Backcloth

by Dirk Bogarde

Based on personal letters, notebooks and diaries, 'Blackcloth' explores the patterns of happiness and pain that have made up his life. From the busy, eccentric family home in Hampstead to a secluded farmhouse in Provence.

'Backcloth' highlights the people, emotions and experiences that forged the man from the child. Written with all the honesty, wit and intelligence that have made Dirk Bogarde one of the world's most popular writers, 'Backcloth' is the vivid, eloquent, moving and reflective portrait of a life.

Genres: Biography, Autobiography, History, Memoir

313 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Dirk Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde was born of mixed Flemish, Dutch and Scottish ancestry, and baptised on 30 October 1921 at St. Mary's Church, Kilburn. His father, Ulric van den Bogaerde (born in Perry Barr, Birmingham; 1892–1972), was the art editor of The Times and his mother, Margaret Niven (1898–1980), was a former actress. He attended University College School, the former Allan Glen's School in Glasgow (a time he described in his autobiography as unhappy, although others have disputed his account) and later studied at the Chelsea College of Art and Design. He began his acting career on stage in 1939, shortly before the start of World War II.

Bogarde served in World War II, being commissioned into the Queen's Royal Regiment in 1943. He reached the rank of captain and served in both the European and Pacific theatres, principally as an intelligence officer. Taylor Downing's book "Spies in the Sky" tells of his work with a specialist unit interpreting aerial photo-reconnaissance information, before moving to Normandy with Canadian forces. Bogarde claimed to have been one of the first Allied officers in April 1945 to reach the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, an experience that had the most profound effect on him and about which he found it difficult to speak for many years afterward. As John Carey has summed up with regard to John Coldstream's authorised biography however, "it is virtually impossible that he (Bogarde) saw Belsen or any other camp. Things he overheard or read seem to have entered his imagination and been mistaken for lived experience." Coldstream's analysis seems to conclude that this was indeed the case. Nonetheless, the horror and revulsion at the cruelty and inhumanity that he claimed to have witnessed still left him with a deep-seated hostility towards Germany; in the late-1980s he wrote that he would disembark from a lift rather than ride with a German of his generation. Nevertheless, three of his more memorable film roles were as Germans, one of them as a former SS officer in 'The Night Porter'.


Bogarde's London West End theatre-acting debut was in 1939, with the stage name 'Derek Bogaerde', in J. B. Priestley's play Cornelius. After the war his agent renamed him 'Dirk Bogarde' and his good looks helped him begin a career as a film actor, contracted to The Rank Organisation under the wing of the prolific independent film producer Betty Box, who produced most of his early films and was instrumental in creating his matinée idol image.

During the 1950s, Bogarde came to prominence playing a hoodlum who shoots and kills a police constable in The Blue Lamp (1950) co-starring Jack Warner and Bernard Lee; a handsome artist who comes to rescue of Jean Simmons during the World's Fair in Paris in So Long at the Fair, a film noir thriller; an accidental murderer who befriends a young boy played by Jon Whiteley in Hunted (aka The Stranger in Between) (1952); in Appointment in London (1953) as a young wing commander in Bomber Command who, against orders, opts to fly his 90th mission with his men in a major air offensive against the Germans; an unjustly imprisoned man who regains hope in clearing his name when he learns his sweetheart, Mai Zetterling, is still alive in Desperate Moment (1953); Doctor in the House (1954), as a medical student, in a film that made Bogarde one of the most popular British stars of the 1950s, and co-starring Kenneth More, Donald Sinden and James Robertson Justice as their crabby mentor; The Sleeping Tiger (1954), playing a neurotic criminal with co-star Alexis Smith, and Bogarde's first film for American expatriate director Joseph Losey; Doctor at Sea (1955), co-starring Brigitte Bardot in one of her first film roles.

Bogarde continued acting until 1990. 'Daddy Nostalgie' was his final film.

Reviews

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a dark repressive lonely world we live in that acts to keep us remote from our ownmost self, and Bogarde peels away some of those layers that suffocate us. Everything around us seems to separate us from who we really are. Bogarde's end of life reflections are a good guide book for aging and are worth while, he obviously has an incredibly close relationship with his manager/partner Forwood and those brief vignettes concerning Forwood are truly moving and touching since it is obvious that Bogarde felt a need to not express his innermost feelings in the stifling world of 1987, and clearly withholds a part of himself during that part of the story telling, making for a better story overall. He is that hermit crab that others in the book claim he is while at the same time falling prey to praise from the outside world that is always fleeting and fickle as if the opinions of others matter; they don't.

