1999 Sydney Cabaret Convention winners - Peter J Casey and Kerri-Ella

Thursday July 29, 1999

 

Reproduced from The Canberra Times, July 29 1999

Dirk Bogarde dies at age 78

Dirk Bogarde. Photo courtesy Facebook

By Richard Natale

British actor Dirk Bogarde, who segued from frothy comedies to serious dramas like “The Servant” and “Death in Venice,” died of a heart attack Saturday at his London home. He was 78.

Knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1992 upon his return to England after living for many years as a tax exile in France, Bogarde largely gave up acting after 1977 except for two TV movies and Bertrand Tavernier’s “Daddy Nostalgie” in 1990. He largely devoted his later years to his four-volume memoir and writing popular novels.

But in his prime, during the 1950s and ’60s, he was one of the most popular English male stars, with more than 40 films to his credit. The rare Hollywood project he made, such as “Song Without End,” did not test his abilities to the extent that director Joseph Losey did in “The Servant,” “Accident,” “Modesty Blaise” and “King and Country.” Or Luchino Visconti in “The Damned” and “Death in Venice.” Or John Schlesinger in “Darling.”

Bogarde didn’t scale the heights of histrionics in the manner of his notable countrymen like Laurence Olivier or Peter O’Toole. His famous cocked eyebrow was usually the extent of his external emotional exposure.

Artistic heritage

The son of London Times art critic Ulric Van Den Bogaerde and actress Margaret Niven, Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven Van den Bogaerde was born in the London borough of Hampstead. He attended University College School in London and Allan Glens College in Glasgow, Scotland.

Painting was his first love, and at age 12, he entered the Chelsea School of Art and at 16 won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art — but acting was his overriding passion. He started in set construction and gradually worked his way up to a stage role at the Q theater as the juvenile in “When We Are Married,” in 1939, which was followed by roles in “Cornelius,” “You Never Can Tell” and the revue “Diversion.” He also snared an extra role in the 1940 film “Come on George.”

The war intervened, tearing him away from the play “The Ghost Train.” He tried to be a signaler in the Royal Corps of Signals but spent some of the war in the cookhouse and finally as part of the Dramatic Society. He ventured as far as Calcutta, Java and Malaysia over the next five years, earning his lieutenant stripes.

After playing Jesus Christ in a children’s play, he landed an early television role in a production of “Rope” and segued into the stage drama “Power Without Glory” in 1947 (which was later adapted to TV). Based on the strength of that performance, the J. Arthur Rank Organization signed him to a long-term contract.

Debuted on ‘Waters’

His official film debut was the period piece “Esther Waters,” followed by a role in “Quartet,” based on four Somerset Maugham short stories. But it was “The Blue Lamp” in 1950, in which he played a petty crook, that made him a star in England. 

In the same year, he appeared with Jean Simmons in “So Long at the Fair,” a thriller, following it with similarly dramatic fare such as “The Woman in Question” and “Desperate Moment.”

He was also busy in the theater during the 1950s in Jean Anoulih’s “Point of Departure,” Noel Coward’s “The Vortex,” and, later, Ugo Betti’s “Summertime” and Anouilh’s “Jezebel.”

He won some theater roles on TV during his career including “Little Moon of Alban” and “Blithe Spirit,” both on NBC in the 1960s. But there was hardly time for theater since he had become one of the top male film stars in England, largely as a result of a series of comedies starting with “Doctor in the House” in 1954 and “Doctor at Sea,” “Doctor at Large” and “Doctor in Distress.”

He mixed the comedies with light dramas including “Cast a Dark Shadow” (as a villain); “A Tale of Two Cities”; and George Bernard Shaw’s “The Doctor’s Dilemma.”

He played a dual role in the 1959 courtroom drama “Libel,” and then tried his hand at big-budget Hollywood fare with “Song Without End,” and “The Angel Wore Red” (stepping in for Montgomery Clift). He turned down roles in other films such as “Gigi and “The Egyptian” and almost played the title role in Anthony Asquith’s proposed “Lawrence of Arabia,” which was scrapped.

The campy 1962 melodrama “The Singer Not the Song” seemed to be taking Bogarde further afield, but fortunately his stock as an actor was saved by “Victim” in 1961 (the year his Rank contract expired). The film was X-rated in Britain and notable in that Bogarde was the first major star to play a gay man on screen. As a lawyer threatened with blackmail, the drama was a major U.S. arthouse hit, though it could not play wider because it did not receive the Production Code seal of approval. Daily Variety wrote that Bogarde, “gives what is probably the performance of his career to date — subtle, sensitive and strong.”

