The film star Dirk Bogarde was “clearly disturbed” and “troubled” after MI5 warned him that his name had been given to the KGB as a “practising homosexual” and he risked being compromised in a sting operation, newly declassified intelligence files show.
Bogarde, who died in 1999 and never came out publicly but lived with his life partner and manager, Anthony Forwood, was told by security services that his name was on a list of “six practising British homosexuals” given to the Russians by an unnamed source who had himself been sexually compromised during a visit to Moscow in the late 1950s.
Separately, a KGB defector codenamed Kago had also informed MI5 that a young British actor, who appeared in a film with a name like “the kingdom of something” was the subject of a Russian recruitment attempt in Moscow in 1958-9.
Bogarde starred in the film Campbell’s Kingdom, and his name was also on the KGB list. This prompted MI5 to travel to the south of France in 1971 to warn him and to discover whether he had been subjected to any approaches.
Bogarde said the report was “absurd”. “He was a man of 50 and able to behave in a responsible fashion,” wrote the MI5 officer who interviewed the actor, then living in Grasse, at the British consulate in Nice.
Bogarde had never visited Russia and was “clearly disturbed” by the report, the agent reported in files released to the National Archives. “He had committed no misdemeanours and always behaved circumspectly. For one thing, he had the greatest admiration and respect for his father … and would never do anything which would have upset his family.”
Bogarde fretted about the prospect of ever visiting Russia, “as he might be invited to visit or film there, and said that guests were usually required to drink a lot at parties and he might put his arm round another man. He had always kissed his father and he greeted male friends in the same way. I said that I thought a compromise would involve much more. Bogarde asked if this would mean a scene on a bed or a couch and I said it would.”
With Bogarde ruled out as a candidate, MI5 agents scoured magazines including Variety for other actors who may have been in Moscow. Tommy Steele, Peter Arne, Michael Craig, Stanley Baxter and Bill Travers were all noted to have reportedly visited Moscow.
The defector Kago had described the actor as “a young actor, a very nice man” and “nice looking”. That ruled out Bogarde’s co-star in Campbell’s Kingdom, James Robertson Justice, who had visited Moscow. “No one could call Justice ‘young’ – he was born in 1912 [sic]; or good looking – he wears a full beard,” read one memo.
