:31Was Bogarde homosexual himself?
0:13:31 > 0:13:32He always denied it.
0:13:32 > 0:13:36From the 1960s onwards, he lived with Tony Forwood,
0:13:36 > 0:13:40a man he always described as his partner and manager.
0:13:40 > 0:13:43And he insisted the relationship was platonic.
0:13:44 > 0:13:45After Victim,
0:13:45 > 0:13:49Bogarde never had a conventional leading man role again,
0:13:49 > 0:13:52which he considered a blessing.
0:13:52 > 0:13:56From that point on, he'd appear in more challenging films,
0:13:56 > 0:13:58winning Best Actor BAFTAs
0:13:58 > 0:14:03in two seminal '60s movies, The Servant and Darling.
0:14:03 > 0:14:09Here, he is discussing the change in direction in an interview from 1967.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12I never was a romantic type, you know. It was a great, great mistake.
0:14:12 > 0:14:17I was a character actor who got diverted at a time of national
0:14:17 > 0:14:21drought, just after the war, and I fitted somebody else's pants
0:14:21 > 0:14:25and played their part. That's literally how it started.
0:14:26 > 0:14:28I was lucky in having a good left profile.
0:14:28 > 0:14:31I notice at the moment I'm being shot on my right,
0:14:31 > 0:14:32which is quite the worst one.
0:14:32 > 0:14:35That doesn't matter any more but this side was very good
0:14:35 > 0:14:38and the y built all the sets at Pinewood for this profile only.
0:14:38 > 0:14:42I was like Loretta Young, nobody ever saw my right side.
0:14:42 > 0:14:44At what stage did you decide
0:14:44 > 0:14:48that you didn't want to play romantic leads any more?
0:14:48 > 0:14:52I did a film some years ago which nobody has ever seen called
0:14:52 > 0:14:55A Doctor's Dilemma by George Bernard Shaw
0:14:55 > 0:14:58with Leslie Caron and Cecil Beaton doing the costumes and
0:14:58 > 0:15:01a wonderful part and a super scriptwriter
0:15:01 > 0:15:04and a wonderful director called Asquith.
0:15:04 > 0:15:06The scriptwriter, of course, was Bernard Shaw
0:15:06 > 0:15:10and the director was Mr Asquith and it suddenly dawned on me
0:15:10 > 0:15:15that movies had something more to say than just, oh, you know,
0:15:15 > 0:15:16frolicking songs in Spain
0:15:16 > 0:15:19and all the stuff I had been doing before and funny pictures like
0:15:19 > 0:15:22the Doctors, which had great value but were not satisfying.
0:15:22 > 0:15:24They were only extensions of myself.
0:15:24 > 0:15:27I wasn't actually doing the job that I had started out to do.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30When I found that you could really speak good dialogue
0:15:30 > 0:15:33on screen and it sounded good, I decided a break had to be made.
0:15:33 > 0:15:37Where other any satisfactions from working on the Rank films?
0:15:37 > 0:15:38Oh, yes, of course there were.
0:15:38 > 0:15:42The first Doctor was one of the most satisfying things I've ever
0:15:42 > 0:15:46done, I think, because more people went to hospital after that
0:15:46 > 0:15:48because they were less frightened. I am not being sarcastic.
0:15:48 > 0:15:52Because they were less frightened of hospitals than ever before
0:15:52 > 0:15:56and people used to come both to Kenny and I, Kenny More,
0:15:56 > 0:16:00and sort of thank us rather than, you know, laugh at us.
0:16:00 > 0:16:03They were thanking us for making it easy to get
0:16:03 > 0:16:06granny into hospital or a child into hospital.
0:16:06 > 0:16:10I was recently in hospital myself for various reasons of my own and
0:16:10 > 0:16:15the child, you know, care doctor was called Dr Simon Sparrow.
0:16:15 > 0:16:18They used to stick that on the door which made the kids feel better.
0:16:18 > 0:16:22That's all gone now. In the films, I think, possibly gone too.
0:16:23 > 0:16:26Do you do much research when you're preparing a film,
0:16:26 > 0:16:30into background, the type of job a character does?
0:16:30 > 0:16:32Not if it is about people. There is no need to.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35I know, you know, seven and a half or seven years of the Army
0:16:35 > 0:16:39and 46 years of living with people, I think it taught you,
0:16:39 > 0:16:42taught me a good deal about people.
0:16:42 > 0:16:45Research, I certainly do on odd things I find.
0:16:45 > 0:16:47If it's something particular like drive a special kind of car,
0:16:47 > 0:16:50I'd certainly do that. Research on a special or specialised subject,
0:16:50 > 0:16:52certainly, without any question.
0:16:52 > 0:16:57- Do you have technical advice on set? - Always. If it's needed, of course.
0:16:57 > 0:17:00In all the Doctors, I had a doctor on the set every day, always,
0:17:00 > 0:17:03because I never touched a thing that a doctor would touch
0:17:03 > 0:17:05unless I knew exactly how to use it.
