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| ¿Quién es esa niña? |
During Christmas of 1963, a children's book writer barged in on Massy and the Rivas' festivities to carnally console Dietrich, still in mourning after the recent assassination of John F. Kennedy. By 1964, Marlene was lamenting the plane crash death of this "lady author," who was none other than Nancy Spain. Despite Riva's characterization, Spain wrote much more than juvenile literature, including perhaps this account.
Finding reference to Spain in other Dietrich bios has been quite a chore. In fact, I had to dust off Leslie Frewin's reworked 1967 book, Dietrich: The Story of a Star, to find mention of Spain. According to Frewin, Spain hurled threats at him to keep him from writing his Dietrich bio. Frewin incorrectly locates Dietrich's first meeting with Spain at the Theatre de l'Etoile in 1959, where they realized they shared fashion tastes. Frewin also describes an extensive interview that Spain conducted with Dietrich the following day. In addition to Marlene's revelation that she medicated roses with aspirin, the two "talked of clothes and beauty and men." Obviously, the most unfathomable part of that sentence is that men were a topic of their conversation. Please share this interview if you have it because David Bret wrote that it was "thought to have been [Dietrich's] most explicit ever." Bret may be the only other Anglophone Dietrich biographer to recognize Spain, quoting Marlene as saying that Nancy introduced her to Gilbert Becaud, the composer of "Marie, Marie." Those of you more knowledgeable of Nancy Spain will certainly flesh out the details of this blind item, as I have only just ordered Nancy's cookbook and memoir.
Hooray! Great article!
ReplyDeleteI came across Nancy Spain in my research regarding some other part of Dietrich's life- I'm not much of a detective apparently! I must have looked her up *before* I read about the holidays and the plane crash. Now its driving me crazy trying to recall why I looked into her in the first place.
She must have had some connection to another friend or paramour of Dietrich's (and I don't think it was Coward!) I'll have to wrack my brain! Thank you so much for posting this!! I absolutely love the blind items!
http://lastgoddess.blogspot.com/2013/04/dietrich-at-cafe-de-paris-perfume-from.html
ReplyDeleteIt was this gem posted by missladiva in April. Interesting to go back and read this original account from Nancy Spain- getting a bit of insight into Marlene's seduction technique, no?
She was basically doing some Morocco cosplay with Nancy, wasn't she?
DeleteCoward was a connection between Dietrich & Spain, but I am guessing that you have Ginette Spanier in mind.
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DeleteOops, I have always thought that the author of children's book was Kay Thompson, who wrote the Eloise books.
ReplyDeleteDid MD have a fling with her, too?! I don't know whether Kay's mentioned somewhere in Maria's book, but she can't be this person because she died in 1998.
DeleteJoseph,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your dedicated research on Spain. I still haven't gotten through that gigantic bio on Dietrich which we've discussed so these little tidbits are keeping me motivated to do so.
I can certainly understand having ideas, posts on th back burner. I've got so many ideas rattling around in my head but things in life keep popping up. Finding the right mindset and time needs to be my priority.
Looking forward to what you come up with for us next.
Have a great weekend.
Page
Page,
DeleteI hope you had a great weekend as well! Thanks for your kind words. To tell you the truth, I consider Maria's book to be information overload, and I have re-read it in parts countless times because I miss something every time.
I'll check out your blog to see what ideas you have shared with us because I've been terribly remiss about keeping up with the blogosphere. It's hard to keep up with all the great research and ideas that people share!
Regards,
Joseph
Sorry, Joseph, I was talking about the end of 1962, when MD was at Noël Coward's home near Montreaux. There were also Marti Stevens and Kay Thompson. I understood that Maria Riva implied that MD was having an affair with Thompson. I don't belive she did.
ReplyDeleteYes, there's a photo of those three ladies spending Christmas 1962 at Les Avants (The Letters of Noël Coward edited by Barry Day).
DeleteThanks, Sauli. You always speak my language by citing sources of where interesting content can be found, and I wish more people were like you.
DeleteIf there is one thing wrong with the blog its trusting David Bret who had done a bio-porn book on Rudolph Valentino which required the setting up of the Valentino society to look into the truth; needless to say its the opposite of bret awful book.
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DeleteWho here is trusting Bret? I asked for someone to provide evidence so that we can--for ourselves--determine whether a statement in Bret's book was accurate, which would indicate that I don't blindly believe him.
DeleteThank you; Bret is known for wishful thinking although today he has been replaced by Darwin Porter.
ReplyDelete