Breaking with tradition

It was not until “The Servant,” in 1963, that Bogarde finally broke clean of his handsome leading-man roles. Already in his early 40s, he gave in to middle age as the clever manservant in the outstanding Harold Pinter drama. He won the British Film Academy Award as best actor and repeated the feat two years later as Julie Christie’s patient lover in “Darling.”

Another Pinter script directed by Losey, “Accident” in 1967, was not as well appreciated, but significant nonetheless, as was “King and Country” and the comic book comedy “Modesty Blaise.” Another strong performance was in Jack Clayton’s “Our Mother’s House.” Other pics included the 1968 thriller “Sebastian,” “Oh What a Lovely War,” “The Fixer” and “Justine.”

But it was his role in Visconti’s “The Damned,” as a ruthless business man, that made him an international star. And it was followed in 1971 by “Death in Venice,” regarded as his best performance. But internationally financed productions like “The Serpent” in 1973, the TV film “Upon this Rock,” as well as “The Night Porter” all went awry.

Alain Resnais’ “Providence” was probably the last film that gave him the opportunity to really shine. After making Fassbinder’s version of Vladimir Nabokov’s “Despair,” which he claimed the director re-edited beyond recognition, Bogarde called it quits.

There was occasional TV work in “The Patricia Neal Story” in 1981, “May We Borrow Your Husband,” which Bogarde adapted from Graham Greene, in 1986, and “William Nicholson’s “The Vision” in 1988. Tavernier’s “Daddy Nostalgie” was not so much a return as a desire to work with the noted French director.

Bogarde lived in Grasse until he returned to England in 1991 at the request of his manager and longtime companion Tony Forwood, who was dying of cancer. In France he wrote four volumes of his autobiography titled “A Postillion Struck By Lightning,” “Snakes & Ladders,” “An Orderly Man,” and “Backcloth”; a collection of letters titled “A Particular Friendship” and various novels, including “A Gentle Occupation,” “Voices in the Garden,” and “West of Sunset.”

Bogarde said he would like his ashes scattered in France.

First published at Variety, May 10, 1999

Violinist Yehudi Menuhin Dies at 82

Recording Career Was World's Longest. He Used His Music as a Bridge to Peace.

By Tim Page and Claudia Levy

March 12, 1999

Yehudi Menuhin, the world-famous violinist who first dazzled audiences as a child and who later became a statesman in promoting music as a path to international understanding, died March 12 in a Berlin hospital after a heart attack. He was 82.

A plaque of Yehudi Menuhin will commemorate the six-story house in Belgravia, 

London, where he lived, worked and entertained for the last 16 years of his life. 

(Photo Jim James/PA) (PA Archive)

Mr. Menuhin followed up success as a prodigy with a career of unusual range and duration. When he was at his best, his playing was distinguished for its sweetness, purity and spiritual intensity.

"His style of playing, particularly in his early years, was a stunning patrician elegance with a very natural musical line," said fellow violinist Isaac Stern, calling Mr. Menuhin "a major figure in this century."

The violinist began in an era that celebrated Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifetz and remained an active performer and conductor in the age of Itzhak Perlman and Anne-Sophie Mutter. He was in Berlin this week to appear with the Warsaw Symphony Orchestra.

Mr. Menuhin, a native of New York and a citizen of Britain since the 1980s, recorded prolifically, beginning in 1928 when he was 12 and continuing until a few months before his death -- the longest recording career in history.

He was an ardent advocate of the contemporary music of his time and was among the first violinists to play the Alban Berg concerto. He also played works by Arnold Schoenberg, although he had little taste for the style.

Bela Bartok wrote his Sonata for Solo Violin for Mr. Menuhin, and William Walton fashioned a Sonata for Violin and Piano for Mr. Menuhin and his brother-in-law Louis Kentner. The violinist was an early and eloquent Western advocate of Eastern music and often played with sitarist Ravi Shankar.

Mr. Menuhin's first appearance was at age 7, with the San Francisco Symphony. Three years later, after a debut at Carnegie Hall, critics began calling him one of the greatest child prodigies since Mozart.

He not only created a sensation but also launched a fad for violin studies across the country.

"Now I know there is a God in heaven!" the famous physicist and amateur violinist Albert Einstein told the boy after hearing him in 1929.

