Interview: Marlene Dietrich – bourgeois, geranium-lover

Betty Best interviewed Marlene Dietrich, backstage at London's Golder's Green Hippodrome, in 1965. Special thanks to the Crees Collection for sharing this material.

Marlene Dietrich in her dressing room.

It had been a month since I'd seen her. A month since she'd held out a delicate, tiny hand and agreed to the idea of a private interview with a brief, "Yes, yes, call me at Claridges" –  and sounded as if she meant it. 

But I'd made at least ten telephone calls every day since then, from Brighton to Birmingham and back to London, without ever once getting through to that inimitable, halting voice. A month of pleading with agents and publicity officers, all of whom sounded terrified at the very thought that I should claim a whole hour of Miss Dietrich's time to myself. 

By then my mental picture of her was becoming a little unsure. Perhaps that brief meeting among a horde of people in the excitement of a first arrival had been misleading. Perhaps the apparent ease and friendliness of the magic Marlene was just an effect, switched on like her magnificent stage personality, for an audience which expected it. 

Police cordons 

In between times I'd heard of the packed schedule of a tour which stopped in each city for only a week, which included intense rehearsals with each orchestra, with her arranger Burt Bacharach (who flew from the U.S.A. especially), an entire one-woman radio play for the BBC somehow jammed into the London week; of fantastic hold-ups every night after each show while fans besieged the stage doors so that Dietrich could not emerge without special police cordons.

Perhaps I was hoping for too much. Then I got word that she was fed up with English reporters asking about nothing but her age, her looks, her clothes, and that most forbidden of all subjects, her family – about whom she will never speak.

All the signs were against my ever getting to see her at all. Yet, throughout I had a curious belief that it would come off – because of the geranium.

Miss Dietrich had, that first night, told an endearing story: ''I've just made a new LP. The songs of old Berlin as I remember them as a child. They are beautiful songs, real songs of the people. And because they always meant so much to me, I wanted to do everything about this record myself. Even to designing the cover. Me, I'm not an artist. But I had my ideas. I always see Berlin as a grey city – grey walls, streets, everything.

"So I got paints and made a beautiful grey pattern. Then, because I'm not an artist, I went to a stationer's and bought those letters children use to scratch with a pencil and that come out on paper.

"Then on the bar of the 'H' at the end of my name I put a lovely little pot of bright red geraniums. When I took it proudly to the publisher, he said, 'Why the geraniums there?' I tried to explain that it is the flag of the little people in grey cities everywhere. The big gesture of the bourgeois toward beauty. And I am a bourgeois and I love geraniums.

"But, of course, he couldn't understand. Never mind, I kept my geranium on the cover – just as I always keep one in my dressing-room wherever I go."

And sure enough, when finally, after many cancellations, I got to her dressing room at Golder's Green Hippodrome on the outskirts of London, there it was. Not a grand florist's specimen,but a simple little scarlet single in a common terracotta pot sitting on the wash basin in the corner. 

Beside it on the wall was a symbol of that very private side of Dietrich's life she seldom mentions, a

large framed and inscribed portrait of Ernest Hemingway, wearing a polo-necked sweater and looking young and adventurous.

On a previous occasion I had once managed to get her to touch on her great friend ship with this man who wrote of her: "I think she knows more about love than anyone. I know that every time I have seen Marlene Dietrich she has done some thing to my heart and made me happy.''

It was when she was railing against the agonies of work on tour: "It is not the performances I mind. They are fine. Once I am in front of people I can recharge my batteries from them.

''It is the terrible chore of packing and unpacking. Of never having a minute to myself or a second for reading."

Then someone asked who was her favourite author and, suddenly, the whole face softened and glowed. She replied with the single word, "Hemingway."

She began to speak of the great respect and love she felt for him; her voice broke, she turned away with a final, "Life is not the same now he has gone."

Shine On! Marlene Dietrich, Interviewed at Grosvenor House. London, 1974.

(Thank you to the Crees Collection for sharing yet another gem: this interview with Marlene, preparing for her performances at London's Grosvenor House in 1974.)

by Roger Falk

The omens were not promising. At midnight she had railed at photographers who ambushed her at London Airport. “Why aren’t you all home in your beds?” she snapped, and then, rather than be photographed in a wheelchair, had endured the painful long walk to the terminal building from the aircraft. The next day a surprised radio reporter was bundled away from her suite at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane. His crime: asking silly questions. A national newspaper writer, awaiting audience, was being softened up by her publicity man. “Now you won’t ask her about her age, her family or her leg ?” he implored. “Don’t be so bloody wet,” came the robust retort. “‘If I don’t ask her about her leg, it’ll be like interviewing Nelson and not  mentioning the eye and the arm.”

