The importance of privacy
From Mr Alistair B. Cooke Sir: Sheridan Morley (Letters, 19 May) admits his 'schoolboy howler', and, since he is unable to supply a new, correct version of the anecdote in question, one is bound to assume that he invented it.
No one could possible fail to be impressed by Mr Morley's zeal in promoting the cause of homosexual tolerance. In his perfect world, all homosexual actors would presumably speak freely to gossip columnists like himself because no adverse consequences would follow (it is hard to believe that many do now). How would those who wish to protect their privacy fare then? That noble cause is wholly neglected by Sheridan Morley. It does not seem to occur to him that the highly reticent Dirk Bogarde might simply have had a masked aversion to confiding in gossip columnists. He was in any case surely right to be wary of someone who does not always get his facts right.
Alistair Cooke
London SW1
Previous page