0:17:05 > 0:17:07Because Dr Simon Sparrow in the Doctor films is the only
0:17:07 > 0:17:09straight guy in the pictures.
0:17:09 > 0:17:12And an audience had to absolutely believe that he was right
0:17:12 > 0:17:15and safe and secure and good for them
0:17:15 > 0:17:18and then all the other people, you know, could be funny around him.
0:17:18 > 0:17:20He never made a mistake as a doctor.
0:17:20 > 0:17:21Basically, because I always had
0:17:21 > 0:17:23a doctor there to tell me what to do or not to do.
0:17:23 > 0:17:25Although one doctor alarmed me
0:17:25 > 0:17:27by taking out an appendix on the left-hand side. Still,
0:17:27 > 0:17:29they do do that, I believe.
0:17:30 > 0:17:35A year after that interview, Bogarde moved with Tony Forwood abroad
0:17:35 > 0:17:40to France and there began a new phase in his career.
0:17:40 > 0:17:43With acclaimed performances and artistic films like Visconti's
0:17:43 > 0:17:48Death In Venice seeing him become a major star of European cinema.
0:17:50 > 0:17:52Bogarde always put his success down to the fact that
0:17:52 > 0:17:55he was continuously pushing himself.
0:17:55 > 0:17:59He never lost the feeling that there was more to be learned about acting,
0:17:59 > 0:18:02as he told the programme Omnibus.
0:18:02 > 0:18:05One day, we were changing magazines and I looked up
0:18:05 > 0:18:10and there was the camera operator Bob Thompson, leaning over
0:18:10 > 0:18:13the top of the camera and he was quite short and he had glasses
0:18:13 > 0:18:18and he was very experienced and he was very nice.
0:18:18 > 0:18:22And I was just standing waiting and I said, "Hi, Bob.
0:18:22 > 0:18:26"You know, you look very worried. What are you thinking about?"
0:18:27 > 0:18:31He said, "Well, I'm just thinking
0:18:31 > 0:18:33"I don't know how the hell you stuck."
0:18:35 > 0:18:38"Oh," I thought, "That's not quite what I meant."
0:18:38 > 0:18:40So I said, "Why?" he said, "Well, you don't know a bloody
0:18:40 > 0:18:44"thing about this business, do you?" And I had been in it for five years.
0:18:46 > 0:18:48So I said, "Well, what don't I know?"
0:18:48 > 0:18:50He said, "It'd take too long to tell you."
0:18:50 > 0:18:52And I said, "Will you tell me?"
0:18:52 > 0:18:56And so Bob Thompson told me.
0:18:56 > 0:18:58He told me how the film went through the gate.
0:18:58 > 0:19:02He told me how the boom went. He told me where the lights were.
0:19:02 > 0:19:04He told me about a 2K, an inky-dink.
0:19:04 > 0:19:08He told me every damn thing I had to know about the movies.
0:19:08 > 0:19:13My own technicians, mine, my mates,
0:19:13 > 0:19:16not my directors cos they didn't know.
0:19:16 > 0:19:19I never find an English director that did.
0:19:20 > 0:19:23You are an actor who, I think you have said,
0:19:23 > 0:19:27- doesn't require an audience in the strict sense.- Oh, no, God forbid.
0:19:27 > 0:19:31That in a way, cinema is a much more preferable medium for you.
0:19:31 > 0:19:34Well, cinema is much more exciting because,
0:19:34 > 0:19:36as I've said before, it is something you are making technically
0:19:36 > 0:19:40together and the thing I have emphasised very
0:19:40 > 0:19:42strongly in my last book, as you know,
0:19:42 > 0:19:45is that most actors do not realise that that little beast
0:19:45 > 0:19:49and that little beast photograph your mind.
0:19:49 > 0:19:51And if there is nothing in your mind at the time that that is
0:19:51 > 0:19:54working or that is working then no-one is at home
0:19:54 > 0:19:58and you can just as well play pussy, it doesn't matter.
0:20:00 > 0:20:02How do you mean photograph your mind?
0:20:02 > 0:20:03It photographs thought.
0:20:03 > 0:20:06- Thought.- The camera is capable of photographing thought.
0:20:06 > 0:20:09The best example of all, apart from me -
0:20:09 > 0:20:12cos I've suddenly discovered that I do have some kind of thought,
0:20:12 > 0:20:15in the end, you know - is Marilyn,
0:20:15 > 0:20:19who had no thought whatsoever in her mind but she had, way down there
0:20:19 > 0:20:23at the bottom, Miss Monroe was quite... Well, I mean,
0:20:23 > 0:20:27she has become the legend of the century almost.
0:20:27 > 0:20:31And the camera found what she was doing and what she was thinking.
0:20:31 > 0:20:34Watching her on the floor, you would inch yourself away with misery
0:20:34 > 0:20:37and grief because you thought, "Crikey, what is she doing?
0:20:37 > 0:20:39"She's doing nothing and she's dreadful.
0:20:39 > 0:20:43"She is plain and she's got spots and where's the magic?"
0:20:43 > 0:20:46And the magic was there next day on film.
