Marlene Dietrich — movie goddess, war heroine, master of her image
“NOW WE all might enjoy seeing Helen of Troy as a gay cabaret entertainer, but I doubt that she could be one quarter as good as our legendary, lovely Marlene!”
That was Noel Coward introducing his dear friend Marlene Dietrich on the opening night of her London appearance at the Cafe de Paris in 1954.
By the time Noel introduced Marlene — whose career as a “gay cabaret entertainer” was still fairly new — she had been famous in America since 1930 and “The Blue Angel.” Prior to that, she was one of Berlin’s most well-known, indeed notorious, stage stars.
Dietrich would continue to fascinate the public well into the 1970s, when infirmity stopped her from maintaining concert work and her indelibly glamorous image. If longevity makes the greatest stars, Marlene is right up there with the greatest. But, of course, there were so many mysteries, fantasies, illusions wrapped around Dietrich.
Was she an actress or merely a mannequin? Was she a singer or an archstylist? Was she a beauty or a figure of total artifice? Did she crave men or women?
Few answers to these questions arose during Dietrich’s long life. She was never inclined to let the public in, and despite several massive biographies — including the deliciously mean-spirited tome written by her daughter, Maria Riva — Marlene remains marvelously enigmatic, but compellingly human.
Born Maria Magdalene Dietrich in 1901, the future movie goddess came from a well-to-do Berlin family.
Although young Marlene studied the violin and more serious aspects of music and theater, she became known as a chorus girl, and soon graduated to leading roles in various stage shows.
Berlin loved her legs and her languor, punctuated with an earthy girlishness. Berlin also loved her sexual ambiguity; she was linked to other female stars of the Berlin cabaret scene, even after she married Rudi Sieber and had a child, Maria.
Dietrich’s attitude toward her wedlock could be summed up in the Cole Porter ditty, “Always True to You (In My Fashion”).
In 1929, the esteemed movie director Josef von Sternberg caught one of Marlene’s stage performances. He was obsessed. He tested Dietrich for the role of the heartless, sluttish singer, Lola Lola in “The Blue Angel.”
“The Blue Angel” established Marlene Dietrich as a great star in Germany. Her English was good enough to dub the film for American release.
The Dietrich/von Sternberg collaboration would deliver six more films. The director seemed less interested in Dietrich the actress than he was compelled to enshrine and envelop her in veils, smoke and shadows. Critics complained that her vivacity was being drained, in favor of von Sternberg’s “vision” of her. Her acting was stiff, but she was undeniably fascinating.
However, they parted after 1935’s “The Devil Is a Woman” in which Dietrich gives an electrifying performance.
Dietrich rallied in 1939’s classic western “Destry Rides Again” with James Stewart. She was rowdy, bawdy, earthier — much of the old Berlin cabaret star was evident.
However, over the next few years, this image too began to pall, and Dietrich was again at a career crossroads.
To recover, she needed more than a new picture, she needed a cataclysm. It came in the form of World War II.
Dietrich had rebuffed Adolf Hitler’s offer to come back to Germany. She openly loathed Hitler and Nazis. She became an American citizen, raised war bonds and entertained troops stationed in the U.S.
After the war Billy Wilder offered her the role of a cabaret singer in Berlin, a Nazi sympathizer. At first Dietrich refused. But when the script of “A Foreign Affair” arrived, she could not refuse.
This acid, cynical comedy, which co-starred Jean Arthur, about postwar Germany offered Dietrich a great role and three magnificent songs. As an actress she had advanced significantly from her von Sternberg beginnings.
Dietrich gave performances of similar quality in “Stage Fright” and “Judgment at Nuremburg.”
Not that her film career mattered much. She had become a live performer who dazzled in her semitransparent Jean Louis gowns that gave the illusion of pristine firm flesh.
In time, only time could stop Dietrich!
Under her gowns, increasingly constricting, and her painful wigs and the inevitably heavier make-up, the mortal Dietrich was, well — mortal. She withdrew. She died in Paris, in the apartment she would not leave.
“Just a few cans of celluloid on the junk heap,” she said dismissively as movie star Monica Teasdale in “No Highway in the Sky.”
Perhaps. But what a glorious junk heap!
Dietrich — the one, the only, the incredible. Heloise
Dear readers: Today’s Sound Off is about afterChristmas decorations. The reader wrote: “I agree with Rita in Austin, Texas, who complained about stores setting up Christmas displays so early.
“She also might be interested to know that as the operation superintendent of a large chain department store, I had orders to clear out all decorations before opening for business on Dec. 26.
“So, the entire display crew plus some extras came to work at 4 a.m. to accomplish the task. Sadly,