theuofc

Totally agree that Dirk Bogarde's, and any person's, sexuality is his own business. An actor owes his public the best performance he can give. Period. And yes, promotion of that film according to his contract.

Bogarde wrote the following best-selling autobiographies, all well-worth a read. He was one of the few actors who actually could write well and did so in his books, no ghost writers in the sky:

A Postillion Struck by Lightning (1977)
Snakes and Ladders (1978)
An Orderly Man (1983)
Backcloth (1986)
A Particular Friendship (letters to a Mrs. X, now known) (1989)
Great Meadow (1992)
A Short Walk from Harrods (1993)
Cleared for Take-Off (1995)

He actually wrote six novels, again best sellers:

A Gentle Occupation (1980)
Voices in the Garden (1981)
West of Sunset (1984)
Jericho (1992)
A Period of Adjustment (1994)
Closing Ranks (1998)

And in later years in London, Bogarde did an 8-year stint as a reviewer for The Telegraph with the following collected works therefrom:

For the Time Being: Collected Journalism (1998)

The good news is John Coldstream, author of the Official Biography of Dirk Bogarde, has a long-awaited EVER, DIRK, Collected Letters of Dirk Bogarde due out 14th August.

Cheers, Everyone, very nice to be back

Barbara

smudge

Hello Barbara!

Great to see you back here...

Smudge

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

CaptainWaggett

I've read Niven's first novel (Round the Ragged Rocks). It is more or less a fictionalised version of Moon's a Balloon with many of the same anecdotes word for word (all the stuff about being in the army in peacetime and down and out in New York) and a rather sentimental ending in which a successful actor realises that he's been a bit of a bastard to his wife and vows to be a nicer person. I assume there is a fair amount of catharsis about his first wife tucked away in their and the similarity with his autobiography does suggest he wasn't ghosted (or he kept the same ghost for 20 years!). And it shows why his anecdotes were so polished - he'd sent two decades improving them

Windthrop

He also recast his anecdotes dropping Bob Coote from Cirrosis by the Sea and recasting Errol Flynn.

Thats the joke that killed the Music Hall !