0:20:46 > 0:20:49- And you just drained blood when you saw it.- So it is internal.
0:20:49 > 0:20:51It's an internal thing
0:20:51 > 0:20:54and this is the essence of concentration, of course.
0:20:54 > 0:20:57Without concentration, without the absolute tightness
0:20:57 > 0:21:02of concentration here in your head, nothing works on the screen.
0:21:02 > 0:21:05You can walk through a part and nearly everybody I ever see does.
0:21:05 > 0:21:08Sometimes there is a magical moment where you find some actor
0:21:08 > 0:21:11who is not walking through and the camera picks him.
0:21:11 > 0:21:14But that's capricious and so is that one.
0:21:14 > 0:21:15They're both capricious, the cameras.
0:21:15 > 0:21:17Capricious cos they hate you.
0:21:17 > 0:21:21You can do your nut and they don't want to record it
0:21:21 > 0:21:24but if you can establish a rapport, a love affair between yourself
0:21:24 > 0:21:27and the lens - and I'm flattering myself perhaps that I do,
0:21:27 > 0:21:29I don't know, maybe I don't -
0:21:29 > 0:21:32they will do everything in their power to help you.
0:21:32 > 0:21:36But you have got to be thinking and you have got to know what
0:21:36 > 0:21:39you're thinking about and if you go to pieces, forget it.
0:21:39 > 0:21:41It doesn't work.
0:21:41 > 0:21:46The earlier films, there were some that were accomplished.
0:21:46 > 0:21:52- You're famous for having shot Jack Warner.- Oh, yes, The Blue Lamp.
0:21:52 > 0:21:57And then you move to a very successful series of films,
0:21:57 > 0:21:59which were the Doctor films.
0:21:59 > 0:22:04When you're working in what many people might consider unremarkable
0:22:04 > 0:22:10cinema, were you striving to do your best within those circumstances
0:22:10 > 0:22:13or were you not all that conscious that it was unremarkable cinema?
0:22:13 > 0:22:17Look here, let's get one thing absolutely straight.
0:22:17 > 0:22:22All I have ever been in the cinema or in the theatre or in my books
0:22:22 > 0:22:28is an entertainer. Nothing more and nothing less. That's all I am.
0:22:29 > 0:22:33And anything I do, I do to the depths of my gut.
0:22:34 > 0:22:37I would never, as I said, cheat anyone.
0:22:37 > 0:22:39I never considered those films as crappy or stupid
0:22:39 > 0:22:40or whatever they were.
0:22:41 > 0:22:44They were there to pleasure people.
0:22:44 > 0:22:46There were there to pleasure people who came to see us.
0:22:46 > 0:22:48You don't betray that faith.
0:22:48 > 0:22:52You don't betray people that have staggered miles in a snowstorm
0:22:52 > 0:22:55or something to get to the movie to see you.
0:22:55 > 0:22:56You do everything you can.
0:22:56 > 0:23:02And people met and married in movies that I made.
0:23:02 > 0:23:04They dated. A whole world.
0:23:04 > 0:23:07I had three, four generations of people that
0:23:07 > 0:23:10I am directly responsible to.
0:23:10 > 0:23:16I couldn't possibly say that I did anything more than do the best,
0:23:16 > 0:23:18you know, the best thing I could do,
0:23:18 > 0:23:23the highest point of my ability and never once looked down on it.
0:23:23 > 0:23:27I never. I couldn't do. And I love the cinema too much anyway.
0:23:27 > 0:23:30That was another thing. It was growing and growing and growing.
0:23:30 > 0:23:33When I found that a crew was working and that was working and that
0:23:33 > 0:23:37was working and how it worked and this was working, the boom.
0:23:37 > 0:23:40Then gradually all these wonderful things came in
0:23:40 > 0:23:45and I was being taken in again, into a force, like I had
0:23:45 > 0:23:50been in the Army, and producing something at the end of it.
0:23:50 > 0:23:52But I was very, very proud of those films.
0:23:52 > 0:23:54I mean, some of them were rubbish, I admit,
0:23:54 > 0:23:56but people like rubbish, you know.
0:23:56 > 0:23:59People don't want always to be educated.
0:23:59 > 0:24:04Acting success and European stardom wasn't enough for Bogarde.
0:24:04 > 0:24:09The '70s saw him also branch out into a new career as a writer.
0:24:09 > 0:24:14By 1983, three volumes of memoirs and two novels had all earned
0:24:14 > 0:24:17rave reviews and become international bestsellers.
0:24:17 > 0:24:22But how he started writing was a story in itself as he explains
0:24:22 > 0:24:24here to interview Tony Bilbow.
0:24:24 > 0:24:26One day I got a fan letter, so-called,
0:24:26 > 0:24:28from a woman in America who had been sitting under
0:24:28 > 0:24:34a hairdryer in her hairdressers in a small town in America and she
0:24:34 > 0:24:38had read a magazine to pass the time which she found rather distasteful.
0:24:38 > 0:24:42It was a women's magazine. And it was an English one and rather cheap.