Dressed to Kill Must Have Been Marlene Dietrich's Fav Angie Dickinson Flick!

Don't you think?

When I read Burt Bacharach's autobiography, Anyone Who Had a Heart, I realized that lyricists Hal David and Carole Bayer Sager performed a crucial role by putting words to the Gershwin Prize-winning composer's music. Without their poetic nuances and Bacharach's Sybil-esque signature shifts, Burt's story in prose reads more like a raw interview transcript, yet from this candor emerges some amusing accounts.

Overlooking the laudatory excerpt from Marlene Dietrich's own memoirs, I will gloss over the Dietrich-related anecdotes in Burt's book. Like in Josef von Sternberg's Fun in a Chinese Laundry, Marlene is the subject of an entire chapter. Burt entitles his the unimaginative "The Blue Angel" and even repeats almost verbatim his recollections published in A Woman at War: Marlene Dietrich Remembered and Charlotte Chandler's Dietrich bio. Burt's already-documented memories include meeting Marlene through Peter Matz, sipping on her beef tea after a game of tennis, facing bomb threats during Dietrich's 1960 German tour (in Duesseldorf or Wiesbaden? Burt says the former in the earlier publications), Quincy Jones questioning why a hit songwriter like Bacharach was still going on the road with Dietrich, and Marlene's unrealized plans to record "Any Day Now" with Burt during her seclusion on Avenue Montaigne. Despite Burt's lack of literary prowess, he did manage to capture Marlene's indignation over Frank Sinatra snubbing "Warm and Tender" far better than professional biographer Charlotte Chandler.

Don't let me mislead you into believing that Burt's book will leave you thirsty. Mr. Bacharach has got pitchers of tea to spill! Despite creating such passionate and poignant arrangements for Marlene, Burt admits that he wasn't a fan of her repertoire. Conversely, Marlene didn't like his protege, Stan Freeman. Burt even reveals that--on one drunken night in Vegas--he rejected Marlene's kisses and invitation to her room. Perhaps Burt has a hazy memory, though, because he also informs us that Dietrich could speak Spanish. Then, Burt throws a curve ball of a story about a juggler accidentally dropping a ball on Dietrich's head before her Leningrad show, causing her to suffer temporary lyrical amnesia. Please tell me there is extant footage of this performance!

As I had expected, the sweetest drops of Burt's book are the bile that Marlene spewed over Angie Dickinson. On the Daily Mail website, you can read an excerpt from Burt's book about the tension between the two ladies, which led to Marlene engaging in witchcraft. Be aware, however, that the language was toned down because--according to Burt's book--Marlene did not merely call Angie a slut but also a, um, well, the word that rhymes with "stunt." Forget about that, though. Can you imagine Marlene eating Kentucky Fried Chicken?

She's in the Air

There's been some talk about Marlene on the airwaves recently:

• Peter Riva recalled Marlene's death  for the BBC's programme, Witness (and shared other memories of his glamorous granny, too).
• Burt Bacharach, whose autobiography will be released soon, remembers working with Marlene early in his career.
• Marlene Dietrich Collection Berlin's Werner Sudendorf talks about the collection in this German interview.

Marlene Dietrich Live In Amsterdam: Wenn ich mir was wünschen dürfte

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:

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!'"

The Story of His Life

Photo found on MySpace. Click for (not much) more information.

The Associated Press has reported that Burt Bacharach will pen his memoirs, to be published by HarperCollins this November, and--no--it won't be called The Story of My Life. Because it's in the works, I'll post a wish-list of topics that Bacharach and his co-writer Robert Greenfield could address.

• Did Burt ever compose any songs for Dietrich? If so, did she ever perform or record them? With that in mind, someone remind me whether Dietrich ever performed any Bacharach songs.

Well, that was brief, but it's been on my mind for a while. If Cher and Cilla Black got carte blanche to butcher Burt's tunes, Dietrich could have taken a stab at them as well. Bacharach appeared in that Dietrich hagiography attributed to Charlotte Chandler as well as in J. David Riva's documentary, Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song, but I hope to read some new tidbit in Burt's own book. What would you like to know?

Derek Prouse Interviews Marlene Dietrich: "I Hated Being A Film Star" (1964)

Derek Prouse interviewed Marlene Dietrich in December 1964.

What clues does the flat in the elegant Avenue Montaigne afford to the character of its celebrated occupant?

An uncountable mould of suit cases in the hall; a salon impersonally furnished, the décor of a constant traveller, a purposeful book case whose books are clearly there to be read: Goethe, Scott Fitzgerald, the collected scripts of Ingmar Bergman; a large photograph of General de Gaulle inscribed: “Pour Madame Dietrich – en temoinage d’admiration pou son magnifique talent.”

Dietrich enters: one feels instantly that here is a shy and private woman; the flowers one has brought to her she holds almost defensively before her face; this is a subtle way of saying “thank you” without words. She places them attentively in a large vase on a desk, and it capriciously keels over. Suddenly we are under the desk in a spreading pool of water and spiteful rose stalks. The ice is broken.

Out of the busy coming and going of the mopping-up operation a few random phrases are speared: “I’m not a myth” . . . “I never see the Press … why should I?” . . . “America? A country can stay young for too long. Everything that is new is still automatically the best there” . . . “The thirties? Who wants to hear about old films nowadays?”

“I do,” one asserts. Obviously, sooner or later we must speak of The Blue Angel and the man whose name was inseparably linked with hers for so long, Josef von Sternberg.

“Well, Mr von Sternberg came to the theatre to see some actors he wanted for The Blue Angel and I happened to be in the play. That was towards the end of ’29. I was at the Max Reinhardt theatre school in Berlin. (There’s not much done in the theatre today, and called new, that Reinhardt didn’t do first.)

“Reinhardt had four theatres in Berlin and in the evenings we students would have to go around saying ‘The horses are saddled’ in the first act of this play or ‘Here’s a letter for you, Madam’ in the third act of another – as part of our training.

“After the success of The Blue Angel I just went with Mr von Sternberg to America for one film. One film – and then if I didn’t like the place I would be allowed to leave. Otherwise I wouldn’t have gone; I wanted no seven-year contract or anything like that. I had to look at the country first; I didn’t know if it was good enough for my child. Then I saw it was good and brought her over and my husband came whenever he could; he was working here in Paris for Paramount. But then Hitler came in and we got stuck in America. The film I liked best? The one that had the least success: The Devil is a Woman.

“And after you left von Sternberg?”

“I didn’t leave Sternberg (the faintly weary voice suddenly rises in passionate assertation; the only time the deferential “Mr” is forgotten). “He left me! That’s very important. In my life he was the man I wanted to please the most. He decided not to work with my any more and I was very unhappy about that, before that, Mr von Sternberg had picked Rouben Mamoulian to direct Song of Songs and I love Mamoulian because of his kindness to me at that time. It was the first time I’d worked without Mr von Sternberg and I behaved atrociously. I thought I’d never do anything again since he left me.

“Perhaps I’m wrong to say I was unhappy – you can’t be made really unhappy by something you’re not interested in. My heart was never in that work. I had no desire to be a film actress, to always play somebody else, to be always beautiful with somebody constantly straightening out your every eye-lash. It was always a big bother to me. And I hated the stupid publicity that was created around one.”

“Like that much publicised feud with Mae West, for instance?”

“Not at all true. She was very kind to me. And she’s such a witty woman.”

The voice was becoming low, almost distant. “No. It’s so difficult playing somebody else. I like playing myself.”

“Is that way you prefer working in cabaret?”

“Cabaret!” (Suddenly, it might by Lady Bracknell confronted with the handbag.) “I never play in cabaret! I play in theatres; that’s quite different. Oh yes, I did play the Café de Paris in London and Las Vegas but that was five years ago, now I sing the songs I like to sing. I have no script and no director; I don’t have to waste my energy explaining why I want something like this and not like that; I don’t have to fight with anybody or say ‘Please let me do this.’ I explain to nobody why I come in from the right, the left or the centre. I stand or fall by my own decisions. No front-office interference; just my conductor, Burt Bacharach, and me. He is my only critic; if he says ‘Don’t do a song,’ I don’t do it.”

Dietrich’s long career has not been without its perilous impasses; at the end of her association with von Sternberg her stock was dangerously low in Hollywood. With Desire, that witty film directed by Frank Borzage in which she played an international jewel thief, she swept back into favour.

But it was at Universal that she made one of the greatest and most unpredictable successes: In Destry Rides Again, gone were all the glamorous trappings; the atmosphere of aloof, impregnable mystery that had always been her stock-in-trade was exploded. Instead, a brawling saloon-entertainer in the West, dodging guns and belting out “See what the boys in the backroom will have.” Was this transformation Dietrich’s own idea?

“No it was Joe Pasternak’s. He made the decision.”

“And you were in favour of it?”

“I needed the money.” Flat factual and forthright, this statement imposes a pause.

“But you must have enjoyed it.”

“No! (a protesting cry.) I – never – enjoyed – working – in – a – film. You have to get up at the crack of dawn, and then you have to get prettied up all day long and every hair has to match the next day and 60 000 people fool around with you. It is just awful. Anyone who enjoys that … (the voice trails away in speechless stupefaction).

“But I was grateful for one thing: the big legend that the Paramount publicity machine built up did, paradoxically, afford me privacy. I never like to talk about myself: I think that no one has a right to know about one’s private life and private affairs. Mr von Sternberg said: you have to give the magazines something to print so the glamorous legend was fine, even if there wasn’t a word of truth in it.” (The “legend” that was exhaustively “plugged” during the thirties implied that Dietrich was a Trilby manipulated by von Sternberg, her dark and mysterious Svengali.”
“But now I do the work I enjoy. I’ve toured South America. I’ve played all the Scandinavian countries, Russia, Israel, Holland and many others.

“But you always come back to Paris?”

“Everybody loves Paris – even Hitler didn’t dare to push the button. And Paris has always recognised artists; it understood von Sternberg and it understands Orson Welles. When I talk with him I feel like a plant that has been watered.

“And in Paris there is freedom: they let you live and nobody bothers you. You can do what you want, live with whom you want, and that’s wonderful – no? They are so full of their own lives that they have no time to bother about anybody else’s. I can go to the meat man and buy my meant and nobody pesters me. They say ‘Bonjour Madame Marlene’ and pass me by.”

Dietrich moves out on to the balcony. The Avenue looks bleak and anonymous but to her seems beautiful. “They’ve cut down my trees,” she murmurs wistfully. Chekov has taken over. But the telephone soon snaps her back to her intense professional world.

“I’ve just made a new record. I produced it myself. Fifteen songs of Berlin; songs of the town in the old days. Berlin always had something special; it was always in island. An island with its special kind of tragic wit without self-pity and without reverence.”

I recall Johnny, which Dietrich first recorded in 1929 and which is in her recent long-player. She sings in German:

Johnny, when you have a birthday
Come and be my guest
For the night.

The singer, the song and the invitation seem to have gained with the years. The spell is potent and not easily broken.

I left, remembering Jean Cocteau, who told me just before his death that he had arranged to hire a copy of Shanghai Express (one of Dietrich’s early Hollywood successes). “I wanted so much to see ‘chere Marlene’ once more,” he said.

One sees what he meant: a legend can often boomerang, but Dietrich, by hard work and artistry, has kept hers meaningful and alive.

Marlene and Burt: Voices for Vista!

Everyone's Gone To The Moon (Candid recording from 1966)

Taking the legend seriously - Dietrich’s whip is her own tongue

by Rebecca Morehouse

Timing it precisely, Marlene Dietrich enters the Louis XVI Room of the Waldorf-Astoria. She has just been described in Ernest Hemingway's words —"brave, beautiful, loyal, generous and kind." She is wearing a black Chanel pantsuit, black shoes, a black slouch hat.

She walks to the front of the room, begins to turn left and right, obliging a phalanx of photographers. The room is packed with newspaper, radio and TV reporters. She does not bother to say hello to them. Her face is impassive, her manner says: "Let's get on with it."She is a legend taking it seriously, a queen queening it, a wild-animal tamer whose whip is her tongue. She picks up a microphone, walks to a chair, sits.

The questions begin."Are you tired of being called the world's most glamorous grandmother?" a reporter asks respectfully. Snap goes the whip: "That old bit. I gave that title long ago to Elizabeth Taylor." He gamely struggles on: "Is it true you mop the kitchen floor to work off your frustrations?" She: "What frustrations? I have no frustrations. I'm a very good house-keeper, yes."

She is standing now, the microphone in her hand. The fit of her suit is perfection: couturiers say no one is more demanding at fittings. Surprisingly, she speaks with a lisp. Are some of her teeth missing? Or is there a lozenge in her mouth? Impossible to tell. She parts her lips only slightly as she talks.Another question: "Do you still wear see-through gowns?"

"You have old questions," she says wearily. "The interviews are more interesting in Europe. They're more interested in artistic things. There is not so much interest in culture in America. We're the only country that doesn't have a minister of culture."

The press conference was called to publicize her first television show, "Marlene Dietrich—I Wish You Love," on the CBS TV network, Saturday, January 13, from 10 P.M. to 11 P.M. It pre-empts The Carol Burnett Show, was taped before an audience in London in late November. Alexander H. Cohen, who presented her one-woman show on Broadway, produced the special.She is reminded that she once said, "They offer me the moon, but I'm still a virgin in television. Who needs it?" Why did she change her mind?"I still feel that way," she said. "But Mr. Cohen can make me do almost anything ... I like live shows, I like to see live peformances. A small screen is really frustrating. TV is wonderful for people who are lonesome or sick." There is laughter. "Why do you laugh? I mean people who are ill.

"Television is rush, rush, rush. I started out at 4 o'clock and at 2.30 in the morning I was still standing there. We had two days. We should have taken a week." Alexander Cohen, seated near her, puts his hands to his face. "It's difficult." she continues. "I didn't have commercials on Broadway. As there are so many commercials, I can't do all the songs."

You're not doing enough to bring culture to people. People in TV programming think they have to appeal to the lowest possible intelligence and I think they're wrong."

She is slender as a boy: "I'm just lucky, I guess." From 12 feet away, her face shows no lines. the skin is smooth and tight across those high, wide-apart cheek-bones."Would you describe your beauty regime?" a woman reporter asks. She: "That's a whole story in itself. I rarely look in a mirror, except when I'm performing. I don't pay attention to myself." ("Just 24 hours a day," someone murmurs.)

Question—What keeps you going?

Answer—Demand keeps me going. I work out of necessity, like everybody has to work. I never really wanted to do something, I was pushed into it. I'm not ambitious at all. I like what I am doing now (her one-woman show) better than doing films. You are alone and you'd better do it well or not at all.

Q.—Don't you have personal goals?

A.—I'd love to work with Burt Bacharach again. Otherwise, I don't have any goals. I think he is the greatest composer since George Gershwin. I miss him very much, I wish him happiness, he's a wonderful guy. (Mr. Bacharach musically directed her Broadway show.)

Dietrich was born in Berlin, her real name Marie Magdalene Dietrich. After her success in "The Blue Angel," she went to Hollywood in 1930. Her first American film was "Morocco," with Gary Cooper. In 1937, she became a U.S. citizen.She has an apartment here, but spends most of her time in Paris now. She flew here with 22 pieces of luggage."It's easier for me to work out of Paris. When I fly to Israel, Russia, Japan, the flights are shorter. I like to work. I go to London all the time; that's where the great actors are, Olivier, Gielgud."

She refused to take credit for popularizing trousers for women: "I wore them in Hollywood in the 1930's, but women wore trousers in California then. They're very comfortable." But they do hide those fabulous legs.

Q.—What do you do when you're not working?

A.—I do all my own typing. I do busisess letters myself. By the time you have told someone how to do it, you have done it. I have no secretary. I do have servants.No, I do not live with my family. My daughter (Maria Riva, who acted in the early days of television) has four sons and lives in London. She no longer performs. It was sad that she gave it up. My husband lives in California. (He is Rudolph Sieber, a onetime film director who now farms. They were married in 1924 and have been amiably separated many years.)

Bob Williams, TV critic of The New York Post, ventured to ask her age and drew her sharpest scorn."That is the oldest question," she huffed. "I'll say one thing, I'm not as old as the newspapers make me out to be." By the calendar count, she is 68.

Q.—Do you ever watch TV reruns of your old films?

A.—I don't, oh God, no. I have better things to do than that.

Q.—How does one survive?

A.—I wonder.

(Inteview conducted on 13 December 1972, first published in The Baltimore Sun on 2 January 1973 to publicize I Wish You Love.)