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."

Dietrich Interviewed: Advice from "An Old German Shoe"

Marlene had recently completed her annual Las Vegas stint and was in the midst of her South American concert tour when this interview, by Lloyd Shearer, was published in an August 1959 edition of Parade:

BOOKERS WHO SCHEDULE the stage appearances of famous show business personalities loosely classify these celebrities in two groups  — talent and freak attractions. 

Marlene Dietrich, who each year is booked into the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas, the Copacabana in Rio and several other night spots throughout the world at $25,000 a week, is classified as a freak attraction. 

The reason? People will pay to see her regardless of her act — an act in which she sings badly because her tremulous voice lacks timbre and range, and in which she dances inadequately because her dancing is limited to a series of offbeat kicks and cakewalks. And yet Marlene is always a sellout.  Wherever she plays she draws enthusiastic crowds. She stimulates tumultuous ovations. She arouses such awe and envy-inspired audience comment as, “How does she do it at her age?” or “Doesn't she ever grow old?” or “Look at the figure on that woman.” 

At 55, onstage, sheathed in a shimmering side-slit creation designed by Jean Louis, languorously slinking up to a microphone, incredibly immune to the ravages of age, Grandma Dietrich generates more glamor and sex appeal than any other actress you can think of, even those half her age. 

How does she do it? The honest answer is money, technique and style. 

“Let's not fool anyone,” Dietrich candidly declares. “It takes money to be glamorous nowadays. Glamor is what I sell in my act, and it costs plenty. 

Feathers from Argentina

An Interview with Sauli Miettinen

Marlene Dietrich: Nainen ja tähti 
[Marlene Dietrich: A Woman and A Star]
by Sauli Miettinen

Last year, I interviewed Sauli Miettinen, the author of the Finnish language Marlene Dietrich biography, Marlene Dietrich: Nainen ja tähti [Marlene Dietrich: A Woman and A Star], which will hopefully be translated into German and English. The questions that I posed to him had developed out of my interest in factors such as one's geographical location, linguistic abilities, age, as well as technological and media access that can affect one's ability to receive and seek information about a celebrity such as Marlene Dietrich. I also wanted to discover how Miettinen researched Dietrich's life and career and what his thoughts were on other Dietrich biographies--and on biographies in general. Miettinen answered these questions and more, and I now eagerly await the day when I can read his book in English translation. As you read this interview, please think of any questions that you may have. Hopefully, Miettinen will be able to respond in the comments section and turn this interview into an ongoing conversation about biographies and biographical research in relation to Dietrich and in general.

Doctor Dietrich's Best Production? Her Daughter.

[In 1971, Jeffrey Archer organised a charity midnight matinee (to benefit MIND) at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. It was Marlene Dietrich's first  concert appearance in London for several years. This backstage interview – with both Marlene and Maria Riva, preparing for the show –  comes courtesy of the wonderful Crees Collection.]

FRIEND, 

LIVING LEGEND 

AND LIGHTNING TYPIST

by James Green

September 1971: Marlene at Heathrow.

There are many ways of saying Darling. But Marlene Dietrich's way is unique. A mixture of warning, invitation, seduction, plus a mocking suggestion that the men are about to be separated from the boys. But “Dar-ling” she says silkily by way of greeting. And crosses to plant a kiss on my five o'clock shadow. Not at all a bad start backstage at the Drury Lane theatre where tonight at midnight she will hold the football pitch size stage alone for one hour, 45 minutes. It is a charity concert and the audience will be paying up to £50-a-seat to hear her sing 25 songs and turn on the living legend magic.

At the moment she is wearing a navy blue coat with matching trousers, and a floppy-brimmed hat in the same colour pulled down over one eye.

As she checks on songs, running order, lighting, I have a word with her daughter, Maria.

Marlene Dietrich: Two Legs, To Stand On.

What do you do for your legs to keep them looking so lovely?

Nothing. I was born with them.

What do you do to exercise them?

I just walk on them.

Why don't you want to show them anymore?

I have nothing new to show the world.

[Courtesy Crees Collection]

50 Years Ago: Marlene Dietrich in Warsaw, 1964

Marlene made her debut in Warsaw 50 years ago this month. We covered this visit in depth earlier:

Marlene's first visit to Warsaw, 16th January 1964.

Marlene brings lilacs to the Ghetto Heroes Monument.