0:24:42 > 0:24:45But in it, to her astonishment,
0:24:45 > 0:24:48she saw a picture of a house that once had belonged to her.
0:24:48 > 0:24:51This is a hell of a long preamble, you'll have to excuse me for that.
0:24:51 > 0:24:56And in front of the house, grinning like an idiot, was I, myself, there.
0:24:56 > 0:24:59And she didn't know who I was cos she never went to the movies,
0:24:59 > 0:25:01she wasn't that kind of person,
0:25:01 > 0:25:04but she didn't recognise the house and she saw pictures inside.
0:25:04 > 0:25:08So she read the rather sorry little article about me
0:25:08 > 0:25:10and realised I was an actor or something
0:25:10 > 0:25:13and lived in England and lived in this house which
0:25:13 > 0:25:15she has lived in for ten years,
0:25:15 > 0:25:19which she had found with her husband in 1929 and lived there
0:25:19 > 0:25:24until 1939 when the war broke out and they had to go back to America.
0:25:24 > 0:25:27So, to cut a long story short, she wrote me a letter.
0:25:27 > 0:25:32Very pathetic and very polite, very tiny, very neat, no great deal.
0:25:32 > 0:25:36And sent, inside, a very small, brown sepia picture of the house
0:25:36 > 0:25:40as it had been in 1929, covered in brambles and nettles.
0:25:41 > 0:25:45And she wrote and simply said,
0:25:45 > 0:25:47"It's a great impertinence to write to you.
0:25:47 > 0:25:50"I don't know who you are, what you do, but I do know the house.
0:25:50 > 0:25:53"Has it changed very much?" And that was all.
0:25:53 > 0:25:58And I don't know why, I never reply to letters because it's
0:25:58 > 0:26:02impossible anyway, there isn't time and I can't deal with so much.
0:26:02 > 0:26:05But I did write to her. I wrote her back.
0:26:05 > 0:26:09We wrote to each other for the next five years.
0:26:11 > 0:26:14I think I'm right, yeah, next five years.
0:26:14 > 0:26:17She wrote in the end, towards the end,
0:26:17 > 0:26:20every single day of her life, a letter to me.
0:26:20 > 0:26:23On onion skin, which if you know what that is,
0:26:23 > 0:26:25it's that very, very light airmail paper.
0:26:25 > 0:26:29I wrote three or four times a week
0:26:29 > 0:26:32but when I began to put her all together
0:26:32 > 0:26:36and realised she was dying, I wrote a postcard,
0:26:36 > 0:26:42at least a postcard, every single day until 1975
0:26:42 > 0:26:44when she died.
0:26:45 > 0:26:51I never saw her. We never spoke. I have no idea what age she was.
0:26:52 > 0:26:54But she was determined that I should write.
0:26:54 > 0:26:57All I did glean, amongst many things,
0:26:57 > 0:27:00was that she was the head librarian -
0:27:00 > 0:27:03as far as I can put this together, I could be inaccurate here -
0:27:03 > 0:27:07at a very important university in America
0:27:07 > 0:27:11and that she knew a great deal about literature and about writing
0:27:11 > 0:27:16and she had seen, somewhere in what I wrote in all the years of junk
0:27:16 > 0:27:18I sent her, which is only really written to try
0:27:18 > 0:27:24and to keep her alive - she lived alone, she was entirely alone -
0:27:24 > 0:27:25to keep her alive and keep her going
0:27:25 > 0:27:29and give her strength, she thought that I could write.
0:27:29 > 0:27:31Or should be forced to.
0:27:31 > 0:27:34So would it be fair to say that if it hadn't been for her
0:27:34 > 0:27:36you would never have written? Not professionally.
0:27:36 > 0:27:39In the final analysis, that is true, yes.
0:27:39 > 0:27:41Quite extraordinary!
0:27:41 > 0:27:46Writing occupied most of Bogarde's time during the '80s,
0:27:46 > 0:27:49but in 1991, he was back with a new film.
0:27:49 > 0:27:52A French movie called Daddy Nostalgie,
0:27:52 > 0:27:55directed by Bertrand Tavernier.
0:27:55 > 0:27:58It coincided with Bogarde turning 70 -
0:27:58 > 0:28:03a significant enough event to merit another encounter with Barry Norman.
0:28:04 > 0:28:08Your first film in 12 years. Why? Why such a long time away?
0:28:10 > 0:28:13Well, I had really got out of the habit of doing it.
0:28:13 > 0:28:17I haven't... Although I am often accused of, I haven't retired,
0:28:17 > 0:28:23I just retreated. It's... I don't terribly enjoy making movies.
0:28:23 > 0:28:25I never have.
0:28:25 > 0:28:27This coming from a man who has made about 65 is a little startling.
0:28:27 > 0:28:29Yeah, I know, well, there it is.
0:28:29 > 0:28:32I mean, now that you get to a certain age, it's a hassle.
0:28:32 > 0:28:33It's a drag, you know.
