Earl Wilson's Vintage Gossip Bites: The Great Granny

Excerpts from syndicated gossip columnist, Earl Wilson's 1970s items about Marlene. (Also see his earlier Broadway Bytes!)

• Marlene Dietrich was enthusiastic about Katharine Hepburn's performance in Coco. "She's lengthening the career of all us ingenues,"  Marlene laughed... (11 March 1970)


• Marlene Dietrich now anticipates becoming a great-grandmother... (3 August 1970)


• Marlene Dietrich, opening at the Playboy Plaza Hotel in Miami Beach, noticed the young people in the audience and cracked, "I wish I'd memorized a medley from Hair". (22 February 1971)


• Marlene Dietrich's slenderizing lunch at Inn of the Clock: Asparagus in vinegar, plus a vitamin pill. (21 March 1971)


• Marlene Dietrich is reported receptive of offers to do TV commercials. Agent Ken Greengrass says everybody wants her. (5 June 1972)


• Marlene Dietrich and the Richard Burtons are angeling Alexander Cohen's Broadway play 6 Rms Riv Vu... (16 August 1972)
  


• Marlene Dietrich and Rudolf Sieber will celebrate their golden wedding anniversary May 13 (that's 50, honey). (17 April 1974)


• Marlene Dietrich goes into court in England this month in the big legal entanglement with producer Alexander H. Cohen over their TV special. Cohen asks big damages from the glamorous grandmother over things she allegedly said. If Marlene arrives in court looking ill from a recent fall, it could be a scene from Camille and a field day for the press. (2 April 1976)


• Marlene Dietrich's doctor said she's ill and she got a postponement in the lawsuit brought by producer Alexander H. Cohen in London against remarks attributed to her about her TV show he produced. (26 April 1976)

Earl Wilson's Vintage Gossip Bites: The Broadway Edition

At The Last Goddess, we devour good gossip; below are some tasty morsels from New York-based Earl Wilson's syndicated  column, written at the time of Marlene's two Broadway triumphs in 1967 and 1968:

MONTREAL -- Maurice Chevalier, "a very happy old man" in his own words, delivered himself of the provocative opinion here the other day that "Marlene Dietrich had the guts that Greta Garbo never had" in continuing her career and that Garbo "must not be very gay now not working." ... "I don't approve of Garbo not working," Chevalier said. "she got so scared because something she did went wrong, and she didn't dare to come back, and she has refused everything. If she had kept working she would still be the great Garbo, whereas now Dietrich is greater than Garbo. She would have had to take older parts so she would be the great old lady of the screen. It is better to be a great old lady than just a souvenir." Chevalier was sure that Marlene -- "who has a lot of guts and it's surprising to find guts in one so feminine" -- will be a big hit in her one-woman singing, dancing show which, he pointed out, "is not her profession, but a new one for her". (5 August 1967)

• Marlene Dietrich insists upon a special stage door watchman for her one woman show, to protect a gown allegedly costing $ 50,000. Advance word is that she's so good and lovely, that "she performs for an hour and 20 minutes, then takes bows for 40 minutes". (9 October 1967)

• Marlene Dietrich was escorted to El Morocco the other morning by Lord Snowdon, Princess Margaret's husband who is here on business, and Alexander Lieberman of Vogue, and Mrs Lieberman. For supper (or breakfast) they had scrambled eggs with red wine. Several beautiful woman such as Mrs Pat Uchitel were there, and I asked what they noticed. They replied, "Marlene's figure." ... "Isn't she TOO thin?" asked somebody near me ... "A woman," they shrieked, is NEVER too thin!" (Is that right?) (24 October 1967)

• Marlene Dietrich rejected a 50Gs-a-week offer from Miami Beach Deauville, "but I'd like to vacation there". (18 November 1967)

• Marlene Dietrich told the Billy Reeds she'll go into white tie and tails again when she does Die Fledermaus in Vienna next summer. (19 November 1967)

• Marlene Dietrich shelved a return to NY -- but may play Osaka, Japan, Fair in the mid-1970s. (25 January 1968)

•  The Marlene Dietrich triumphal return had some light moments. The "white mink" floor-length coat -- or was it ermine? -- turned out to be swans' down (from the belly of a swan), and it was gorgeous, and I may start breeding swans ... Producer Alexander H. Cohen was funny when I mentioned to him that one bouquet-thrower, who also threw love beads, which Marlene promptly put on, was working both aisles, flinging flowers from one side to the other, and was later seen backstage. "Those flowers cost me a lot of money," joked Producer Cohen, "and Marlene won't let me use them twice." Marlene wore a Jean Louis silk net gown with bugle beads and crystals -- and now jewelry -- and as she took her short little hobble-skirted steps across the stage, bowed the deepest, prettiest bow in history, and waived from the parted red curtains, we thought she is the greatest showman of our time. (10 October 1968)

Dietrich's Producer Cancels Their Friendship

by Earl Wilson, 22 January 1973

NEW YORK, N.Y - Marlene Dietrich's biggest booster in this part of the world, Producer Alexander Cohen, has broken off their very luctrative friendship. He has dropped the glamorous but tempramental grandma from his list of pals.

"I have no time for her whatever," he told me quite bluntly.

He was angry because she made uncomplimentary remarks in advance about his TV special starring her, for which she got $250,000. He was also heated up because she tiffed with the press, alienating most of those who wrote about her.

"Over the six years when she did two one-woman performances in New York and went on tour, I showed up in every city to be of help," Cohen said. "The way that she treated me was no way to treat a friend.

"I have no defense for the things she said to the press," Cohen added. "I have no quarrel with the press - it is only with her highness." Cohen had thought of bringing her back for a third Broadway run but that's dead now. He said, "She's too much trouble."

While her TV show got some excellent reviews, Cohen said her slighting remarks about it cost him some big sales in Europe. "Does Miss Dietrich know your feelings about her?" I asked. Cohen, who sent her champagne, flowers and caviar just a few weeks ago, said: "She certainly does!"