by Donald Spoto
Praise for Blue Angel
“A sterling biography—this author’s take rings true.” —Liz Smith
“Balanced, discerning and sophisticated. You’ll never look at Dietrich or her films in quite the same way again.” —The Boston Sunday Globe
“This is a fabulous book that tells it all. Disentangling a dazzling and complicated life with understanding, wit and insight, Spoto’s book towers far above petty Hollywood tomes. His is not only a great biography but a provocative appraisal of sex and culture as well.” —Cosmopolitan
“A strong read, one of Donald Spoto’s best biographies.” —The Hollywood Reporter
“After a dozen books on Dietrich, Spoto’s fascinating biography is the fullest portrait of the actress and singer.” —The San Francisco Chronicle
“Blue Angel evidences extensive research. . . . Spoto goes further than previous biographers in naming sexual partners. . . . Spoto also seems to have penetrated farther behind Dietrich’s public persona than have other writers.” —Library Journal
“A singularly perceptive and well-written biography, skillfully interweaving Dietrich’s personal and professional lives.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Spoto is a biographer extraordinaire.” —The Guardian (London)
“Few people can imagine the effect Dietrich had on public taste. Spoto’s book will do much to remedy this ignorance.” —The Houston Post
“Real pleasure may be found in Blue Angel; it is a map through several layers of complexity and reveals more and more on each reading.” —Los Angeles Weekly
“Blue Angel exhibits [Spoto’s] greatest strength . . . as a keen analyst of movies. His explications, often scene by scene, of Dietrich’s work with her mentor, Josef von Sternberg, and with Alfred Hitchcock are incisive and exciting.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Spoto knows how to tell a lively story, and this one reflects the research and work that went into it.” —Associated Press / Special Features
“More intelligently than most movie-star biographers, Spoto extends our knowledge of the fun-house-nightmare world of show business.” —New York Magazine
“Spoto is no slapdash celebrity biographer out for a quick buck. He carries out detailed research and first-class detective work. Nearly all the material in Spoto’s book is new.” —The Daily Mail (London)
“Spoto intersperses Dietrich’s life with sober analyses of her film performances. This book offers affectionate, measured praise for a unique career and a heroic if self-centered life.” —The Observer (UK)
“Spoto’s book is a fascinating analysis of Dietrich as ‘her own self-generated product’—a triumph of persistence, image-manipulation and self-promotion over dumpiness and limited talent. . . . He makes a shrewd chronicler of her polymorphously prodigious sex life.” —Sight and Sound
“Spoto tells a moving tale.” —Daily Telegraph (UK)
ALSO BY DONALD SPOTO
Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis: A Life
The Hidden Jesus: A Life
The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock
The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures
Rebel: The Life and Legend of James Dean
Falling in Love Again: Marlene Dietrich (A Photo-Essay)
The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams
Stanley Kramer, Film Maker
Marilyn Monroe: The Biography
Camerado: Hollywood and the American Man
Diana: The Last Year
The Decline and Fall of the House of Windsor
Notorious: The Life of Ingrid Bergman
Madcap: The Life of Preston Sturges
A Passion for Life: The Biography of Elizabeth Taylor
Laurence Olivier: A Biography
Lenya: A Life
DONALD SPOTO
“What Am I Bid for My Apple?,” © 1930, Famous Music Corporation.
“I Couldn’t Be Annoyed,” © 1932, Famous Music Corporation, renewed 1959, Famous Music Corporation.
“Johnny,” © 1933, Famous Music Corporation, copyright renewed and reassigned to Famous Music Corporation.
“Illusions,” © 1948, Famous Music Corporation, renewed 1975, Famous Music Corporation.
“Laziest Gal in Town,” © 1920, Harms, Inc., USA.
First Cooper Square Press edition 2000
This Cooper Square Press paperback edition of Blue Angel is an unabridged republication of the edition first published in New York in 1992. It is reprinted by arrangement with the author. Copyright © 1992 by Donald Spoto
Book design: Marysarah Quinn
Insert design by Anne Ling
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
Published by Cooper Square Press,
An Imprint of Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
150 Fifth Avenue, Suite 911
New York, New York 10011
Distributed by National Book Network
The Doubleday edition of this book was catalogued as follows by the Library of Congress:
Spoto, Donald, 1941–
Blue angel : the life of Marlene Dietrich / Donald Spoto.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Dietrich, Marlene. 2. Entertainers—Germany—Biography. I. Title.
PN2658.D5S59 1992
791.43'028'092—dc20
[B] 92-11031
ISBN: 978-0-8154-1061-4
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
for Kirtley Thiesmeyer,
with gratitude deep and true
“Iron shapes iron, and friend shapes friend.”
PROVERBS 27:17
Acknowledgments
IN 1984, NOT LONG AFTER I COMPLETED THE FINAL draft of a biography of Tennessee Williams, I decided to prepare a short book on the career of Marlene Dietrich. Published the following year under the title Falling in Love Again, it was never intended to be a complete life story but rather a reflective essay with photos on her various film roles. But during the research I was fascinated by the life behind the work, and so I began to dig deeper. Thus Blue Angel: The Life of Marlene Dietrich has taken shape over eight years, even as other books were begun and published.