0:28:33 > 0:28:36And then I found I could write and people want my books so it's easy to
0:28:36 > 0:28:41sit on my butt on my farm and write and do
0:28:41 > 0:28:45chores of the day on the land and it was easier and it was pleasanter.
0:28:45 > 0:28:51I had done one film, which I thought was a miracle film with Fassbinder
0:28:51 > 0:28:55called Despair, I think in '76. You'll have to put me right.
0:28:55 > 0:28:58I don't remember. It was about '76.
0:28:58 > 0:28:59And we made it in East Germany,
0:28:59 > 0:29:02on the edge of East Germany with the wall and all that. It was
0:29:02 > 0:29:05an extraordinary experience, a wonderful and extraordinary one.
0:29:05 > 0:29:10We were picked for Cannes but the film was finished about,
0:29:10 > 0:29:14oh, I don't know, seven months before Cannes and instead of...
0:29:14 > 0:29:17I had seen the rough cut and done the dubbing in Paris
0:29:17 > 0:29:22and instead of just leaving it as it was,
0:29:22 > 0:29:27Rainer Fassbinder got bored with it and cut it to shreds over the weeks.
0:29:27 > 0:29:30And when I went to Cannes to see the damn film,
0:29:30 > 0:29:33Michael Ballhaus, who now works for Martin Scorsese
0:29:33 > 0:29:38in New York, Michael came up and said, "Don't come near the movie.
0:29:38 > 0:29:39"Don't see it."
0:29:39 > 0:29:43Tears were pouring out and he said, "He's absolutely ruined it."
0:29:43 > 0:29:46So I went to see the movie at Cannes cos I had to, you know, do
0:29:46 > 0:29:50my duty and I didn't recognise it, I didn't know what the film was about.
0:29:50 > 0:29:53Totally devastated. So I thought after that,
0:29:53 > 0:29:55"That's it. I leave."
0:29:55 > 0:29:57And I left for 12 years.
0:29:57 > 0:30:00So why, what did Bertrand Tavernier do?
0:30:00 > 0:30:02Was it simply because it was Bertrand Tavernier
0:30:02 > 0:30:04- that you came back?- Yeah, yeah.
0:30:04 > 0:30:08I had seen in nearly all the work that Bertrand had done and he is...
0:30:08 > 0:30:11I always say if I am asked and I am saying this to you -
0:30:11 > 0:30:15well, you haven't asked me but I'm telling you - Visconti is,
0:30:15 > 0:30:19as far as I am concerned, the emperor of the cinema.
0:30:19 > 0:30:21Losey is the king.
0:30:22 > 0:30:26But Bertrand is the genius and he is a genius only
0:30:26 > 0:30:32because he absolutely knows every inch of cinema, every angle,
0:30:32 > 0:30:36every technical trick but he also knows about people
0:30:36 > 0:30:39and that is terribly rare.
0:30:39 > 0:30:41I was brought up in the cinema when the director would say,
0:30:41 > 0:30:45"Do let's hurry, darling. A little pink gin in the bar."
0:30:45 > 0:30:47And that was the way we made movies.
0:30:47 > 0:30:52To find someone who actually really wants to scoop the yolk
0:30:52 > 0:30:57out of your egg and savour it, is fairly exciting.
0:30:57 > 0:31:00So what happened? Did you put a lot into the script?
0:31:00 > 0:31:02Was there a lot of rewriting going on?
0:31:02 > 0:31:04Because I know you went happy with this script even
0:31:04 > 0:31:06when you agreed to do it with Tavernier, were you?
0:31:06 > 0:31:11Well, there was a rewrite which I got and Bertrand
0:31:11 > 0:31:14came to London to see me and I said I'd do it
0:31:14 > 0:31:16because he was doing it
0:31:16 > 0:31:19and there was a rewrite, which was still a bit cutesy-pie.
0:31:19 > 0:31:21There was an awful lot of Pussykins and Daddykins.
0:31:21 > 0:31:26I'm not a Daddykins type, you know. And neither is he.
0:31:26 > 0:31:30And we had both been through some fairly grown-up experiences
0:31:30 > 0:31:33in our life, like death and life, and all those things,
0:31:33 > 0:31:36and he just was experiencing it through the death of his father
0:31:36 > 0:31:42who was dying at that point, and we kind of put it in turn around.
0:31:42 > 0:31:48I must be very careful what I say here because he let me
0:31:48 > 0:31:53alter my stuff and my conception of who I was,
0:31:53 > 0:31:56the daddy I was, and
0:31:56 > 0:32:00he assisted me greatly and we wrote a lot of it together.
0:32:02 > 0:32:05You know, I would like to take a plane
0:32:05 > 0:32:08and go somewhere like Hong Kong, Singapore.
0:32:08 > 0:32:11See them for the last time.
0:32:11 > 0:32:12More than Mexico?
0:32:13 > 0:32:15The light in the East is...
0:32:18 > 0:32:20It's the colours...
0:32:21 > 0:32:22It doesn't matter.
0:32:24 > 0:32:27These legs.
0:32:27 > 0:32:28I know.
