Marlene Dietrich, University Lecturer?

Marlene Dietrich, Hotel Carlton, Biarritz, 1945?

If a Welsh warrior can metamorphose into a demigod king with a Round Table and an Excalibur, what could a Prussian girl from a good military family one day become? Much of Marlene Dietrich's life isn't yet a century old, yet research and memories about even the briefest of its interludes can muddle what must have once been solid facts into a slurry of legends. One of these moments in Dietrich's life includes her time at Biarritz during the tail end of 1945, where she was--perhaps--a university lecturer?

During 1945 and 1946, the Biarritz American University (BAU) educated G.I.s not in traditional classrooms but in the seaside resort town's hotels and villas, a much deserved respite to help these troops reintegrate into civilian life after having survived World War II. As if the luxurious locale wasn't enough, stars such as Dietrich reportedly made appearances at BAU to lecture and perform, leaving indelible impressions on the war hero students that sometimes veered toward the outrageous.

In his I Slept With Marlene Dietrich: A Tell-All Memoir, Murray Bromberg claimed to have shrimped Dietrich in Biarritz. Furthermore, he gossiped that Dietrich carried on her affair with Major General James Gavin while there. If any kernel of truth is in Bromberg's dirt, could he have possibly misheard the name of Dietrich's paramour? In the December 11, 1945 issue of the Floridan newspaper, St. Petersburg Times, there was a blurb about Dietrich and Jean Gabin (that's "Gabin" with a "b," not "Gavin" with a "v"!) serving on a judging panel at the BAU Drama & Film School. Could Dietrich have possibly juggled the affections of both men in such a small town?

As one should expect in anything Dietrich-related, some of Bromberg's facts don't quite align with those of other sources. While Bromberg stated that Guthrie McClintic and Katherine Cornell ran BAU's drama department and that Dietrich was to stay at the Hotel Miramar and teach makeup to female students for two weeks, David A. Crespy wrote in Richard Barr: The Playwright's Producer that it was Albert McCleery who had secured Dietrich as a faculty member of the university's Theatre and Radio Arts Branch. As an aside, was this the same McCleery who had contributed to the screenplay for The Lady is Willing and who had helped find Dietrich's mother in Berlin? Alvin Epstein also remembered McCleery's connection to BAU and Dietrich, pointing out that that McCleery, a lieutenant colonel, was the head of the university's drama department. Surprisingly, Epstein noted that Dietrich did indeed teach makeup of all subjects!

Marlene Dietrich, Hotel Carlton, Biarritz, 1945?

Others made no mention of any maquillage, such as Hervie Haufler, who described how Dietrich had "lectured drama students on acting," sang, and played her trusty singing saw, the singing and singing saw playing confirmed by Merrill Brockway in his book, Surprise Was My Teacher, in which he added that Dietrich did so in a gold lamé gown with army boots. Nathan Shoehalter remarked on Haufler's feature that he had "met and hugged Marlene Dietrich in a mess line at the Hotel Eugenie," an accommodation now known as the Hôtel du Palais. Please be aware that I am supplying Shoehalter's comment from an archived version of the HistoryNet page because the current page seems to have scrubbed the article of its comments, an unfortunate loss given that this one was a personal account that only enriches history.

Positioning itself at the threshold of fact and fiction, Roy Arthur Swanson's novel/memoir Rain and Darkness included a description of Dietrich serving cake after an all-BAU lunch held at the Hotel Carlton in mid-December 1945, which I believe may be more truthful than Bromberg's fanciful tales. According to Swanson, Dietrich had a "perfectly smooth complexion" yet "stiff, straw-like [...] obviously dyed yellow hair." Could the photos in this very post be from that occasion, and could Swanson be in one of them?

Not everyone at BAU who reminisced about Marlene was an American soldier or a student. Some lucky British civilian secretaries had the opportunity to join the university's staff, such as an Angela Vivian who remembered Dietrich there as one of the stars who had taught and entertained. Vivian had this to say about Dietrich: " She stayed a while and we got to know her well. She was natural and friendly. We pinched ourselves now and again."

Despite all these recollections, most of Dietrich's biographers overlooked her time at Biarritz. Steven Bach wrote that she had gone to the town to lecture for six weeks after visiting her mother in Berlin and had returned to Berlin after learning of her mother's death on November 6, 1945. David Bret also summarized Dietrich's actions more or less in this same order, albeit in less detail. In both his books, Leslie Frewin merely stated that Dietrich had lectured on films. Bach seems to have got the date of Frau von Losch's death inaccurate and doesn't have the time period during which Dietrich lectured quite right, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Aside from all her contributions that raised the morale of Allied soldiers during WWII, Dietrich's efforts after WWII also deserve recognition, especially now that we are aware of issues such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Marlene Dietrich, Hotel Carlton, Biarritz, 1945?

Indeed, a veteran known only as "Le" acknowledged the effects of PTSD despite living in such a lush setting as Biarritz, yet he also shared fond memories and potential information sources that add brush strokes to the picture of Dietrich's time there. Le related how, in the student newspaper, The BAU Banner, there was an announcement of Dietrich's appearance, which had been postponed due to her mother's death. When Dietrich arrived around Christmas of 1945, Le was blessed to hear her sing, and he waltzed with her at the Hotel Miramar. If anyone has any copies of The BAU Banner, please don't hesitate to share any notices or articles in it about Dietrich.

Incidentally, news of Dietrich's postponement also appeared in mainstream news. A brief November 17, 1945 New York Times item entitled "Miss Dietrich to Rest" cited Marlene as being "too tired to return to Hollywood" and stated that her mother's death nixed her plans to join BAU's faculty, but that was only temporary.

Dispelling the notion that Dietrich rested much at all during this time, the Deutsche Kinemathek's Marlene Dietrich Collection Berlin (MDCB) contains documents from Dietrich's estate that clearly delineated the scheduled activities of Dietrich's visit to Biarritz. In a letter dated November 13, 1945 to Dietrich at Hotel Claridge, Paris, Brigadier General Samuel L. McCroskey, the Commandant of BAU, invited her to the school at the suggestion of its Theater & Radio Arts Department to be "a guest artist and lecturer." A letter dated December 3, 1945 to Dietrich from John F. Freund detailed her orders to travel to Biarritz on December 7 for about a week, which would have been about a month after her mother's demise and therefore an example of her unparalleled professionalism. How many of us would be strong enough to make such an effort to raise others' spirits when faced with such a difficult and recent personal loss?

Still more incredible, MDCB boasts a memo dated December 8 [?], 1945 that listed Dietrich's tentative teaching and lecture schedule as follows (bracketed content my own):

Monday 10 December 1945 
 0800 - 1000 hours: Lecture to "Motion Picture Analysis and Techniques" Class. University Theater. (Pf. [?] Margolis [The Herbert F. Margolis who mentioned Dietrich's BAU work in a July 14, 1946 New York Times article called "GI Joe Studies Movies"?].
1600 hours: Open lecture to entire University. University Theater.
Tuesday 11 December 1945
1020 hours: Lecture to "Elementary Acting" class. Room 62, Biarritz Salins Hotel. (Miss K. Konald)
1330 hours: Combined lecture to: [1] Motion Picture Production Class (Capt. W.D. Boggess) [2] Advanced Acting Class (Capt. A.J. Cefaratti) [3] Symposium, Modern Theater (Lt. Col. A.K. McCleery). Room 62, Biarritz Salins Hotel.

Provided that Dietrich didn't stray from these subjects, this schedule supports the essence of what Dietrich did as a BAU lecturer according to various accounts, with the exception of teaching makeup, although that subject very well may have been discussed during any of these classes. The name of BAU's dramatic department and the names of those running it varied from source to source, as did the dates of Dietrich's time there, but the gist remained the same--Marlene Dietrich truly was a university lecturer, even if for a couple of days! Given Dietrich's expertise in her craft, she could have made another career out of lecturing, just as Josef von Sternberg did at UCLA. Of course, that wasn't an option she seems to have ever again explored, but at least she dipped her toes into it as part of her many postwar achievements.

Many thanks to the following for helping me find crucial documents and photos for this piece: Werner Sudendorf, Silke Ronneburg, and Tobias Tak.