Almost sixty years after Dirk Bogarde first appeared on screen, audiences remain mesmerized by the range of his talent and the characters he brought to the screen. Bogarde lived life under his own terms as a private man, an ‘orderly man’, a postillion struck early by lightning in his acting career, and rising quickly above the title. Through strength of character and artistic vision, he charted his own creative course and despite all odds kept to it.

Refusing to play the studio game, he sought shelter in a protective ‘shell’ throughout his stardom, year by year bricking himself into a ‘tower of obsessional privacy’. (A Postillion Struck by Lightning, 192). It is easy to understand that this talented, discriminating man would not long suffer superficial roles based solely on his good looks. Once he made the leap from the confines of Rank to freelance work, he remained true to his resolve to take on roles that he believed had depth and which furthered the cinema as an artistic form. His independent and gutsy decisions led to artistic accomplishments but exacted a toll. He made films he described as ‘critical successes but box office failures’. ( A Postillion Struck by Lightning, 192) Unlike some ageing actors who accepted any roles, including bit parts, Bogarde refused to do this, holding fiercely to his artistic standards. It was a daring approach, often financially unprofitable but artistically rewarding and one he would continue for the most part through to his last film appearance in 1990 in Daddy Nostalgie.