0:32:30 > 0:32:32I didn't want to get old.
0:32:32 > 0:32:34'Playing a man who is dying and you had,'
0:32:34 > 0:32:37I mean, you had a stroke which, thank God, you appear to have
0:32:37 > 0:32:39recovered from fully about, what, about four years ago?
0:32:39 > 0:32:42That must have been an experience you could have used, surely, was it?
0:32:42 > 0:32:44The memory of that, you used
0:32:44 > 0:32:47in playing the part or do you not believe in that kind of thing?
0:32:47 > 0:32:50Well, I mean, you know, Barry, come on now.
0:32:50 > 0:32:54Every act is... You know, even having a terrible row or
0:32:54 > 0:32:55bursting into floods of tears or whatever.
0:32:55 > 0:32:57If there is a mirror near, you look and say,
0:32:57 > 0:33:00"Oh, that's what I look like when I do that." Of course you do.
0:33:00 > 0:33:03You squirrel everything away for some use,
0:33:03 > 0:33:06some later projection of whatever you're doing.
0:33:06 > 0:33:11But I have been doing work classes recently in London
0:33:11 > 0:33:15and a lot of the actors, young actors,
0:33:15 > 0:33:18they're all between 18 and 25,
0:33:18 > 0:33:23want to know why I so mistrust the method.
0:33:23 > 0:33:25And my point is I don't see any point in being
0:33:25 > 0:33:27shoved into a dark room for three months
0:33:27 > 0:33:31and being told you have got to come out as a tin of condensed milk.
0:33:31 > 0:33:34Because that is not acting, it's not screen technique,
0:33:34 > 0:33:36it's not screen acting.
0:33:36 > 0:33:41Most people do a sort of cornflake packet performance
0:33:41 > 0:33:44and what I find so exciting with working with people like Tavernier
0:33:44 > 0:33:47and in Europe... I haven't made a movie in England since '66.
0:33:47 > 0:33:50- I know that.- And then they were always foreign companies.
0:33:50 > 0:33:53Paramount or MGM.
0:33:53 > 0:33:56But they don't ask you to do the cover. They want to know...
0:33:56 > 0:33:58It's like an onion.
0:33:58 > 0:34:01They want to know...peel the skin off bit by bit and come
0:34:01 > 0:34:04right down to the little, tiny bit in the middle
0:34:04 > 0:34:06which is the heart of it.
0:34:06 > 0:34:14And so in Daddy Nostalgie, giving Daddy a different, bad-tempered,
0:34:14 > 0:34:17very selfish, rather like a car salesman with the matching
0:34:17 > 0:34:21handkerchief and tie, he is not quite right, he's like a politician.
0:34:21 > 0:34:25But those things I found terrifically exciting to make him...
0:34:25 > 0:34:28Because, you know, after all, he is married to a woman who no
0:34:28 > 0:34:33longer speaks her language to him or his. So they're absolutely lost.
0:34:33 > 0:34:37And there is nothing to talk about. He's retired, he's dying
0:34:37 > 0:34:40and they are living in this dreadful little town in the south of France
0:34:40 > 0:34:42and all she has got is her bridge
0:34:42 > 0:34:44and all he's go is listening to her playing bridge.
0:34:44 > 0:34:47You know, I mean, it could be very gloomy.
0:34:47 > 0:34:50I don't think it is, because a nerve is touched.
0:34:50 > 0:34:53Indeed. Indeed there is. Another nerve that perhaps you touched -
0:34:53 > 0:34:55I don't know whether this was inadvertent
0:34:55 > 0:34:58but there is a scene in which you talk about the xenophobic
0:34:58 > 0:35:01middle-class Britain which your character left.
0:35:01 > 0:35:05I just wondered if that came from the heart.
0:35:05 > 0:35:08Yes. It came from me anyway.
0:35:08 > 0:35:10Merci, mademoiselle.
0:35:10 > 0:35:13And, you know, when I think
0:35:13 > 0:35:16that I could have ended up
0:35:16 > 0:35:18like those thousands of retired businessmen who live
0:35:18 > 0:35:21in those dreary little bungalows outside Brighton
0:35:21 > 0:35:23or Budleigh Salterton,
0:35:23 > 0:35:29pottering about in their rain-drenched, gnome-ridden gardens,
0:35:29 > 0:35:33sipping their sherry or their Horlicks,
0:35:33 > 0:35:37waiting for the Nine O'Clock News on television,
0:35:37 > 0:35:41loathing all bloody foreigners,
0:35:41 > 0:35:45hating and mistrusting anything beyond their sceptred isle,
0:35:45 > 0:35:48when I think of that, it makes me really ill.
0:35:48 > 0:35:50You have left xenophobic middle-class Britain for, oh,
0:35:50 > 0:35:54the best part of 20 years. Why did you do that?
0:35:54 > 0:35:56Oh, gosh. Why did I do it?
0:35:56 > 0:35:58Well, there was no reason to stay.
