British actor warned by MI5 about gay sting attempt from Russian KGB
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Actor Dirk Bogarde was warned by MI5 that he could be the target of a gay “entrapment” sting by the KGB, newly-declassified files reveal today. The intelligence documents released to the National Archives state that the actor was “clearly disturbed” after being told his name was on a list of “six practising British homosexuals” that had been passed to the Russians. But MI5 concluded that he was a “retiring, serious” man who was unlikely to fall victim to any KGB operation.
Bogarde, who died in 1999, never came out publicly as gay, but he had a long-term relationship with his manager, Anthony Forwood. He made his name as a matinee idol in the comedy Doctor in the House in 1954 and the series of “Doctor” films that followed.
But he also established himself as a serious actor, starring in pioneering films with gay themes, such as Victim in 1961, and Death in Venice in 1971. He starred alongside Julie Christie in the 1965 comedy drama Darling, winning a Best Actor BAFTA for his role.
The intelligence files show that MI5 learned in 1970 that he had been named as gay to the KGB by a man who had himself been caught up in a sting by the Russians on a visit to Moscow in the late 1950s. Around the same time, a KGB defector told spooks that a young British actor had been targeted in a possible recruitment attempt in the Russian capital.
MI5 thought this man might have been Bogarde because the defector said the target had been an actor who appeared in a film with a name like “The kingdom of something”. The intelligence service thought this could be the 1957 film Campbell’s Kingdom, in which Bogarde played a starring role.
