Dirk Bogarde

Born: March 1928
Where: Hampstead, London, UK

Died: London, May 1999

Bogarde has gone down in cinema history for his portrayal of dying composer Gustav von Aschenbach in Visconti's Death In Venice.

He considered the role to be the peak of his career and felt he could never give a better performance.

Bogarde was born of an artistic family - his father was art editor of The Times and his mother was the daughter of actor and painter Forrest Niven.

He dropped out of a commercial art course (despite being taught by Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland) to work as a scene designer.

After acting with Amersham Repertory Company, he made his West End debut in JB Priestley's Cornelius.

He was first seen on film as an extra in the George Formby racecourse comedy Come On George in 1940.

He returned from the war, where he served in the Air Photographic Intelligence Unit, with seven medals.

In 1947, he was an overnight success in Power Without Glory in the West End, with Noel Coward urging him to never compromise by appearing in movies.

However, the Rank Organisation had already signed him up and he played a series of small-time crooks, military heroes and light romantic leads over the next 14 years.

Bogarde became a popular pin-up in the Doctor series but began to take more challenging roles when his contract came to an end.

He was the blackmailed homosexual lawyer in Victim and the debauched corrupter of James Fox in The Servant in 1963.

As well as Death In Venice, he starred in Fassbinder's Despair in 1978.

In his fifties, he began a new career as a writer, producing eight autobiographies.

Knighted in February 1992, he was partly paralysed by a stroke in 1996 and died of a heart attack in his Chelsea flat aged 78.