Maria Riva's Blind Items Pt. 7

¿Quién es esa niña?

Due to my lack of motivation, Maria Riva's blind items have been on the blog's back burner, but some kind words from superliz6 at Tumblr have encouraged me to turn the heat up on them because many mysterious identities remain in Riva's oeuvre about her mother, Marlene Dietrich, including this one that superliz6 has brought to my attention.

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.

Gay Icon Status, Generation Gaps, & Other Differences

Marlene Dietrich with Dorothy Arzner's pussycat. Appropriate for this post, no?

Two surprises recently came my way. First, I learned that it is the U.K.'s LGBT History Month. If you didn't know, LGBT History Month in the U.S. is in October. How typical that we couldn't even agree on that! Second, I learned that a podcast about Marlene Dietrich's status as a gay icon, which originally aired in December, is now available for download and streaming. Please listen: "Marlene Dietrich: Beyond Top Hat and Tails." Even though you only have a limited time to access the podcast, I hope to read your reactions, regardless of your sexual orientation or gender.

Aside from its focus on Marlene's gay appeal, the podcast provides an extensive overview of her life and career that will be of general interest to those unfamiliar with Dietrich or those looking to brush up on their knowledge of her. Whoever researched the biographical content did an admirably thorough job by including quotes from the likes of Maria Riva, Steven Bach, Noel Coward, and Marlene herself. Much to my delight, Miss Dietrich is voiced by a man--David Benson. There are also sound bites of Dietrich's songs that give this podcast buoyancy and clever transitions--such as the last strains of "Black Market"'s strings that segue into Clayton Littlewood's narration about Marlene's early career as a violinist. I only caught one historical inaccuracy--that the Hayes Codes was introduced in 1934. In fact, it was introduced in 1930 but wasn't effectively enforced until 1934. The Hays Office did, however, influence the the script revisions of Blonde Venus in 1932.

Despite the accurate disclaimer that Marlene hated to be identified with her movie roles, Littlewood daringly draws parallels between Dietrich's life and her characters. I find the globe-trotting link between Dietrich and Diane LaVolta compelling enough but consider the connections between Marlene and Amy Jolly a bit of a stretch. Can we really call Amy Jolly bisexual because she kisses a woman and a Francophile because she sings a French song? I regard the Morocco kiss more as a sort of prototype for Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl"--lezploitation that chiefly titillates heterosexual men.

Marlene Dietrich's "Confidential" File

 Hot off the scanner, I present to you what is--to the best of my knowledge--the first English-language exposé on Marlene Dietrich's lesbian affairs, "The Untold Story of Marlene Dietrich" by Kenneth G. McLain, from the July 1955 issue of Confidential magazine.

Within that Mondrian abortion of a cover, McLain name-drops Claire Waldoff, Mercedes de Acosta, Frederique "Frede" Baule, and Jo Carstairs. Long before The National Enquirer and Perez Hilton, Confidential's Lavender Scare-era gossip threatened to tarnish the careers of "closeted" celebs, but not Marlene's! Those silly McCarthyists must not have known that Dietrich looked good in any color and that men's clothes were especially becoming on her. Nevertheless, it is dreadfully discomforting to recognize that the homophobic sport of outing is something of an American pastime.

If you were to tell me that another Mc--Diana McLellan--listed this article in the references of The Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood with ten pages of "Ibid." after it, I would have believed you. I have to give McLellan some credit, though. It appears that she only cited this rag a few times.

Below I have transcribed the article (not the photo captions, though--sorry!) for you as well as uploaded image files of the article. As you'll see, there are no photos of Marlene with any of these alleged lovers, but the Confidential staff more than made up for it with shots of the most burly babes in Marlene's harem and of lovers Gabin and Remarque making perplexed faces. Also, notice that only Frede squawked. Who are the unnamed others who sold out Marlene? Any guesses?
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Thom Nickels' "Daddy, Buy Me That" (Pt. 2)

Many moons ago, I shared the first part of an interview that Thom Nickels conducted with Marlene Dietrich pal John Banks, called "Daddy, Buy Me That!" Well, if you weren't sold on Banks' story, maybe this second part will sway you. Banks discusses Dietrich's envy and jealousy toward Angie Dickinson, his thoughts about Maria Riva's depiction of her mother, the time he gave Marlene a Twiggy make-over, and much more.  I'll add my two-cents in brackets. Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, I never got around to contributing to the Paramount centennial blogathon, but I will post what I had intended someday--hopefully before the studio celebrates its bicentennial. Now, please enjoy . . .