Biographers (perhaps preeminently among practitioners of the writer’s craft) owe much to the practical assistance of others. En route to publication, throughout Europe and America, I was the fortunate recipient of kind and generous help from friends and from strangers who quickly became friends.
Crucial interviews relative to the life of Marlene Dietrich were granted by the late Rupert Allan, Robert Anderson, Pierre Barillet, Leonard Blair, Vivien Byerley, Barrie Chase, Alexander H. Cohen, Robert Colbaugh, Frederick Combs, the late Cheryl Crawford, Laurence Evans, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Dean Goodman, Ethel Grand, the late Alfred Hitchcock, Harry Horner, Jean Howard, Hilary Knight, Stanley Kramer, Stefan Lorant, Jean Louis, Col. Barney Oldfield, USAF (Ret.), the late Lotta Palfi-Andor, Eileen Palmer, Hildy Parks, Cesar Romero, Maximilian Schell, Nicholas von Sternberg, Peter White and Billy Wilder.
Librarians and archivists round the world were without exception unfailingly helpful as I pored through documents. Especial gratitude is due Angela Singleton, at the British Broadcasting Service/Data Enquiry Service; the staff at the Billy Rose Theatre Collecti
on of the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center; Alan Braun and Gladys Irvis at the library of the American Film Institute; the staff of the British Film Institute; and the personnel of the Berlinische Galerie (Berlin), the Deutsches Literaturarchiv/Schiller Nationalmuseum, the Süddeutscher Verlag (Munich), the Serkis Film-archiv, Berlin, and the Akademie der Künste Berlin.
Once again, Marvin Eisenman, one of the world’s most knowledgeable film archivists, enabled me to see Dietrich films that were otherwise virtually impossible to locate. His gracious help was invaluable.
Karin Brettauer very generously gave me access to (and permission to quote) important family papers, the unpublished memoirs of her aunt, Grete Mosheim. These lively documents by a noted German actress who knew and worked with Dietrich in the 1920s were, I soon discovered, indispensable for a fuller understanding of my subject’s early life and career.
Assistance in translating from the German various particularly formidable papers, letters and documents was cheerfully and patiently provided by Dr. Jon Zimmermann, professor of German at the California State University at Fullerton; by Henriette Fremont; and by Annemarie Moore and Nicholas Vazsonyi.
In Honolulu, Kim Reineman provided warmly supportive hospitality at his home, where I wrote portions of this book; he also read several chapters of the first draft and made incisive suggestions.
Irene Mahoney, who is a highly respected biographer, playwright and historian (and a dear friend for over forty years), urged me to reconsider some vital matters after she read the first several chapters; her counsel was well taken. When she then had to resume her own several projects round the world, another gifted writer gave me generous and tangible proof of his abiding friendship: the playwright, producer and screenwriter Mart Crowley read the completed first draft of my typescript, raised many important issues for my deliberation, corrected several important matters of fact and in more ways than I can detail improved both the content and tone of Blue Angel. And Douglas Alexander, my editorial assistant since 1988, again applied his considerable critical skills to every stage of the book’s research, and his comments as I was writing it. I salute his keen mind and abiding loyalty.
At Doubleday, I was fortunate indeed to have Shaye Areheart for my editor, for she is a keen-eyed, dexterous and prudent guide through the thickets of a book’s final preparation for publication. Shaye also became a good friend, and I am enormously grateful for her wit, her intelligence and her confidence in me and my work. Her associates, Bruce Tracy and Scott Moyers, cheerfully dispatched numerous everyday matters, always facilitating the author’s tasks and thus his life.
Likewise in London. From the first day, Mark Barty-King and James Cochrane at Bantam were enthusiastic for this book; they, too, made important editorial emendations and, like their New York colleagues, added leavening friendship to professional contributions. It is difficult for me to imagine, with such a team of international collaborators, that there may somewhere be a writer more fortunate than myself.
But the litany of saints continues: for almost fifteen years I have been represented by my dear friend Elaine Markson, who is ever the most vigilant and attentive agent, a woman of honor as of humor, endlessly indulgent with me, as alert for my contentment as for my career. Elaine’s associates—Geri Thoma, Karen Beisch, Sally Wofford, Caomh Kavanagh and Lily Zivkovic—are loyal and spirited colleagues, and I am grateful to them each and all for their many kindnesses.
THE DEDICATION PAGE OF BLUE ANGEL BEARS THE name of an esteemed and trusted friend who came into my life in 1987, soon after I moved to the West Coast from the East. Kirtley Thiesmeyer is my attorney—and ever so much more. He is a daily counselor in matters of contracts and career, but he is also a cherished comrade whose concern, support and gentleness of spirit enrich my life in more ways than he can ever know. I respect his integrity, just as I learn constantly from his probity and patience, his good humor and his courage. Additionally, he and his wife Dee have countless times extended to me the warmth of their home and included me within the circle of both their family and their friendships. In testimony of my love and appreciation, I offer this book to Kirtley, a small enough return for all he gives me.
D.S.
