FILM star Dirk Bogarde was warned by MI5 that he could be the target of a gay “entrapment” attempt by the KGB, according to newly declassified intelligence files.

Documents released to the National Archives at Kew, west London, show that the actor was “clearly disturbed” after being told that his name was on a list of “six practising British homosexuals” passed to Russians.

But after he was interviewed in south of France, MI5 concluded that he was a “retiring, serious” man who was unlikely to fall victim to any kind of KGB sting operation.

Bogarde, who died in 1999, never came out publicly as gay, although he maintained a long-term relationship with his manager, Anthony Forwood.

Having made his name in the popular Doctor series of comedies in the 1950, he subsequently appeared in a number of pioneering films with gay themes, most notably Luchino Visconti’s Death In Venice and Victim, directed by Basil Dearden, which actually touched upon themes of gay blackmail.