In performance at Warsaw's Sala Kongresowa.

Dietrich in Vegas: She Glittered And Gleamed So!

“Nescafé society” – as Noel Coward dubbed those who frequented Las Vegas – was introduced to “the most glamorous star in the world – the woman and the legend”, Marlene, when Dietrich made her cabaret début at the Sahara Hotel's Congo Room in December 1953.

“They worked on me for two years and kept upping the salary until I could no longer refuse,” she explained to the press about her record $ 30 000 per week fee (for a three week season: three shows a night).

“I had to come out here to Las Vegas and see the place first. I came here twice before I really decided.

“I was really convinced when I came to see Tallulah Bankhead. She did a serious dramatic bit – a Dorothy Parker piece – and you could hear a pin drop. You could never do a thing like that in a New York night club, or in a night club anywhere else.”

On her opening night, Marlene appeared in a flash of sequins and a waft of fur, purred “hello” to an appreciative audience (including Billy Wilder, Van Heflin, Mercedes McCambridge, Louella Parsons, and Jimmy McHugh) and appropriately crooned “Baubles Bangles and Beads” to Buddy Cole's accompaniment.

The “glitter and gleam” promised in the lyric was supplied by designer Jean Louis, who had gathered some sparkle clusters onto a barely-there foundation – a so-called “nude dress”. Marlene insisted that it lived up to its name: “The only thing underneath” the $ 8 000 “revue costume”, she said, was “a gaiter belt to hold the stockings, period.”

The Dress caused a press sensation when the opening night's photos made it into newspapers. “It's the most daring gown I've ever seen on a stage,” gushed one longtime newspaper man.

That the photos revealed more than even Dietrich professed to have intended, only added additional sizzle.

“These photographs were shot from a low angle, and these rhinestones didn't even register,” Marlene half-heartedly protested, pointing to strategically placed beads at the costume's bust-line. It “wasn't designed to be photographed up close, or to be looked at up close,” she explained. Besides – “this is Las Vegas. If you can't wear it here, you can't wear it anywhere. I have several costumes like this. I will alternate them. I would not want to disappoint any individual audience.”

The show was brief. She sang “The Boys in the Back Room”, “La Vie en Rose”, “You've Got That Look”, “The Laziest Gal in Town”, “Lili Marlene”, “Jonny”, “Lola” and the “inevitable” “Falling in Love Again”.

For the finalé, Marlene changed into her circus ringmaster costume. Max Colpet had written a special lyric for her, “The Beast in Me” (set to “The Entrance of the Gladiators”). With whip in hand, and while show girls in animal costume moved around in and about cages, she sang:

“Lions, tigers, small cats, tall cats
You just name them  – I will tame them …

“There is one beast that was never tamed
And that beast ... that beast is me!

Many men have tried their chance in vain,
One went nuts – two died in France and Spain ...

Do or die, I must discover
My superman, my only lover.
Then I skip my boots and whip
And flip ... and flip ... and flip

Where is that man?”

During the run, Marlene celebrated her (officially, 48^th) birthday with a six-tiered, four-hundred pound birthday cake. There were no candles on the cake, jested the staff of the Sahara Hotel, because they “couldn't afford it after paying her that money”. (Not that they had reason to complain – 1,937 people had seen Dietrich perform the previous evening, which had set a Vegas attendance record.)

Working in Las Vegas was “fun” – “and much easier than making films,” but “different than when I sang for the troops during the war. If there'd been servicemen out there when I sang 'Lili Marlene' they would have brought the house down."

“I'd like to come back to Las Vegas,” she said near the end of her season. “I don't think any other place can pay the money.”

The town was “a funny place”, though: “I always thought that when you're a success, you're held over. Here, the next act is already here, waiting for me to get out. Donald O'Connor has been hanging around for days. I came in here yesterday, and the girls in the line were rehearsing – not for me, but for Donald O'Connor's show.

“It gave me a strange feeling.”

10 Great Women, As Chosen by Marlene Dietrich

In 1942, as publicity for The Lady is Willing, Marlene shared her selection of the ten greatest women of the time with Hollywood magazine's Jack Dallas. Her choices:

INTELLIGENCE

Dorothy Thompson, the distinguished journalist, because she has finally proved that a woman’s opinions concerning the troubled world in which we live can be as searching, profound and constructive as those of male minds; because her soundness has come to be generally recognized and her influence universally felt; and because she has managed to combine a successful career with successful motherhood.

