Dirk Bogarde

"Dirk Bogarde holds a unique place in the world of the arts. As a Rank contract actor he was 'the Idol of the Odeons', but in 1961 broke free of celebrity's straightjacket to make Victim, a modest thriller with a big theme, which helped to change the law on homosexuality. He went on to become a giant of the intellectual cinema in films such as The Servant, Death in Venice and Providence, working with Losey, Visconti, Resnais, Fassbinder and Tavernier." "Famously protective of his privacy and that of Anthony Forwood, who shared his life for forty years, Bogarde left England in 1969 to live first in Italy and then, for two decades, in France, where, with A Postillion Struck by Lightning (1977), he began a second career as a bestselling autobiographer and novelist. In all he had fifteen books to his credit, one of which, A Particular Friendship, revealed him as a copious and scintillating correspondent. He was also a published poet, a respected painter in ink and watercolours, and an incisive book reviewer." "Bogarde destroyed many of his papers, but his family has made available his personal archive to John Coldstream, formerly Literary Editor of the Daily Telegraph, who knew him wel