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Dirk Bogarde - Matlock Links of Cinema Icon

The classic image of Dirk Bogarde - enigmatic, glamorous, wistful and charismatic. Before he achieved fame as a film star he lived for a time in Matlock

The iconic actor and writer DIRK BOGARDE (1921-1999), who is most celebrated for his film roles, is an unlikely entrant in the Derbyshire residents category, but he did indeed spend a period of time in the county, and one which helped shape a significant era in his life, namely his war service years.

He was born Derek Niven van der Bogaerde on 28 March 1921 in West Hampstead, London, of mixed Flemish and Scottish ancestry.

He made his screen debut as an extra in the George Formby film Come on George (1939) but soon found his acting career interrupted by the onset of World War Two.

He was called up by the army and found himself posted to the Derbyshire town of Matlock, where the former Smedley's Hydro - a grand hydropathic establishment and leisure venue dating from the Victorian age - had been commandeered as a training centre by the military, mainly to develop personell to work in intelligence. Dirk Bogarde was one of the young men sent to train there.

In 1941 he entered into the Royal Corps of Signals as a signalman. He rose to the rank of Captain and spent the majority of his war service as an intelligence officer on the Continent. In his biographical writings he revealed that the experience affected him deeply - he was involved in the Normandy landings and visited the notorious Belsen concentration camp soon after it had been liberated - and said that the observations he was able to make helped him to later portray wartime characters, including several Germans, more convincingly.

After the war he resumed his acting career and became one of the best-known and charismatic cinema stars of the post-war age.

Dirk Bogarde died on 8 May 1999 aged 78. Does anyone remember meeting him in Matlock? Or perhaps you can add more detail to this short entry. If so, click on the 'edit' link at the top of this piece and simply type in your comments.

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