COURAGE

Helen Keller, because, despite the terrifying handicap of being born without sight, speech, or hearing, she has become an international symbol of the triumph of the human will against all-out adversity; because she has turned her handicaps into assets; and because, above all, she is living a rich and useful life.

FEMININITY

Queen Elizabeth of England [later Queen Mother], because she is attractive  without intent, charming without effort, impressive without guile, and ladylike without apology, she is the most ultra-feminine woman in the world; and because she has always managed to be effacing enough to highlight the personality of her husband, the King.

VALOUR

Amelia Earhart, that slim, spare figure of a woman, because she set her compass on Life and never changed her course; because she lived for a purpose; and because she died heroically, a falling star plunging into an uncharted ocean and, surely, saluting with a smile and a wave of the hand the sun or the moon as her plane plummeted her to an unknown destiny.

MAGNETISM

Alice Marble, the tennis champion, because she is the perfect embodiment of athletic femininity, healthy without being horsey; and because, in her capacity of National Director of Physical Training for Women she is using her gifts for the general good.

INSPIRATION

Mme. Chiang Kai-shek, because she is one of the world’s most brilliant women; because she is aiding her great husband, the Generalissimo, in preserving China in the face of unending peril; and because she is bringing a new freedom to the women of China.

CLEVERNESS

Clare Boothe, because she undeniably is one of the most fascinating conversationalists; and because she knows women and has held up a mirror so we could see ourselves. (Or did you miss The Women?)

CHIC

Eve Curie, because she is of the bandbox type; because she can travel light and appear to be convoyed by a trailer filled with Schiaparellis; because she does not follow fashion but leads it — gently.

EXCITEMENT

Greta Garbo, because where there’s Garbo there’s tension; and because she has proved that furbelows are foolish and mystery is marvelous.

SELF-REALIZATION

Nellie Manley, my hair-dresser for eight years, not only because she does her job well but also because she has no apologies for its lack of lustre; because she is neither amused by glamour, deceived by glitter and tinsel, or ravaged by ambition; because she is a true philosopher and can take life as it comes, and be cause, totally free from complexes and frustrations, she is at peace with herself and wouldn't change places with Marlene Dietrich for the Taj Mahal.

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.”

Rudolf Sieber Talks: Eggs, Marriage and Marlene Dietrich

(This interview with Rudolf Sieber was originally published in the The Milwaukee Sentinel, on 13 March 1960.)

By Jean C. Bosquet

On the side of the gate of a chicken ranch in San Fernando, California, not far from Hollywood, is a two-foot –square sign reading: “EGGS” and two cowbells with a cord attached to them.

Pull the cord, and the clatter of cowbells will bring a slight 62-year-old man hurrying from an outbuilding to take your order. He has a lean, pink, sensitive face with twinkling blue eyes, and wisps of sandy hair can be seen under the edge of his blue beret. He wears faded blue denims and rough work shoes. He is Rudolf Sieber, for 35 years the husband of exotic Marlene Dietrich, one of the world’s most glamorous women since she rocked to screen stardom in The Blue Angel.

Rudy Sieber has often been referred to during those years as the “forgotten” man in Marlene’s life, but if he’s been forgotten it hasn’t been by his 55-year-old actress wife. He, himself, has chosen to be the silent partner in the strangest marriage in all the history of show business. The couple has been separated by an ocean or a continent, or both, 90 percent of the time, and Marlene has been linked romantically with one dashing male celebrity after another.

Rudy Sieber has shunned interviewers since 1931, when another man’s ex-wife charged La Dietrich with alienation of affections and Rudy rushed to the defense of his beloved Marlene.

Why has this marriage survived the long separations, the vast difference in modes of living, and countless divorce rumours through the years?

Sieber was breaking a silence of almost 30 years when he answered, simply but intensely: “Because it’s as good a marriage today as it was in 1924, when it was performed. The bond between us is just as strong. Only death will end our marriage.”

What about the years when Marlene was reportedly in love with French actor Jean Gabin, then novelist Erich Remarque, then actor Michael Wilding, and most recently Iva S. V. Patcevitch, New York magazine executive?

“Of course she has been rumoured in love with this one and that one,” says Rudy. “She is a glamorous woman, and a glamorous woman is supposed to be surrounded by romance at all times.

What of the shocking contrast between the faded blue denims, the pink stucco bungalow, the littered ranch yard – and the glittering world that is Marlene’s?

“This is Marlene’s home,” said Rudy. “She has her apartments in New York and in Paris, but when she is in California she lives here. Our daughter, Maria Riva, and our three grandchildren spent last Easter here.

Will Marlene live permanently at the ranch when she retires?

“Why should she retire? She keeps getting better all the time. I went to Las Vegas twice to see her show at the Sahara and was as proud of her as I was 35 years ago, when she was just beginning. Now she’s appearing in Paris again, and how they love her there! Am I still in love with her? More than ever.”

And despite the fact that Marlene seldom speaks of her husband to any of her intimates of business associates, the devotion in this fabulous marriage doesn’t seem one-sided. When Rudy had a heart attack in 1956 Marlene sped from Paris to Los Angeles to be at his side until he was out of danger. In 1944, before he bought the chicken ranch, Marlene nursed him through pneumonia in a Hollywood apartment. And for more than two decades, it was Marlene who made the vehement denials when the divorce rumours recurred.

“You do not consider the possibility that love might have something to do with our marriage!” she cried out to one interviewer. “I consider Mr Sieber the perfect husband and father.”

Marlene was 20 when, in 1924, she was sent from the Max Reinhardt school of dramatic art in Berlin to a film studio for an extra’s job. There she met Rudy, an assistant casting director, who advised her to put up her long blonde hair. She took his advice and won a part. She married him on May 13 of that year and became a hausfrau. Their daughter Maria was born in 1925 and Marlene went back to screen work and the stage.

She was appearing in a satirical stage revue when director Josef von Sternberg saw her and cast her in the role opposite Emil Jannings in The Blue Angel, which was being filmed in Germany. The movie catapulted Marlene to stardom when it was released in 1930, and von Sternberg brought her to Hollywood where Paramount Pictures signed her and, with von Sternberg’s guidance, she went into an orbit in which she’s still spinning.

But only a year later von Sternberg’s wife, Riza, after divorcing him, sued Marlene for “stealing” the director’s love. That’s when Rudy Sieber stoutly declared: “I know that the charge against my wife is utterly unfounded.”

The case never did reach court, and from that day until now, Rudy has never felt it necessary to invade the area spotlighted for his perennially spectacular wife.

[1933]

“I have never wanted publicity, and I don’t want it now,” he said. “What good would publicity have done me when I was an assistant casting director, or when I worked for Paramount in Paris, or when I dubbed foreign version films at 20^th Century-Fox in Hollywood? And what do I want with publicity now? I don’t need it to sell my eggs.”

Rudy began his chicken ranching in 1953 because he was “tired of living in big cities” and wanted seclusion and quiet. Now he has 9 000 chickens and employs several helpers. He’s highly regarded in the San Fernando Valley community and doesn’t want his desire for seclusion to be taken as meaning he’s a recluse.

“How can I be called a recluse? I go to visit my friend in Hollywood and Beverly Hills, and they come to visit me and Marlene comes here too, doesn’t she? Is that being a recluse?”

He basks in the radiation of his wife’s glamour as she suns herself in the ranch yard or slinks through the rooms of the bungalow which, for him, is reward enough for being “forgotten”.

Charles Marawood: Marlene Dietrich's "Boomerang" Baby

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".]

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 Interview: It's the Money I Work For! (1965)

(Thanks to the Crees Collection for sharing this interview with Marlene! The article likely dates from August 1965, when Marlene was doing a British concert tour.)

By Clive Hirschhorn

THE atmosphere round the theatre was thick with reverence. Though there were still two hours to go before Marlene Dietrich would emerge from the stage door after her performance that night, already a crowd of admirers had gathered. The doorman remarked to me that he couldn't remember when business had been so good — and his sentiments and awe were echoed by a young girl, who, with a rubber stamp bearing a facsimile of Miss Dietrich’s autograph, banged out the star’s name on dozens of photographs which would later be distributed to the audience. I was duly beckoned and, to the envy of her adoring fans, was escorted to the Number One dressing room where Marlene was waiting for me. She had just finished a matinee and was clad in a dressing-gown. She was tired — and not even the heavy make-up she was wearing could. disguise this fact; or hide the lines on her face or the fatigue in her eyes. La Dietrich, I discovered, was human after all.

GLAMOUR?

Why, at 61, I asked her, did she continue to work so hard? (Her engagement book is full for the next two years.)

“For  the money.” she said flatly.

I looked at her somewhat surprised. “Yes. For the money.” She repeated. “What else for ? ”

She leaned forward and picked up a publicity hand-out which advertised the dates of her future concerts — in Golders Green,  Edinburgh,  Manchester, Liverpool and Bristol.  She had just finished engagements in Brighton and Birmingham.

“Do you think this is glamorous? That this is a great life,  and that I do it for my health?  Well, it isn’t. It's hard work. And who would work if they didn't have to? 

Marlene Dietrich's New York Double Trouble (1939)

New York, 6 June 1939: Her heart belongs to Sammy! Arriving with an Afghan hound, one of the glamour boys of the dog world, is glamorous Marlene Dietrich, to whom we used to allude to as the "famous German movie star." Now Marlene, having been duly accepted as an American citizen, belongs to the US -- famous legs and all. In left rear behind Miss Dietrich is her husband, Rudolf Sieber, who will  sail with his wife for a visit to Europe on the Normandie this week.

13 June 1939: Absolutely quivering with indignation, Marlene Dietrich, svelte siren of the screen swept from the fashionable Monte Carlo Night Club in the wee hours of the morning today, June 13th -- a lady with a dress just like hers had turned the night sour for the film star.

It seems that Marlene was out on a farewell party prior to sailing for Paris. Flanked by Josef von Sternberg (director), Rudolf Sieber (husband) and Erich Maria Remarque (novelist), she made an almost regal entrance into the Monte Carlo in the shimmering white evening gown -- with hood, and sparkling wide belt. What should she spy there but Mrs Dudley Roberts Jr, New York socialite, gowned in an identical dress -- with hood and sparkling wide belt -- the coincidence was just too much for Marlene.

14 June 1939:There's a sad story behind Marlene Dietrich's gown which created such a furore in New York recently. It came to light in Hollywood today. That gown was created and styled right here in the film capital and was made especially to show off to better advantage the glamorous star's valuable collection of rubies.

But Miss Dietrich can neither wear the garment or rubies, for Uncle Sam seized both just the day before she sailed from New York for Europe as collateral pending settlement of a $ 284 000 income tax dispute. The story came from Howard Greer and Travis Banton, motion picture fashion designers, who created it for her before she departed from the film capital. There is only one copy of the gown and Marlene Dietrich owns it, said Greer today, which would tend to substantiate Miss Dietrich's statement  that she walked out of a New York cafe for a reason other than the fact that a society woman was supposed to be wearing a dress identically the same as her own. 

Above: Marlene Dietrich is talking with Federal men on the Normandie just before sailing. She was permitted to sail for Europe after surrendering $ 100 000 in jewels to guarantee $ 284 000 in her 1936-7 income taxes. The Normandie was delayed 44 minutes while  Federal men ordered her luggage to be taken off for inspection and then taken on the ship again.

Government agents appeared suddenly and, brushing aside autograph seekers had all her vacation finery -- except the modish clothes she wore -- removed to the pier. There were 34 pieces of luggage and they were shuttled from her suite to the pier so often they had the porters dizzy.

The actress' lawyer appeared in the crowd during the excitement and protested. John T Cahill, US attorney, showed up with four assistants and 20 federal agents went up the gangplank and then down   again.

Least perturbed in the little drama was Miss Dietrich herself. The German-born actress, who recently became an American citizen, said "It's all a riddle to me." She said the first she heard of it was this morning at her suite in the Sherry Netherland, where she had been staying since Monday, when she arrived from the West Coast.

She was dressed in a gray travel suit and a red fox fur cape. "This is the first time I am sailing as an American citizen," she said. "So far as I know I have paid my income tax in full each year, and it has been about the same amount, $ 105 000. As an alien, I had to show that my income tax was paid in order to get a sailing permit."

J B McNamara, deputy collector of internal revenue, explained that the government's claim was based on Miss Dietrich's earnings in England ... and that the government had no accounting of her British earnings. "We do not think Miss Dietrich is to blame," he added, "but her agent certainly has been lax."

(Compiled from photos and newspapers of the period.)

What The Dresser Saw

Marlene’s dresser, Gene Lovelle (married to the star’s guitarist, Chic Lovelle) first joined the Dietrich troupe  during its 1966 Warsaw season .

“There was no question of payment. Marlene would be paying my fares and hotels, and I would be together with my husband,” Gene later recalled. “With the enthusiasm of ignorance, I convinced myself that after years as a dresser helping little girls in and out of ballet costumes, I could cope with an international star.” Marlene had dismissed the Polish dresser that had been supplied – “I don’t want a strange dresser round me,  they stare so” – and proceeded to show Gene what would be expected of her.

In 1985, she shared memories of life on the road:

·         New York, 1967: ... at rehearsals she was very demanding and kept everyone on their toes. A violinist was ticked off for wearing short socks ... ‘ they come to see my legs, not yours.’

·         San Francisco, 1968: She liked her dressing room to be functional and sparsely furnished, but in San Francisco, it had been furnished and bedecked with beautiful antiques and rich brocades. She took one look and said to me: ‘Let’s move in next door,  honey,  who needs all this!’

·         Paris, 1973: Marlene excelled herself before one of the most exquisitely-dressed and sophisticated audiences we had ever seen. Among the celebrities ... who came backstage after the performance, was a very well-known female singer who, overcome and in tears at Marlene’s performance, embraced her. Marlene seemed equally moved. A moment later she turned to me and whispered,  ‘Who was that,  honey?’

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!'"

Is Dietrich Through? (2/2)

In their January 1933 edition the fan magazine, Photoplay, published an exclusive interview with Marlene by Ruth Biery. Dietrich's "startling statements" promised to answer the questions that "kept the public and studios agog". (We presented Part One of the interview on Monday.)

PART TWO: AN UNDERSTANDING HUSBAND

Her American life has not been happy. Her first year -- Mrs Von Sternberg's suit for alienation of affections. The suit was understandable from an wholly American viewpoint -- it was completely a puzzle from Marlene's European one. She had a husband. He understood. Why should not Mr Von Sternberg's wife do the same? she reasoned. Incidentally, I have known both Marlene and Von Sternberg since she first came and I have always said both in print and in person that Marlene's devotion has always been as she now explains it.


A mental and, to her, common sense one. Then -- the fight on "Blonde Venus". Von Sternberg did not want to direct it. The studio wished to make the story saccharine. He bolted. Richard Wallace was assigned as director. She bolted. You now know why. Von Sternberg really went back and directed that picture for the sake of Marlene. He hated it then -- he hates it now. And no man can do a truly great picture with a story which he hates.

And then -- the kidnapping threats for her baby. Any description of her suffering would sound like an exaggeration. That Marlene Dietrich has a mother complex, no American would question. To her, the extend of her love is is only as natural as her refusal to be directed by any man other than the one who bridged the screen chasm for her. The letters she received were made up of words clipped from newspapers to avoid trace of handwriting. People said it was a joke.

They continued for six weeks. Each new letter showed a new knowledge of her movements. Why had she hired detectives? Why had she taken her child to such and such a place the day before? Marlene Dietrich was close to a mad woman. Neither she nor her child even now stir in the open today without armed guards.

The bars on the windows of her home are inches thick.

Is Dietrich Through? (1/2)

In their January 1933 edition the fan magazine, Photoplay, published an exclusive interview with Marlene by Ruth Biery. Dietrich's "startling statements" promised to answer the questions that "kept the public and studios agog".

PART ONE: "PLEASE MAKE MR VON STERNBERG DO IT"

HOLLYWOOD is eagerly discussing Marlene Dietrich and her problems.


Her contract with Paramount is finished in February. Will she re-sign? Will she make pictures with other directors than Von Sternberg? Will she remain in this country or return to Europe as has been rumoured? That Maurice Chevalier gossip? What was behind the seeming unfriendliness between herself and Von Sternberg?

What was ll that fuss about the kidnapping of her daughter? Was this just another publicity racket?

Literally hundreds of curious, anxious questions.

Marlene has not granted an interview for seven months.

She has remained isolated behind her forbidden guard of nine detectives. Yes, I said NINE. Neither Marlene nor her daughter has moved without the protection of armed guards for many, many weeks. She had added what threatened to be an indefinite silence to her well-managed defense.

But now she has broken that silence. "It is right that the American people who have been kind enough to see my pictures should know and understand. It is right that I, myself, should tell them."

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.