0:35:58 > 0:36:00I mean, the last thing I did here, as I have said
0:36:00 > 0:36:04so many times before, the last thing I was asked to do here was
0:36:04 > 0:36:10a voice-over for television for the Forestry Commission.
0:36:10 > 0:36:15- Really?- About felling pine trees in the north of Scotland.
0:36:15 > 0:36:18I mean, well, if it has come to that...
0:36:18 > 0:36:20And I have never been asked to come back.
0:36:20 > 0:36:23Well, that's not quite true. David Puttnam asked me to come back.
0:36:23 > 0:36:25But, I mean, nobody has asked me to work here.
0:36:25 > 0:36:27I mean, I think I'd run my limit, Barry.
0:36:27 > 0:36:30You know, I was in the movies... I started in '47
0:36:30 > 0:36:32above the title, right?
0:36:34 > 0:36:36I think people had got awfully used to me
0:36:36 > 0:36:40and then a new group came in in the beginning of the '60s
0:36:40 > 0:36:45and they didn't want my kind of work or indeed my kind of name.
0:36:45 > 0:36:48They wanted the new boys, you know, the Terence Stamps,
0:36:48 > 0:36:52the Albert Finneys, the Tom Courtenays, and they got them.
0:36:52 > 0:36:53And quite rightly too.
0:36:54 > 0:36:59But we were pushed. We were out. And I realised that in time.
0:36:59 > 0:37:02The Beatles were making a new sound.
0:37:02 > 0:37:05The movies were taking... The movies were becoming gritty and grainy
0:37:05 > 0:37:08and a lot of people were not growing up with that fact in this country
0:37:08 > 0:37:11but they were in the Europe and they had always been that way.
0:37:11 > 0:37:13That's when I went back to Europe.
0:37:13 > 0:37:15From a professional point of view,
0:37:15 > 0:37:17that was the best thing that could have happened to you.
0:37:17 > 0:37:21Oh, gosh, the last 22 years of my life were the greatest ever.
0:37:21 > 0:37:25Critically. I mean, not critically but from the point of view of film.
0:37:25 > 0:37:26Oh, yeah, sure.
0:37:26 > 0:37:30Because the curious thing now is that you're much more, I think,
0:37:30 > 0:37:33"revered" is the word in Europe as an actor than you are in this country.
0:37:34 > 0:37:38Well, revered is a very strong word. I'm better-known, yes.
0:37:38 > 0:37:44Yes, of course, I'm a big fish in a very large pond in Europe.
0:37:44 > 0:37:46I am a European player.
0:37:46 > 0:37:49But do you realise there is something extraordinary?
0:37:49 > 0:37:52I only realised this coming to see you today that in all the time
0:37:52 > 0:37:57I have been working abroad, I have only once played an Englishman.
0:37:57 > 0:37:59- That's right. - They have all been Germans.- Yes.
0:37:59 > 0:38:03- Yes, you are good as a German. - I'm very good as a German.
0:38:03 > 0:38:04Born in the wrong country.
0:38:04 > 0:38:07I'll tell you what though, for all that you're saying,
0:38:07 > 0:38:10you are a marvellous survivor, aren't you?
0:38:10 > 0:38:14I mean, 44 years now with the name above the title.
0:38:14 > 0:38:15The name is still above the title.
0:38:15 > 0:38:17Oh, yes, it won't come down either.
0:38:17 > 0:38:20- You insist on that, don't you?- Yeah.- Why?
0:38:20 > 0:38:23Because I still believe one of the earliest things I was ever told
0:38:23 > 0:38:25when I first joined the business and 47 was,
0:38:25 > 0:38:28"You realise what's happened to you, don't you?"
0:38:28 > 0:38:29This was the Rank Organisation.
0:38:29 > 0:38:32"You are unknown and you're going to carry a movie.
0:38:32 > 0:38:34"Do you understand what that means?"
0:38:34 > 0:38:37Now, I didn't understand what it meant but I learned.
0:38:37 > 0:38:39Sure as hell, I learned.
0:38:39 > 0:38:42And I thought, "Right, if it's going to cost this to carry a movie,
0:38:42 > 0:38:45"I am going to do it all for the rest of my life." And I have.
0:38:45 > 0:38:47And I am not going under the title.
0:38:47 > 0:38:49That's why I don't do those cameo parts.
0:38:49 > 0:38:53I mean, I'd rather write a book or review a book for a newspaper
0:38:53 > 0:38:56or whatever but I won't go underneath. I still carry a movie.
0:38:56 > 0:38:58And I still do.
0:38:58 > 0:39:00Daddy Nostalgie in Italy, for example,
0:39:00 > 0:39:04- is one of the biggest box office hits ever known there.- Is it really?
0:39:04 > 0:39:08Yeah, it has made milliards. Not millions but milliards of lire.
0:39:10 > 0:39:13- Why? I don't know why.- That's the question I was going to ask.
0:39:13 > 0:39:15I mean, it's marvellous that, you know,
0:39:15 > 0:39:1844 years ago you started as a star and here you are, aged 70 -
0:39:18 > 0:39:22and many happy returns for the great day - still a star.