Los Angeles: January 1992
Contents
1: FEBRUARY 1978
2: 1901–1920
3: 1921–1926
4: 1926–1929
5: 1929–1930
6: 1930
7: 1931–1932
8: 1933–1935
9: 1935–1936
10: 1937–1940
11: 1941–1944
12: 1944–1945
13: 1945–1949
14: 1949–1953
15: 1953–1956
16: 1957–1960
17: 1960–1973
18: AFTER 1973
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Want to buy some illusions,
Slightly used, second hand?
They were lovely illusions,
Reaching high, built on sand.
They had a touch of Paradise,
A spell you can’t explain:
For in this crazy Paradise,
You are in love with pain.
Want to buy some illusions,
Slightly used, just like new?
Such romantic illusions—
And they’re all about you.
I sell them all for a penny,
They make pretty souvenirs.
Take my lovely illusions—
Some for laughs, some for tears.
—“Illusions,” by Frederick Hollander,
sung by Marlene Dietrich in A Foreign Affair
CARLOTTA: Time doesn’t exist.
PONDELIÈVRE: Perhaps so, but mirrors exist.
—JEAN ANOUILH, Cher Antoine
1: February 1978
FEW PEOPLE IN OR OUT OF THE FILM INDUSTRY found it easy to believe producer Joshua Sinclair when he announced to the press, late in 1977, that Marlene Dietrich was about to break her retirement and self-imposed isolation within her Paris apartment. She had, Sinclair continued, agreed to appear on screen in her first speaking role in eighteen years, in the German-English film Just a Gigolo, with rock star David Bowie. Lonely for precisely the human contact she paradoxically but insistently rejected, she also found irresistible a salary of 250,000 for two half-days of work in a Paris studio, where the sets for her scene were transported from Berlin.
On a bitterly cold morning in February 1978, she arrived on time for work, “her jaw set and her shoulders hunched with determination,” as an eyewitness recalled. Dietrich walked slowly, unsteadily, because of her failing eyesight, clinging constantly to the arm of makeup artist Anthony Clavet. She looked, quite simply, like a wizened old lady.
Two hours later, her makeup painstakingly applied, she emerged from a makeshift dressing room wearing a costume of her own design: a wide-brimmed black hat with a delicate but strategically concealing veil, shiny black boots, white gloves and a black skirt and jacket—everything just right for her brief appearance as the Baroness von Semering, manager of a ring of Berlin gigolos just after World War I. Director David Hemmings, producer Sinclair and a small crew awaited, and in a few moments one of her two brief scenes was easily photographed.
Next morning, Dietrich returned for the more difficult second task—to sing the film’s title song, which was to be heard near the end of the picture. “I will sing one chorus of that horrible old German song in two seconds flat,” she told Hemmings and Sinclair. Everyone stood by nervously, for it was uncertain she had the strength or the breath to fulfill the promise.
But an astonishing transformation then occurred, attested by all who were present in the studio that wintry day. First she was photographed in close-up, the hat and veil deliberately almost hiding her eyes as she stood to one side of the set, an empty hotel dining room. Then she walked—cautiously but unaided—toward pianist Raymond Bernard, and standing proudly, she began to sing.
Far from offering the perfunctory delivery of a song she disliked, Marlene Dietrich sang with heartrending simplicity:
Paid for every dance, selling each romance,
Every night some heart betraying.
There will come a day youth will pass away,
Then what will they say about me?
When the end comes, I know,
They’ll say “Just a gigolo,”
And life goes on without me.
Nothing she had done on stage or screen over a period of sixty years could have prepared witnesses that day (or viewers of Just a Gigolo since then) for her astonishing rendition of this simple confessional song. On the words “youth will pass away,” there may be heard a tremor of sadness in her voice that was without precedent in any prior recording or theatrical appearance.
And when she came to “life goes on,” the voice became plangent, almost a whisper as she managed, to poignant effect, an octave’s span. In only one take, the scene and the song were captured forever. There was a moment of reverential silence round her, and then the bystanders broke into applause; many of those who knew her films, recordings and live stage appearances could be seen brushing away tears.
Unable to see them across the bright studio lights, Marlene Dietrich, in her seventy-seventh year, nodded and found her way back to the cramped dressing room. An hour later she was alone again, back at her home on the fashionable Avenue Montaigne, just opposite the grand Plaza-Athénée Hotel. Except for visits to doctors and hospitals, she never left this apartment until her death from kidney and liver failure in her ninety-first year, on May 6, 1992.
2: 1901–1920
WHEN PRUSSIA’S KING WILHELM I WAS PROclaimed the first Kaiser of Germany in January 1871, his capital in Berlin became the new Empire’s government center. For centuries merely a provincial town flanked by smaller villages (Lichtenberg, Friedenau, Wilmersdorf, Charlottenburg, Schöneberg), Berlin grew swiftly and by 1901 had absorbed numerous suburbs, its population of one and a half million spread over 350 square miles. Real estate was in constant development as railways expanded, construction companies thrived and banks and insurance firms prospered. The city was thus a vast cosmopolitan center, alive with every kind of commercial, creative and social expansion.