Daddy, Buy Me That!

part two

by Thom Nickels

 

  Turbulent Sixties

Banks says that the '60s were a hard time for Marlene because she didn't like the fact that age was waning her power.

"In her book, Maria talks about Marlene arriving home from Washington, D.C. and walking in her apartment waving her panties in the air and saying that she'd just had it off with John Kennedy, and that you could still smell him on them, or whatever." Banks thinks this is a crock and maintains that, because Marlene was 60, he doesn't think that John Kennedy would have been interested. "Especially since they'd known each other since they were [e.g., he was?] small. She and Joe Kennedy spent the summer of 1938 or 1939 on the Riviera together when Kennedy was a child. But would a child of his age have kept that image of that super woman until 1960?" Banks says he doubts it.

"When she finally faced age, she realized that things finally had to stop. She could have gone on having affairs right up until her death, but she didn't because she wasn't offering what she had before. She also began to drink in the '60s. She drank as much tea and honey as she drank scotch when I met her," Banks remembers. "She also drank beer. We went to restaurants, and I would always order a Pilsner, and she would always order a half a bottle of champagne. She'd get the champagne, and I'd get the beer, but we'd switch . . . I thought drinking champagne was still very exciting. She was very European. She drank beer at noon. She drank beer with meals. She was German, darling. She was a wonderful German broad."

Thalidomide Babies

 

"What she'd been all her life, even in those pictures that we see of her in the 1920s when she's kind of hefty, was a gorgeous woman. People wrote about her then as being absolutely fabulous looking. She had reddish blond hair. She had this white-white complexion, a great bone structure. I have very few photos of me with Marlene. I would have felt as if I was insulting her if I'd asked to do photographs. I couldn't say to her, 'Can I have my photograph taken with you, please?' I didn't think she would have liked that. I think she rather liked the fact that I didn't.

"She was a funny broad. She had a good sense of humor. The only thing we did not joke about was 'the image.' That was work, and you did not fuck around with work. But, otherwise, she was pretty funny, and she could laugh at herself. She liked practical jokes like tripping people. She had great gallows humor. For instance, she'd make terrible jokes about thalidomide babies and then say, 'Oh, that's terrible!'"

When Baryshnikov & Dietrich Met on Business

Back in 1987, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) hosted its 6th annual awards dinner at the Temple of Dendur in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. For $750 a plate, attendees got to watch designers--who paid only $250 for their grub (beat that, AARP cardholders!)--walk like Egyptians to the podium and bask in the recognition of their peers.

Absent from the ceremony was Marlene Dietrich, who had won a lifetime achievement award, which someone less respectful than I might term a sort of "deathbed award" that Dietrich describes under her ABC entry, "Academy Award." On Marlene's behalf, Mikhail Baryshnikov accepted the award. Maria Riva tells us in her book that Dietrich rejected David Riva for this task in favor of the diminutive dancer-turned-actor, who became the object of her mother's unbridled octogenarian lust.

If Baryshnikov never had the chance to visit Dietrich's "nice and tight" nether regions, at least one of her top-shelf impersonators, played by Adele Anderson, flirted with him and Gene Hackman in the 1991 movie, Company Business. This Dietrich may be dressed like The Blue Angel's Lola-Lola, but she's singing "The Boys in the Backroom," the signature song of Destry Rides Again's Frenchy, even jiggling her Adam's apple like the saloon strumpet to whimper with vibrato!

Revisiting Rosenbach's Mercedes de Acosta Trove

The Vampire & The Child (from here)

A few years ago, I briefly mentioned the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia, which holds Mercedes de Acosta's papers. Shame on me for not digging deeper than a mere press release! You may recall in the first part of the Thom Nickels piece on John Banks that Marlene Dietrich supposedly gave Acosta a pair of her silk stockings. VP, the force behind Carole & Co. and a reader more astute than I, emphasized this factoid, and Nickels recently told me that his book, Gay and Lesbian Philadelphia, features a photo of the stockings, which are held by the Rosenbach.

Well, with all this in mind, I thought to myself, "Surely, this museum's got an online finding aid that'll tell me more about its other Dietrich relics." I didn't expect all the photographs! Explore the Rosenbach Museum & Library's object catalog because you'll be as impressed as I was. Aside from the stockings, you'll see a silk scarf monogrammed with "marlene" in its polka dots, a sock (which I highly doubt is polyester!), publicity shots, and candid photos (incidentally, did jealousy lead Mercedes to crop her male rivals--such as Fred Perry--out of some photos? See this and compare with this).

Oh, you probably expect me to tell you how to search this catalog. Well, if you insist!

Try this link, type a simple term like "marlene" (retrieves 294 records) or "dietrich" (retrieves 293 records) in the box, and click the "Search" button. I recommend you play with terms like "riva" (to see a few early '30s head shots and also an intriguingly butch studio shot from the same era of Maria Riva) or "garbo" (to see a surprisingly small set of 39 Greta Garbo records) as well.

You may notice the Rosenbach object catalog's request that researchers send any information that can improve their records, so do help them if you spot any errors or omissions. Just click the "Send Feedback" button on the record you're viewing, and fill out the form. You'll be aiding not only the Rosenbach, but also any future Dietrich researchers and fans. I myself have spotted several photos of Marlene with an unidentified Rudi Sieber and sent feedback about this. I haven't yet viewed all the photographed objects, but I'm hoping to see Tami Matul buried among these treasures. EDIT: I just saw two paintings of Marlene (one | two) that are surely by Martin Kosleck. Also, this woman is not Marlene, is she? She looks more like Zarah Leander . . . ?

Thom Nickels' "Daddy, Buy Me That" (Pt. 1)

For a blog entry, this is a long read, which is why I'm dividing it into 2 parts. When I first read about Marlene Dietrich's friend John Banks and sought information about him, I learned that a writer named Thom Nickels had published his interview with Banks in 2003. Unfortunately, it was no longer available online, which led to me emailing Nickels to obtain the text. Nickels kindly sent me what was far more than a brief interview. In fact, it's quite a substantial piece called "Daddy, Buy Me That," which I hope will be enlighten those of you who are casual Dietrich admirers and corroborate the beliefs of those of you who are hardcore Marlenephiles. I have made some minor edits (e.g., formatting, punctuation, some names, spelling, and occasional bracketed notes) and added photos, but what you'll read below is almost exactly what appears on Nickels' typed manuscript. As for whether Banks makes any inaccurate statements, I will leave that for you to highlight in the comments section because I'm far more impressed by Banks' extensive knowledge of Marlene.

Because I tend to devour as much as I can when I find writers who interest me, I'll add that I've read the Kindle edition of Nickels' Walking on Water & After All This. I suppose that the two novellas fit within the genre term "speculative fiction," but both are also imbued with humor and cultural references, which is why I intend to read more of Nickels' work. Now, for what you're here to read!

Daddy, Buy Me That!

by Thom Nickels

In Montreal's last remaining Anglo gay bar, La Mystique, the bartender, John Banks, talks with the customers.

The talk is rarely about Marlene Dietrich, if only because John says everyone he knows is sick of hearing about her. The fact is, they've heard it all. How she talked. That her favorite food was hamburger. That when she had people over she'd crave odd foods in the middle of drinks and offer to make ice cream sundaes. That she lived to be 91 years old and spent the last 14 years of her life, like Garbo, in solitude.

Banks knows so much about Marlene Dietrich because for 12 years he worked as her personal assistant both in the United States and Europe.

Dietrich, the icon--the gay icon, as Banks insists--has given the world more than 34 films, including The Blue Angel, Morocco, Blonde Venus, Shanghai Express, The Devil Is a Woman, and The Garden of Allah. Discovered by director Josef von Sternberg in 1929, she came to Hollywood in 1930. A well-educated woman who played the violin and piano and spoke several languages, Banks says she was definitely "not the Hollywood movie star but the kind of well-rounded figure we don't see today."

So it's plenty good, yes, to be shaking the hand that once comforted the great legend in various hotel rooms around the world.

In his home, some 15 minutes by cab from La Mystique, the 60-something Banks opens a bottle of wine. By now I'm fully aware that the precise quality of his speaking voice is matched by a manner that is as unambiguous as his opinions. With us is Edward, a little man from Toronto who attached himself to us in a bar the minute he heard us talking about Dietrich. Inviting him to come along, in  Montreal terms, was easy, since strangers easily become friends here.

Queer Film Blogathon 2012: Marginalia on Note 25

This entry is part of the 2012 Queer Film Blogathon, co-hosted by Garbo Laughs and Pussy Goes Grrr. While you're here, please read my contribution to the 2011 Queer Film Blogathon, Throwing Shade: Homophobia in Riva's Dietrich Bio? Pt. 1. You can also browse our entries tagged "LGBT."

Now that summer's upon us, I'd like to make a proposal that none of you should refuse. Instead of trekking across Yosemite, spelunking in Carlsbad Caverns, or zip-lining through the Redwoods, consider roughing it in my camp. There's just one caveat. I've assigned some required reading. Don't worry. You've probably already read this text in an introductory film course, an introductory queer studies course, or an introductory queer film studies course. If none of those apply to you, maybe you've read it elsewhere--Susan Sontag's seminal work, "Notes on 'Camp.'" In case I've offended any of you radical separatist feminists, you ought to leave now because this blog is like a can of Vienna sausages--not that I'm pushing my patriarchal power on you or anything--no, siree! For you less radical or non-separatist feminists, please forgive my male privilege and substitute "ovular" for "seminal." As for you trans-folk, I can never do right by you, so rip me a new one in the comments section.

Throwing Shade: Homophobia In Riva's Dietrich Bio? Pt. 1

First and foremost, this blog entry represents my participation in the Garbo Laughs Queer/LGBTQ Blogathan. I look forward to continuing my exploration of queer/LGBTQ topics and encourage others to do the same. In this blog entry, I will give you some definitions of terms I'll use and then explore whether Maria Riva's biography, Marlene Dietrich, contains examples of homophobia.

With that said, I encourage you to use “throwing shade,” “homophobia,” “homosexuals,” “homosexuality,” and any other terms in the comments section. For the sake of mutual understanding, I only ask that you clarify what these terms mean in your comments if they differ from my definitions. Here's an example of why it's important to understand how people use terms in different ways. In May, a mother in Los Angeles calls her son in Melbourne to ask him, “When are you going to visit me?” The son says, “Some time during the summer.” June, July, and August pass, and the son has not even mentioned visiting his mother, infuriating her. At the end of September, the mother calls her son to confront him, “Why did you say you were going to visit me in summer if you never had any intention of doing so?” Taken aback, the son says, “What? It's not even summer yet!” Then, the son—who has been living in Melbourne for decades—realizes why his mother is confronting him and reminds her, “Oh, mom! We misunderstood each other! Summer in the Southern Hemisphere doesn't begin until December!” If the mother and the son had simply understood each other's different uses of terms, no hurt feelings would have resulted—at least, not because of the terms.

Now, here's how I'm using the following terms:

Throwing shade - to criticize, demean, or insult; to diss or derogate (from here).

Homophobia – Throwing shade at homosexuals' homosexuality.

Homosexuals – People who express romantic and/or sexual attraction toward or practice romantic and/or sexual acts with others of the same sex or gender (adapted from here).

Homosexuality – Expressing romantic and/or sexual attraction toward or practicing romantic and/or sexual acts with others of the same sex or gender.

MARIA RIVA'S BIOGRAPHY

In his March 5 1993 Entertainment Weekly (EW) review of Maria Riva's Marlene Dietrich, George Hodgman stated the following: “The catalog of lovers is interminable, moving across gender lines and back again. Riva is obviously uncomfortable with her mother's bisexual tendencies and her large gay following. The case that she builds against her mother for trying to encourage homosexuality in the young girl by leaving her with a lesbian nanny is shoddy and homophobic.” Due perhaps to word limits, Hodgman did not supply examples of how Riva expressed her discomfort, and he omitted an important detail: Riva wrote that the lesbian nanny had raped her. If I accept Riva's admission of rape as truth, I would posit that Riva's speculation regarding why her mother chose a lesbian nanny was not homophobic; rather, the homophobia in Riva's case rests in how she characterized her lesbian nanny: “Strangely, I never really blamed that woman. She frightened me, disgusted me, harmed me, but 'blame'? Why? Lock an alcoholic into a liquor store and he helps himself—who's to blame? The one who takes what is made available or the one who put him there? Even an innocent parent would not have put a young girl into an unsupervised, wholly private environment with such a visually obvious lesbian.” Not only did Riva compare lesbianism to an addiction, she also asserted that a blatant lesbian shouldn't be a girl's primary caretaker, thus throwing shade at “obvious” lesbians as sexual predators with an appetite for female children. By the way, a 2010 study showed that ZERO percent of its adolescent participants had reported sexual abuse by a lesbian mother or other lesbian caretaker. While this study was flawed in its nonrandom, non-diverse, and small sample, its findings suggest that the experience that Riva suffered was a singular exception. Unless, of course, the sample was composed of only lipstick lesbians.

If you want to explore Hodgman's observation that Riva was “obviously uncomfortable with her mother's bisexual tendencies and her large gay following,” please consider addressing it in the comments section because I won't investigate it at this time. Instead, I will explore whether there were any other instances of homophobia in Riva's book by examining her descriptions of homosexuals. Keep in mind that I will continue listing people in future blog entries--this is only the beginning!

Banton & Dietrich on Angel set

Travis Banton (see this blog entry for another photo of him with Dietrich) – I don't know whether Banton was homosexual, but some sources report that he was. Riva did not overtly mention his sexuality in her book; in fact, she recalled that she “liked him. No matter what time of day, and that could mean anywhere from six a.m. To two a.m., Travis looked like one of his sketches—elegant, with a kind of razzmatazz.” Riva also praised Banton for treating his staff kindly and crediting him for introducing her to American cuisine, with no hints of homophobia.

Mercedes de Acosta

Mercedes de Acosta – Riva threw ample shade at de Acosta, calling her “a Spanish Dracula,” implying that she wasn't a skilled screenwriter, and stating that her renown derived from her romance with Greta Garbo. Throwing shade at homosexuals wouldn't alone count as homophobia according to my definitions, though. Riva would have to throw shade at their homosexuality, and I don't see anything homophobic in Riva's countless jabs at de Acosta. Rather, Riva seemed to tease de Acosta's purple prose (particularly de Acosta's “highly romantic pseudonyms”) and tedious romantic efforts (“She was so 'smitten,' she was boring!”).

The “boys” (see this blog entry for their possible identities) – Riva referred to them as “comic relief,” “an odd couple,” “their kind,” “scavengers,” and “homosexual cons.” The use of the word “homosexual” was gratuitous, but I don't consider the shade that Riva threw to be homophobic. Riva was describing a particular group of gossipy sycophants who happen to be gay, and she cleverly quoted a gay man, Clifton Webb, as calling the boys “Dietrich's private Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.”

The Pirate (right)

The “Pirate” (see this blog entry for her possibly identity) – Riva buried this woman's looks in shade. Despite describing that the Pirate as “a sexy, flat-chested woman” first mistaken as “a sexy boy,” Riva compared her to a rhinoceros. Poking fun at a person's looks doesn't constitute homophobia, though, and the preceding comments that Riva did make regarding the Pirate's masculinity were not demeaning.

Well, here's where I'll end this blog entry, and I will pick up from where I left off to continue reviewing whether Riva wrote homophobic portrayals of others, including Edith Piaf and Noel Coward.

Maria Riva's Blind Items Pt. 3

In Marlene Dietrich, Maria Riva wrote of a character nicknamed the "Pirate" (known as "Jo"/"Joe" by others), who courted her mother during the summer of 1939. According to Riva, Dietrich mistook the Pirate for a man when she first laid eyes on the butch beauty sailing her schooner along the French Riviera. In fact, the Pirate was a woman named Marion Barbara "Betty" Carstairs, dubbed "The Queen of Whale Cay," a cheeky reference to a Bahamian isle Carstairs owned and developed. Not only was Carstairs a woman of many monikers; she was also a woman of many hats. As a Standard Oil heiress, speedboat racer, World War I ambulance driver, and former owner of a chauffeur (or should I say chauffeuse?) company, Carstairs was perhaps the first diesel--well, I digress! Although Carstairs likely wasn't what Billy Ocean had in mind when he sang "Caribbean Queen," I would rather see more socialites like her and less like Paris Hilton.

Like Dietrich, Carstairs had a special German doll in her life, only hers was a Steiff--not a Lenci. Called Lord Tod Wadley, he was a foot-tall leather figure who wore Savile Row and hammed it up for the camera like his "friend" Carstairs, to whom he brought good luck during her boat races. Terry Castle wrote an extensive article about Carstairs and Wadley, which you can read here. Speaking of dolls, there is a building on Great Whale Cay called the Dollhouse and also Marlene Pavilion, which Carstairs apparently built for Dietrich and is now in ruins (see it here). Did Dietrich ever visit this island? Riva's book dispelled legends that she did. I wonder what this bio on Carstairs says of Dietrich. Have any of you read it?

As one of Riva's more thinly veiled blind items, the Pirate--who dared to call Dietrich "Babe"--was easy to unmask. In fact, Steven Bach mentioned Carstairs several times in Marlene Dietrich: Life and Legend. Steven Bach also identified a "former secretary" of Carstairs who joined Dietrich's entourage, a certain Violla Rubber--a fitting name for a woman who ostensibly was the notorious nanny nicknamed the "Rhinoceros" by Riva (incidentally, Riva had earlier noted this animal's resemblance to Carstairs). According to Riva, Dietrich employed the Pirate's Rhino and installed her in a Beverly Hills Hotel apartment alone with Riva, corresponding to Bach's description of Riva's living arrangements with Rubber. For those who have read Riva's book, you know that the Rhino--"a visually obvious lesbian"--violated the teenaged Riva, who couldn't turn to her mother for consolation because Dietrich was apparently recovering from an abortion (Jimmy Stewart's child, which Bach claimed was Riva's revelation). After Riva's first engagement, the Rhino bolted, leaving Rudi Sieber to discover that she had forged Dietrich's checks.

What shocks me is that if the Rhino was indeed Violla (sometimes spelled "Viola," which would make for an awful pun in Spanish) Rubber, she may have been the same Miss Rubber who worked as Bette Davis' manager in the 1960s, likened to a "gym mistress" by Lionel Larner in Ed Sikov's book, Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis. Allegedly, Davis demanded that Miss Rubber try on a bathing suit she had purchased for Davis' daughter B.D. The Rhino may have also been the same Violla Rubber who gave Diana Barrymore a break and knew her intimately, inheriting $10,000 from Barrymore after her demise. Furthermore, the Rhino may have been the Broadway producer Viola (with one "l") Rubber, who was nominated for two Tony Awards in 1962 for the Tennessee Williams play, "The Night of the Iguana."

Thoughts? Comments? By the way, I will save the Cavalier blind item for the next post in this "series" because this entry thoroughly distracted me.

To read my guesses about Maria Riva's other blind items, click here!

"Wenn die beste Freundin"

I have never researched Marlene Dietrich's Weimar-era music, but I just heard "Wenn die beste Freundin," a 1928 Electrola-label single infamously laden with lesbian undertones that Dietrich recorded with Margo Lion and Oskar Karlweis.

Cabaret Berlin wrote more extensively on the single; therefore, you should refer to them for more information. Someone who speaks and understands German, however, could help me by telling me whether the translated lyrics on that site are accurate because I can't vouch for them. All I can add is that Dietrich's tone is at its clearest and that Margo Lion's (it is her, no?) counter-melodic scatting underpins the song's coquettish content. Katy Perry, take some pointers if you ever toy with liquor lesbianism again.