Mr. Menuhin attributed his success to his Russian-born parents, Hebrew teachers who met in Palestine. The Menuhins devoted themselves to nurturing their son's playing. To a lesser degree, they also encouraged their two daughters, Hephzibah and Yaltah, pianists who sometimes accompanied their brother in concert.

From the beginning, the young violinist paid little heed to technical training. He played naturally and was able to learn large works with ease at a very early age. "I played the violin without being prepared for violin playing," he later recalled, with some regret.

The Menuhins left San Francisco after Mr. Menuhin's fame spread. They lived a nomadic life for a while, moving from hotel to hotel, to accommodate his concert schedule.

He could command a fee for a single performance large enough to support the whole family for more than year, and his parents took advantage of this to let their children learn about other countries.

Mr. Menuhin's natural ability was both his genius and his impediment. "Because the young Menuhin had anticipated so early and so much of what nature had given him, I foresaw that he would have great difficulties," his older colleague Kreisler once said.

Indeed, when the young man met the legendary violin virtuoso Eugene Ysaye in 1928, he played the Edouard Lalo "Symphonie Espagnole" flawlessly. But when the master asked him for a scale, Mr. Menuhin later remembered that he "groped all over the fingerboard like a blind mouse."

In 1935, the young violinist embarked upon a world tour during which he visited 13 countries and 73 cities, and which left him feeling "tired, indifferent and sad."

Yehudi Menuhin in 1937. Photo Public Domain

He retired for a year, resuming his career during World War II to perform more than 500 concerts for American and Allied troops.

He was the first international artist to play in Germany after the war. He said he did this to further tolerance and "the brotherhood of man," foreshadowing his later more intense commitment to making music and music education a bridge to understanding and world peace.

He played charity concerts in the Arab world after the Six-Day War, for instance, and began a foundation to help promote live performances for children in many countries.

In the period after World War II, he was divorced from his first wife, Australian heiress Lola Nichols, with whom he had two children.

He then married the British ballerina Diana Gould, a formidable, strong-minded woman who was credited with helping him through a period of depression and taking over management of his career. She was said to have filled the role long filled by his indomitable mother.

In the postwar period, his playing began what some critics regarded as a sharp decline. He had never learned the mechanics of the instrument and was now forced to rebuild his technical perception of the violin. He had to consciously master what had always been done unconsciously.

While some fans believed that he rebounded and was at the height of his musical powers in the early 1950s, some listeners contend that he never fully recovered from his musical malaise.

The violinist made no secret of the fact that he had been forced to rethink the whole basis of his approach to violin technique. Still, if some of his initial flash and energy was lost, many found his later work imbued with greater nobility and depth.

In 1952, Mr. Menuhin visited India, where he discovered yoga and began his association with Indian music including collaborations with Sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar. In 1958, he released his first record as a conductor, a rendition of Bach's "Brandenburg" concertos, on which he also played violin.

From this time, conducting became a second career. Although his gentle non-authoritarian manner may sometimes have hampered his effectiveness, Mr. Menuhin was often able to build a moving performance through inspiration. He was associated with several orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic, English String Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic and Philharmonia Hungarica.

His recordings include most of the standard violin repertory, some with jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli, and a series of "East meets West" albums with Shankar.

Stephane Grappelli and Yehudi Menuhim in 1976. Copyright Allan Warren

He was a close friend of the pianist Glenn Gould, who wrote an article about Menuhin and made a television film with him. Mr. Menuhin published several books, including an autobiography, "Unfinished Journey," and appeared regularly on television, for which he assembled a series, "The Music of Man."

Mr. Menuhin took an active interest in the education of young artists and started an academy in Switzerland and a school for young musicians in Stoke d'Abernon, a few miles outside London, the city that was his home for the last 40 years.

The school produced several young musicians, including violinist Nigel Kennedy, who soon found fame. However, it was designed not as a prodigy factory, but as a place where a musical gift could be nurtured and developed at the student's own pace.

"We must guide not only fingers but minds and hearts, for music is a way of being," Mr. Menuhin said.

Mr. Menuhin was recognized internationally for his peace work. The list of organizations he helped found or helped as a patron filled 15 pages.

He was named an ambassador of goodwill to UNESCO in 1992. Queen Elizabeth bestowed a knighthood on him in 1965, and he became a lord in 1993.

Survivors include his wife and their two sons.

First published at The Washington Post, March 12, 1999