The Testatrix Is Willing

Totally unrelated. Fred MacMurray & Marlene Dietrich
on the set of The Lady is Willing.;)

Marlene Dietrich's last will and testament as well as its codicil became public record after it was granted probate by the New York County Surrogate's Court in September 1992. Even though private recorded conversations and letters between Marlene and her friends as well as photographs of Marlene's wounded leg after her 1973 fall at Shady Grove Music Fair have circulated among Dietrich fans for years, her will--accessible to anyone--never appears to have emerged. Until now.

Dick Cavett, Phone Flirt

Dick Cavett writes an interesting column over at the New York Times about his telephonic friendship with Marlene during the 80s.

The Dress That Jamie Lee Snipped?

Marlene gave Jamie Lee Curtis one of her old evening dresses to wear to the 1983 or 1984 (sources differ) Academy Awards. Curtis was at the time engaged to one of Dietrich's grandsons.

Apparently, the gown had originally been made for Marlene to wear in 1942's The Lady is Willing; for the Oscars, Curtis had the gown altered and shortened.

Is this the dress?

The shortened version of the gown was sold by Christie's in 1999 for $ 9 200. The auction house credited it as a Jean Louis creation. Jean Louis only started to work at Columbia Pictures in 1944.

In the film, Dietrich's gowns are credited to Irene.

993 Park Avenue: Marlene Dietrich's New York Apartment

Marlene Dietrich settled in Manhattan's swanky Upper East Side after the end of World War II, when the world's most glamorous grandmother relocated to New York to be close to her daughter Maria Riva and her grandchildren.

993 Park Avenue went co-op in the late fifties and Dietrich bought an apartment in the building. The full service, thirteen storey Italianite block had been built in the teens by Bing & Bing. Dietrich decorated her modest apartment, number 12E (a two bed / two bath unit of 1600 square feet), in a mixture of styles: Louis XIV furniture was offset against glizy mirrored walls befitting a movie star.

Dietrich photographed in her living room for Life Magazine (1952).

When she wasn't travelling the world with her spectacular one-woman show, Dietrich divided her time between her New York home and a Paris rental on the Avenue Montaigne. Visting Dietrich in Paris in the late 70s, her friend Leo Lerman noted "[t]he podge of the [Parisian] flat, which I find touching and that Gray [Foy] says is so unlike her New York controlled elegance. I like both and find both very much the way she is."

After a stage fall in Australia in 1975 Dietrich went into semi-retirement in Paris, becoming increasingly reclusive. Her grandson, J. Michael Riva lived at the Park Avenue apartment during the early 80s with his then-fiance, Jamie Lee Curtis, when the latter was filming "Trading Places" (1983).

Dietrich died in 1992.

Her heirs sold the apartment in 1998 for $615 000. "I walked in and the place was empty and disgusting and old," commented the buyer, who intended to redecorate. ""I have these dumb mirrors, too ... Because she had smoked-glass mirrors all over the place, including in the bedroom, which I am taking off."

993 Park Ave #12E reappeared on the market in 2010. Without its famous previous owner's "dumb mirrors" and shag carpeting, the genteel refurbished unit was listed by Sotheby's Real Estate for $ 2 250 000. It has now been sold.

Refurbished kitchen (2010).

Master bedroom (2010).

Living Room (2010).

The face Schell couldn't photograph?

PHOTO REMOVED AS PER PETER RIVA'S REQUEST.

Just a Gigolo may no longer be Dietrich's final image. I am told that Dietrich's grandson, Peter Riva, took this photo in 1988. For a woman pushing 90, she looks swell. She even took the time to apply lipstick, although I can't tell whether those dark, sunken eyes are a product of cosmetics or dotage.

How about this cream in your coffee?

I wouldn't expect Page Six of The New York Post to uphold the Sabbath. Nevertheless, its Dietrich item today is quite blasphemous. She truly was just a gigolo.