0:39:22 > 0:39:24How have you managed that?
0:39:24 > 0:39:27I think it...
0:39:27 > 0:39:28I don't know, really.
0:39:28 > 0:39:33Learning my trade, being taught and being very selective
0:39:33 > 0:39:36and choosing the right people to teach me and never being greedy
0:39:36 > 0:39:40because I never earned what we call Caine-Connery money at all.
0:39:40 > 0:39:42I don't mean to denigrate either of those gentlemen,
0:39:42 > 0:39:44I just did not earn that kind of money.
0:39:44 > 0:39:47The most money I ever made in my life was on Despair.
0:39:47 > 0:39:49I got 200,000 for that.
0:39:49 > 0:39:54That was the biggest sum of money I ever earned in one lump.
0:39:56 > 0:39:57I didn't want more.
0:39:57 > 0:40:00As long as I had a small portfolio and, you know,
0:40:00 > 0:40:03I kept my money in an Oxo tin. It practically was that.
0:40:03 > 0:40:07That suited me very well but I would rather do the job well
0:40:07 > 0:40:08and have a decent job to do.
0:40:08 > 0:40:11I'm not interested in doing three-day bits in, you know,
0:40:11 > 0:40:17a warehouse at Wapping in a cutaway coat and handmade buttons.
0:40:17 > 0:40:18Who cares?
0:40:18 > 0:40:21Is it literally really true that you haven't been offered anything
0:40:21 > 0:40:24at all or anything worthwhile in the cinema in this country?
0:40:24 > 0:40:26No, not entirely true.
0:40:28 > 0:40:31David Puttnam, who I respect greatly, did ask me
0:40:31 > 0:40:34to do a film called The Mission but I really couldn't get away
0:40:34 > 0:40:36and I thought I was really much too old
0:40:36 > 0:40:38to go clambering up and down waterfalls.
0:40:38 > 0:40:40I was in my mid-60s.
0:40:40 > 0:40:41Which role was that?
0:40:41 > 0:40:44Well, it was later played by a younger man.
0:40:44 > 0:40:50And... But, yes, indeed, David did ask. But no, no, I am not asked.
0:40:51 > 0:40:54- Does that make you feel at all bitter?- No, no, not at all.
0:40:54 > 0:40:57Because I don't want to work here.
0:40:58 > 0:41:02John Boorman, indeed, he's another one, he has asked me to work here.
0:41:02 > 0:41:08But I am a European and the way we work in Europe is totally
0:41:08 > 0:41:10different to the way we work here.
0:41:10 > 0:41:12Why, then, did you come back to Britain?
0:41:13 > 0:41:16I came back because I was forced to come back through
0:41:16 > 0:41:20ill health of my partner and manager who was living out there.
0:41:20 > 0:41:23He had terminal cancer and when we knew that it was terminal
0:41:23 > 0:41:26he wanted to die with his family
0:41:26 > 0:41:31and that meant his immediate family and his son and his grandson
0:41:31 > 0:41:34so we came back and I just hadn't...
0:41:34 > 0:41:37Then I had a stroke after I had packed up.
0:41:37 > 0:41:39You know, packing up something I thought I would live in
0:41:39 > 0:41:42for the rest of my life in three weeks was quite difficult.
0:41:42 > 0:41:45- Do you feel you belong here now?- No.
0:41:45 > 0:41:49- Does that mean that you are unhappy? - No, no, I'm not at all unhappy.
0:41:49 > 0:41:53I mean, I'm back living in Chelsea, which is where I started.
0:41:53 > 0:41:54I'm full circle.
0:41:54 > 0:41:58Cos I started there at 16 at art school in Manresa Road
0:41:58 > 0:42:00so I know everywhere there.
0:42:00 > 0:42:03My father was a student there, my mother was a student there too.
0:42:03 > 0:42:06You know, I'm back where I was.
0:42:06 > 0:42:08I remember Peter Jones being billed.
0:42:08 > 0:42:10That does go back a few years.
0:42:10 > 0:42:11Yes, it goes back a few years.
0:42:11 > 0:42:14I saw Judy Garland for the first time in my life at what was
0:42:14 > 0:42:17- then called the Royal Court Cinema. - Oh, yes.
0:42:17 > 0:42:20But I'm all right but, I mean, every morning I wake up thinking,
0:42:20 > 0:42:22"Well, you're still here.
0:42:22 > 0:42:28"That means that A) you're alive and B) here you are."
0:42:28 > 0:42:33In the end, Daddy Nostalgie was his final film.
0:42:33 > 0:42:36In 1992 he became Sir Dirk Bogarde,
0:42:36 > 0:42:39knighted for services to acting.
0:42:39 > 0:42:41And in 1999, at the age of 78,
0:42:41 > 0:42:44he died in London from a heart attack.
0:42:45 > 0:42:48Amongst the tributes was one describing him as
0:42:48 > 0:42:52"Britain's first home-grown movie star.
0:42:54 > 0:42:56"They don't make them like that any more."
0:43:02 > 0:43:06Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd