Thanks to this blog, I have noticed that Marlene Dietrich's fans are incredibly diverse and connect with her in a wide array of ways. This observation has made me curious about how different generations have discovered Dietrich, what about Dietrich's career and life resonates most with them, and how they have formed communities to share their interest in her.
Melina Livermore has stood out as an example of the Millennial generation of Dietrich fans who use social media such as Tumblr, YouTube, and Twitter to express their admiration for Marlene and connect with like-minded people. Appropriately enough, she has produced a YouTube vlog in which she discusses her introduction to Marlene, the online Dietrich fandom in which she participates, the interest that this fandom has in Marlene the person, and even her admiration for Maria Riva. Please take a look:
Thank you, Melina, for making this video and sharing it with us! If you'd like to get in touch with her, you can find her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/melinaleigh.
For those of you interested in sharing your story as a Dietrich fan, admirer, or collector, please contact us at lastgoddessblog@gmail.com.
Charles Marawood wrote the two
songs from “the room of the boomerang” in Marlene’s concert repertoire: her
pseudo-rock foray, “Boomerang Baby” and the haunting anti-war ballad (one of several
in Dietrich’s arsenal), “White Grass”.
Born in Sydney in the 1920s, Marawood
spent World War II as a member of the AIF; after the war he enrolled at the Sydney
Conservatorium to study composition and harmony. He wrote a musical play in the
early 1950s but was unable to secure a London production of it. Back in
Australia, he continued to write and perform his own songs, also writing for
other singers.
He briefly gained recognition in
1965 – around the time of Marlene’s first Australian concert tour – when he
supplied all the music for an Aussie music TV series, Boomeride (which featured both “Boomerang Baby” and
White Grass”; a young Olivia Newton-John was one of the performers on the
show).
["Boomeride" soundtrack performances of "White Grass" (vocals by Doug Kennedy, above) and "Boomerang Baby" (vocals by Tony Cole, below)]
While Marlene was performing in Melbourne that year, Marawood auditioned
her some of his songs.
Among them was “White Grass” which
she thought a “very, very tragic song against war”, finding its theme of a
returning soldier “quite a new angle”: “I was fascinated with the song when he
brought it to me because I’m always trying to look for songs that have a meaning,
and since “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” I have never found anything quite
like it.”
[Marlene sings "White Grass" ...]
Its antithesis was “Boomerang
Baby” -- “a very gay song”.
[... and "Boomerang Baby"]
She decided to include both in her programme. Marawood
accompanied Marlene to Sydney, her next stop on the tour, to polish the lyrics.
She planned to record both songs in London; this seems not to have happened,
although her interpretations are preserved on both her 1968 and 1972 TV
specials.
According to Dietrich, they kept
in touch. Other Marawood songs popped up
in some Australian movies and TV series
during the 1970s. One producer who worked with him during this time called him
“a real eccentric ... he wore way-out clothes, capes and things like that, and
his house was crammed full of amazing stuff” and found his music “great. He was
very talented, but I don’t think he ever got the recognition he deserved.”
[Composer Charles Marawood sings his own song, "Aussie" (1965)]
When New Zealand singer Jennifer
Ward-Lealand included “White Grass” in a 2007 tribute to Dietrich, she had to
track down Marawood’s widow to obtain the necessary permissions to record the
song.
[More information about Charles Marrawood and the "Boomeride" TV show is available here and here; a needledrop of its LP soundtrack has been posted here; the photo of Charles Marawood is from this 1965 article in "The Age".]
Previously unissued live recording of Marlene singing Friedrich Hollaender's great song, "Wenn ich mir was wünschen dürfte" live at the Tuschinsky Theatre in Amsterdam, as broadcast on Dutch radio in 1960:
Ever been curious to see Maria Riva, the daughter of Marlene Dietrich, act? Watch her below in a 1952 episode of Suspense entitled "Death Drum" (NOTE: Maria appears starting at about 6:00):
Thoughts? Aside from finding her beautiful--dark wig (?) and all--I admire Maria's cool disdain--a counterbalance to Herbert Berghof & Co., most of whom are hams. Not that I would want them to act in any other way. Their histrionics are exactly what I would expect and enjoy with such a foreboding organ soundtrack. My favorite moment is in clip two at around 2:20, when Berghof's character is cornered by a ghost from his past, a gunman, and a harrowing maraca player.
Truthfully, I'm interested in locating DVDs of '50s T.V. programs that feature Maria, so please share your wisdom in the comments section.
I'm in the midst of writing about Hollywood costume collector John Lebold, the movie Manpower, and hopefully also songwriter Hertha Koch, but I'd like to direct your attention to some of the latest Marlene Dietrich-related YouTube tutorials that I've discovered. Pin curls and Shanghai Express seem to be all the rage. That is, if one can call two videos a rage. I'd rather see YouTube's gurus recreate the scalp-wrenching look of Kismet, but--tell me--who did Shanghai Lily better?
When Marlene opened at the Sahara Hotel's Conga Room in May 1959, she gave 'em legs -- and feathers. Her dress, a beaded Jean Louis number with a thigh-high slit, was topped with extravagant yellow plumage. (The costume also came in sedate black, but photos of Dietrich wearing it in actual performance are hen's teeth).
She sang her usual suspects but included an odd repertoire choice: Johnny Cash's "Don't Take Your Gun To Town".
In 1959, Marlene also announced her TV debut. Press were told that her upcoming performances in Paris would be filmed in colour, directed by Orson Welles. In the end, the special -- a French-language performance filmed for an American TV audience -- didn't happen, but Marlene did make her TV debut that year, without fuss, while on tour in Brazil.
Marlene makes her TV debut on Brazil's TV Tupi. With host, Jayce Campos (1959).
The show, on the TV-TUPI channel, was presented by Jayce Campos. Dietrich appeared in her top hat and tails to sing "The Boys in the Backroom" and "Falling in Love Again". After some chat, she changed into a dress for a final number.
Although it is a studio recording with overdubbed applause, the LP, Dietrich in Rio gives a good representation of the material Marlene sang on her South American Tour.
South American exuberance gave way to Parisian jubilation when Marlene performed at the Théâtre de l'Étoile in November. Orson Welles came for the opening, as did Jean Cocteau and Noel Coward. Coward thought Marlene too brassy, but liked her rendition of "One For My Baby":
(The entire performance, including Maurice Chevalier's introduction, is available as a digital download on itunes. Although the sound quality is sub-par, it is an interesting historical artifact.)
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!
On 25th February 1966, Marlene Dietrich was travelling to Poland for the second time.
As 'usual', she was greated by Pagart (Polish Art Agency). She wore beige coat and (it seems) floral print headscarf. Marlene went to the Bristol Hotel (the one in which she stayed back in 1964).
You can watch the airport arrival and Marlene during concert in 1966 in Warsaw here...:
...and something from a fan's private collection, including Polish magazine covers from 60s here(I hope you can watch this one).
The plan was to give 13 concerts (6 in Warsaw, 5 in Gdańsk and 2 in Wrocław), then get back to Paris to get some rest as her health was really bad those days: in her journal she was writing about insomnia, back pain and frequent bleedings. Despite this, she gave all 13 concerts and didn't stop rehearsing with the orchestra.
She traveled by plane and train from town to town. Even though most of the organisors were able to provide decent conditions, in Gdańsk there were some problems; she didn't quite like the Grand Hotel in nearby Sopot, the stage location wasn't good either: she sang in shipyard which was just next to the railway; trains were so loud they interrupted the songs. You can find photos from Gdańsk airport right here. This Chanel (?) suit suited her so well. :)
Big highlights from Dietrich's second visit to Poland were her meetings with Polish artist: musicians (you can see beautiful Marlene with two well known pianist here), actors, among which the most important person was Cybulski. She met him in Wrocław, when she was staying in Monopol hotel, where eventually Cybulski also decided to spend some time. They got along immediately; she knew his movies; they spend quite a lot time together and when it was high time for her to get back to Warsaw, he escorted her to the railway station. Afterwars, they started to exchange letters.
After concerts in Warsaw and a glass of wine drank with musicians, Marlene headed for airport. She declared she wanted to return to Poland once more...but unfortunatelly, it has never happened.
Before all else, I want to attune you to Terry Sanderson's upcoming Marlene Dietrich tribute at London's Conway Hall on September 7-8. Visit his site devoted to the show! If you've attended any of Sanderson's past Marlene tributes, please share your experience in the comments section.
Now, I'll tackle my wishlist! While searching online catalogs of libraries, museums, and archives, I find myself coveting countless Marlene-related items. By giving these materials exposure here, I hope that I can somehow access them. Even if I can't, I'll be satisfied with making some of you aware of these things so that you can explore them yourselves.
Marlene Dietrich w/
614th Tank Destroyer Battalion officers.
Recognize the dress?
First, I want a better-quality version of this photograph, in which Dietrich brings cheer in Germany to officers of the 614th Tank Destroyer Battalion, apparently one of the few Black (or--for search engine optimization purposes--African-American) tank destroyer units and also the first Black unit to receive a Distinguished Unit Citation. I'm only certain that this photo appeared in the May 26, 1945 issue of the influential Black newspaper, Chicago Defender; in the May 19 issue, an article describes how Dietrich dined with the troops, sang "Lili Marlene," and shook hands with the mess sergeant for cooking a yummy meal. I surmise, though, that the image lies in an archive somewhere because it's from the U.S. Signal Corps. Do tell me whether you know more or whether other publications have printed it.
In case you're interested in war history, TankDestroyer.net has rounded up several informative resources on the 614th TD Battalion. I also encountered a more colloquial but equally fascinating page that mentions Dietrich and the 614th troops at WWII vet Pierce Evans' site. You may be particularly drawn to his page with a photo of Marlene's leg.
There's that dress!
Photographed by Scotty Welbourne.
(photo from here)
For the eagle-eyed among you, the dress that Marlene's wearing is one of her '40s staples (also, it's pastel, according to the May 19, 1945 issue of Chicago Defender), and I can trace it to a photo shoot she did with photographer Scotty Welbourne. When was this shoot? I assumed it was for 1941's Manpower because Welbourne became the photography department head of Warner Bros., the studio that produced this Dietrich movie. The 1st U.S. edition of Alexander Walker's Dietrich, however, features an alternate shot on the dust jacket and dates it to 1940. As if I couldn't be any more clueless, I want to know who designed the dress. Irene? The cut looks similar to another one that Marlene wore throughout the '40s, which you can see at a link I know I've shared ad nauseam here--the FIDM Museum blog.
Now, for the other item on my August wishlist, which piqued my interest while I was digging through the U.S. National Archives catalog:
I want to hear Marlene's German version of "I'll Never Smile Again," one of my favorite classic pop standards in English--obviously thanks to the cool crooning of Frank Sinatra. As you may notice, Dietrich recorded a German version of "South American Way." To hear that, listen no further than marlenedietrichTV!
In case you didn't notice, this blog is getting a makeover, a few squirts of Juvederm mixed with sheep embryo stem cells, and ultherapy sessions via Groupon. I've fixed many broken links, inaccessible videos, and non-displaying photographs. Regarding any blog entries with private videos, I've reverted them to drafts until the clips once again play for everyone. Despite the daunting efforts it entails, I've also begun weeding out useless labels and tagging entries with underused labels.
While inspecting the YouTube label, I came across some Marlene Dietrich videos that brought me fond memories, and I must bring them to your attention:
Don't you love them as much as I do? Share more clips like these in the comments section!
You may move like Jagger, but are you getting dolled up like Dietrich? We've seen Marlene primping in several of her movies--The Blue Angel, Dishonored, Blonde Venus, Destry Rides Again, and Manpower coming to mind. Maria Riva shares lots of Dietrich's cosmetic tricks in her book as well.
Nowadays, YouTube makeup gurus are teaching their acolytes how to look like Our Lady of the False Eyelashes, but these YouTubers never refer to Dietrich's movies or Maria. Instead of following Marlene's techniques, they devise their own ways to emulate her, which makes perfect sense. No longer must you spit in your mascara pot, and if you do, please stop! With updated methods, these gurus ought to do Dietrich justice, but that's no easy feat without her lighting and genes.
Among these videos, I see some false prophets and some messiahs, but I prefer to ask what you think. Which of these videos get Marlene Dietrich's look right? Which go horribly awry?
Hello! My name is Ewa and I want to bring you to all materials connected to Dietrich which were written in Polish, as few people worldwide know it and therefore it's hard for them to get more information about Marlene.
Lots of facts here are based on wonderful book Marlene by Angelika Kuźniak. If it's ever published in English, you should read it!
She took a trip via plane, arrived with 35 pieces of luggage. Kuźniak has found a list of what one of the suitcases contained: there were furs, night gowns, scarfs, hats, shoes and much more. She had lots of clothes prepared for really low temperatures, which aren't typical for weather in Poland. Later she said that at Dior they had made her buy a fur as they had been so convinced winter in this part of Europe is severe.
She arrived at Warsaw airport just after 6 p.m. After she was transported into "Europejski" Hotel, she was disgusted. Her room was not warm enough and closets not big enough; so Pagart (Polish Art Agency) transferred her to Hotel Bristol. It was very noisy, but overall acceptable--its Art Deco elegance seemed to be a good choice. After she had disinfected the bathrooms, there was the time for press conferences, which she disliked - as she used to put it, "always the same questions" were asked.
People in hotel had observed that Marlene's day-to-day routine in Warsaw always included eating breakfast (with a sip-or more-of champagne,of course), writing letters and rehearsing at the Buffo Theatre. Her stage preparations included putting on make-up, eyelashes from Anker & Lovbo of Copenhagen, placing the sterile needles to lift up her face, putting on a dress and a coat made of swans' down.
Her first concert took place on 18th January in Sala Kongresowa, one of Poland's captial's most sumptous places. Before Dietrich's, there was a performance of Czesław Niemen with his band Niebiesko-Czarni; they were extremely popular at that time. Dietrich was under charm of his song "Czy mnie jeszcze pamiętasz"("Do you still remember me"); later, she used it's melody, wrote the words and performed it many times under the title "Mutter, hast du mir vergeben". I've found nice video about this:
The concerts were a big success. The effect was admired overall by 18 000 people-within few days. (Apart from performances at Kongresowa, she sang few songs in medical students' club-what a shame I didn't live back there, nowadays these clubs are so bad..!).
During her last concerts, she addressed the audience, thanked them and said she was touched and full of awe for polish courage during war. Marlene wrote down in her notebook that she has never experienced such warmth from any audience as from Polish one. She received many letters from fans, lots of them referred to war times, as Marlene anti-Nazi attitude was (and still is) very appreciated in country that had been invaded by Hitler. Dietrich showed some interest in war history, she visited lots of monuments commemorating what had happened between 1939 and 1945. She said she felt guilty for the German nation and glad that Warsaw was still standing, despite the fact that Hitler had wanted its complete destruction.
A total amount of 150 photos were taken during her performances, but no one has ever seen them, 'cause Dietrich hated them and tore them up, refusing to pay the photographer ;) She left Warsaw on the 22nd of January.
Folks didn't flock to bid on Marlene Dietrich's "Boys in the Backroom" ensemble at Debbie Reynolds' recent auction, but celebrities continue to emulate La Dietrich in fashion magazines. Sometimes their intentions are questionable, and other times they genuinely pay respect, as Beyonce did at L'uomo Vogue. Although the intertitle would have been a more appropriate nod to Pola Negri or some other actress who peaked in silent films, Beyonce faithfully recreated two of Dietrich's most iconic looks--the swansdown coat and the top hat and tails. Manning the camera, Francesco Carrozzini snapped shots of Beyonce's prominent cheekbones in black-and-white and in color, but Beyonce's poses suggested a Dietrichian intimacy with her key light. Just as Dietrich couldn't play Catherine the Great without playing Dietrich, Beyonce couldn't play Dietrich without playing Beyonce--her hair flips making me wish for a Sasha Fierce"Diva" redux.
If questions of race came to your mind when you saw these Beyonce images, let me state that the video and photos reminded me of various analyses I've read regarding race and Marlene Dietrich's "Hot Voodoo" performance in Blonde Venus. I recently stumbled upon this blog entry by Natalia Cecire that drew from Mary Anne Doane's discussion of "Hot Voodoo," emphasizing the following concepts: white femininity representing unstable sexual purity, black masculinity representing sexual impurity, and black femininity remaining invisible. Cecire and Doane slightly weakened this last point by acknowledging the black(face) female troupe onstage during Dietrich's "Hot Voodoo" performance, who stood conspicuously behind an afroed Dietrich, but Cecire and Doane noted the insignificant and ornamental role of the dancers, calling them "props" and "mise-en-scene" respectively. EDIT 2: Additionally, "Hot Voodoo"'s song lyrics countered the claim that black female sexuality was invisible because Dietrich sang, "I'm beginning to feel like an African queen." Thus, black femininity was not only visible but also prominently typified sexual impurity in the "Hot Voodoo" sequence.
If I were to continue Cecire and Doane's comparisons, I'd add that this reduction of black women to stage decor valued only for their skin color subsequently minimized their skin color to a mere color. Just as an interior decorator could have a table painted red, a director could have a woman painted in blackface. Let me interject one admission: I am not certain as Doane was that the chorus girls were primarily white; some could be white, black, Latina, mixed, etc., but all we see is their uniform skin tone, exemplifying a sensibility expressed by "Blonde Venus" director Josef von Sternberg in Fun in a Chinese Laundry. Relating a story about a bearded extra who demanded to know his motivation for walking across the set of another director's film, von Sternberg revealed that this extra was replaced by another wearing a fake beard. Then, von Sternberg asserted that an actor "is no more than a small part of the entire chiaroscuro."
I don't know why von Sternberg opted for blackface instead of black skin, and while Cecire and Doane's depictions of these dancers-as-decor correlated with von Sternberg's description of actors as elements of his film canvas, I can't fully endorse Cecire's observation that "blackness becomes yet another prop for fully commodified white female sexuality."*** According to how von Sternberg objectified actors, white female Dietrich would be as much a prop as the troupe in blackface. In fact, black people were one of many groups whose look von Sternberg appropriated in his films with Dietrich--for example, Chinese people in Shanghai Express, Spanish people in The Devil Is A Woman, and Russian people in The Scarlet Empress. As for the presence of commodified white female sexuality in the "Hot Voodoo" scene, we could say that Dietrich's character used her sexuality to sell her show, ultimately to help pay for her husband's radium treatment. Indeed, in other von Sternberg-Dietrich films, we can enumerate many examples, the most blatant perhaps being Dietrich's role as a prostitute-turned-spy who used her sexuality to earn money (as a prostitute) and learn military secrets (as a spy) in Dishonored. I'd only add that in von Sternberg's films, Dietrich's characters held or eventually snatched the purse strings of their white female sexuality. The Scarlet Empress illustrated this inevitable act, with Dietrich's character initially a hapless Prussian princess brought to Russia to bear a male heir to the throne, hardly different than a female panda shipped to a British zoo as part of a breeding program. Later, Dietrich's character took the reins of her sexuality to woo suitors stronger and more attractive than her spouse, bear the needed heir, and usurp the Russian throne.
***Some time, I would like to accept this premise to explore how Beyonce inverted it. In other words, I'd be interested in assessing how Beyonce used (Dietrich's masculine and feminine?) whiteness as a prop for her commodified black female sexuality. Evidence I might use to support Beyonce's commodification of her sexuality as a black woman would include her House of Dereon fashion line and a term she coined--"bootylicious." Such a discourse would draw too much attention away from this blog's star, Marlene Dietrich, so I'll leave it for another outlet. If you would like to discuss it, though, please do and please discuss anything else that comes to your mind in relation to this blog entry. EDIT: Can't help but touch this topic a little more because it struck me that Beyonce lit white female mannequins--props, if you will--on fire in the "Diva" video (linked in this blog entry). EDIT 2: Keeping the aforementioned concepts in mind, what intrigues me about Beyonce is that her entertainment career took off in the 1990s, when black female sexuality became increasingly visible in commercially successful songs by black male entertainers (from Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back" in 1992 to D'Angelo's "Brown Sugar" in 1995). Of course, there was no reason why men alone should profit from this emerging visibility, and Beyonce--like Dietrich's characters in von Sternberg's films--has successfully wrested black female sexuality to commodify it herself. Moreover, Beyonce has begun creating unique business ventures to sell multiracial female sexuality, which could be another way that I regard the House of Dereon, which bears the maiden name of Beyonce's Creole grandmother. With her recent single "Run the World (Girls)," Beyonce's marketing radical feminism, displaying impressive performance finesse and special effects.
In a 1987 interview with Joan Rivers on The Tonight Show, Bette Davis praised Marlene Dietrich's generosity, recalling that Dietrich came from the set of The Garden of Allah to the Hollywood Canteen, "covered in gold paint" and making the men go mad. In fact, Davis was referring to Kismet, but set aside that inaccuracy to hear one legend praise another:
As for Joan Rivers, I Googled her and Dietrich's names together on a whim and found an amusing anecdote by a Preston Neal Jones (the same Preston Neal Jones who wrote a book on The Night of the Hunter?) about Dietrich ignoring Joan on an airplane.
Question: did William Dieterle consciously borrow from Marlene Dietrich's dance scene in 1944's Kismet when he directed Rita Hayworth in 1953's Salome?
Clearly, Hayworth was the more skilled dancer, but Dietrich gave good face. Before I forget, let me note the genius structure of Irene's foundation on Dietrich and Jean Louis' flesh-colored chiffon on Hayworth, which would eventually equal a winning combination in December 1953--when Dietrich stepped out onto the stage in Las Vegas wearing "the eel."
Many YouTube users have posted Marlene Dietrich clips, and nowadays they are quite informative and well-executed. Of course, there is missladiva's MarleneDietrichVideo, which boasts an impressive array of live concert footage and audio, studio recordings, unissued songs, interviews, newsreels, and much more. There is also Ojara985's channel (run by the blogger of Serch Dietrich), with many HD clips from Dietrich's films, particularly her musical numbers. MarleneXtreme's channel features over 200 charmingly themed videos that pair Dietrich's songs with Dietrich's photos. Another channel I wish to recognize is MarleneInterviews, which delivers what its name suggests--Marlene Dietrich interviews (in French). Please inform me of others that I have overlooked.
On another note, someone wrote a comment asking whether Google is better than Yahoo, which I accidentally deleted (it was in the spam inbox). Perhaps it was spam, but I could answer simply by saying that I prefer Google, which more readily allows a user to search a term (such as "marlene dietrich") in specific sites, such as scholarly documents, books, blogs, realtime (e.g., Twitter) as well as translate sites. Please ask more about searching online if that interests you. I will gladly post tutorials to enhance your searching abilities.
