As an actor Dirk Bogarde was a Rank contract artist and matinee idol (films such as Doctor in the House) who became a giant of the intellectual cinema, working with directors such as Joseph Losey (The Servant, Accident), Lucino Visconti (The Damned, Death in Venice) and Alain Resnais (Providence). Fiercely protective of his privacy, and that of his partner of 40 years, he left England in the 1960s to live on the Continent, where he carved a second career for himself as a bestselling autobiographer beginning with A Postillion Struck by Lightning (1977) and as a successful novelist. In all he had 15 books to his credit, including A Particular Friendship (1989), which showed him as a copious and brilliant writer of letters. Although Bogarde and his partner destroyed many of his papers, his family has made available his personal archive to John Coldstream, former Literary Editor of the Daily Telegraph, who knew him well in his last years and edited his final book, For the Time Being (1998). Coldstream has also made many discoveries all over the world following diligent research. The biography will be published to coincide with the fifth anniversary of Bogardes death.