[Lauren Wilder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dirk Bogarde was my hero, I simply loved the man. I devoured all his autobiographies and will continue to re- read them over the years. His writing is touching,tinged with romantic longing and sadness. His descriptions of life as an actor during his Rank days is insightful and funny. He was a true romantic and learning about his life in his own words was a pure joy.

[Tracey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always liked Dirk Bogarde As an actor. But really he’s always been a part of my childhood watching him in the doctor movie and as I grew up I watched him in films that Were darker Or more complicated in plots
I would say he is one of my favourite actors and to read this book has given me an insight into his life. He’s quite a solitary character but I respect that, I think that he’s a very private person and you could see that in this book.
It’s a book that not prone to namedropping but I know that when he’s talking about the people that he work with he you know that he Liked them.
I especially enjoyed the part where he was the President of the Cannes film awards , And that he stood his ground and his values and was not persuaded to go against them.
When you’ve got a friend in Dirk Bogarde , I think you’ve got a friend that’s loyal for ever and that came across in his book.
This book Increased the respect I have for him as actor and as a person.

[Michael Percy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first 'discovered' Dirk Bogarde after reading Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and then watching the movie starring Bogarde as Gustave Aschenbach. The movie was rather true to the book and Bogarde's performance perfectly captured my mind's eye view of the story. An unusual but pleasing experience. So recently, when I 'discovered' a copy of Backcloth, I was impressed that Bogarde, after turning down Hollywood roles and refusing a 'marriage of convenience' to make American viewers happy, became a best-selling author. And no wonder. Backcloth is an autobiography, but it reads like A Year in Provence (Bogarde lived there, too). There are other volumes of his story and I cannot wait to 'discover' these, too. But after reading the story of his life from birth up until his honorary doctorate from St Andrews and the death of his life-long 'partner', Forwood, I can only imagine what else he must have done to fill more books on his life. Bogarde had a real talent for story-telling, and there is little self-aggrandisement, yet much reflection that makes one sad, yet nostalgic and happy at the same time. In essence, Bogarde captures the Portuguese feeling which escapes English translation - saudade. After feeling that I was running out of classics that were my 'cup of tea', 'discovering' Bogarde gives me hope that my reading journey still has a very long way to go.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed all of Dirk Bogarde's books. I read them a long time ago, so forget the details, but a good idea to start with the first one, "A Postillion Struck by Lightning" This series is autobiographical. I love France and he spent a many years living there. Thoroughly entertaining.

Others in this series are (in order):
2/ Snakes and Ladders
3/ An Orderley Man
4/Backcloth
5/A Short Walk from Harrods
6/Cleared for Take Off

[Wtall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful actor. Authentic writer. Moving read.

[Mike Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Join the dots: after Nick Hornby’s clunking fists it’s a relief to return to the subtly ordered world of Dirk Bogarde, an author who could convey much in little. Backcloth may seem at first a bit of a rummage sale of his greatest hits - it’s an episodic return to his childhood in rural Sussex and Glasgow, his WW2 experiences and early career as an actor, before fast forwarding to what was then the present (mid-80s) for some melancholy about aging and death, but his flair for a good story, plus the sense that what’s unspoken is at least as important as the tale told, make for compelling reading. The depiction of (Tony) Forwood, his life partner and lover of 40 years, is guarded to the point of erecting a moat and portcullis (the uninitiated might think they were two businessmen who happened to share a rather lovely Provençal auberge by some weird coincidence), which is both frustrating and illuminating for a 21st century reader - such were the constraints of the era, both inflicted by society and self-imposed. By the same token, the wartime particularly in South East Asia, give an impression of the savagery which is circumspect but unflinching, without ever being overplayed. About as far from stagey, self-aggrandising showbiz biogs as it’s possible to get in the same language.

[Aaron Novak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even though this is Volume 4, it is more of a follow up to Dirk's inaugural autobiography. Backcloth provides additional insights on his childhood and significantly expands upon his time in the military. The last chapters touch on more contemporary times, and the challenges of aging. A must read for fans.

[David Short · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb book, very well written

[Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fourth in Dirk Bogarde's autobiographical sequence. The gaps from the first three are filled in during the course of this book and there is further more recent information up to the time of writing (around 1984).

This series of books really is worth seeking out, as Bogarde has an entertaining style and he doesn't shirk from some rather traumatic remembrances, many of which are contained in this volume.

[Karen-Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable.