Marlene '59



Marlene Dietrich at the Sahara Hotel, 1959.

 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.)

See Marlene's December 1959 French TV appearance as part of a charity appeal.

Read more about Marlene's 1959 Brazilian tour.

When Baryshnikov & Dietrich Met on Business

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!