Marlene: A Novel

by C. W. Gortner

  I trusted him entirely. He could make me a star.

  IV

  The offer arrived shortly before the shoot ended. I sat in my dressing room—actually, my dressing closet, for it was tiny—when von Sternberg arrived at the door.

  “Paramount wants to sign you to a two-picture deal,” he sneered. “The rats have spies on my set. They cabled Hollywood to say you are sensational, a rival to Garbo.” He eyed me. “I suppose you’ll accept. It must be trumpets in your ears, the idea that you can depose her.”

  “Since when has Garbo been my rival?” I asked, refusing to take his bait, even if I wanted to shout in joy. “But of course I’ll accept—if you will be my director.”

  He grunted, pretending indifference when he felt anything but. “I can ask. I have to return to that miserable town in any event and have nothing new lined up. Why not?”

  Paramount’s agent in Berlin drew up my contract. The UFA made a ruckus. I was under contract to them; to release me, they insisted Paramount must pay for an early termination clause. Von Sternberg didn’t stay for the negotiations. He was running late, over budget and out of time. He left for America before the final cut. Jannings was horrified. I was not. His magic was spent, imprinted on canisters of celluloid. Our director had exhausted himself.

  He was already bored with The Blue Angel.

  As the editing team wrangled the reels into a release version for the censors, I packed my bag and vacated the set. That world, which had been my entire existence, where I’d given birth to the woman who would define me, stood empty now, the echoes of tyranny dissipated.

  I had less than a month before the premiere and my date to set sail for Hollywood.

  WHITE GOWN. WHITE MINK. Platinum skin and hair. An emerald bracelet and matching necklace, like the one I’d admired years before, gifts from Uncle Willi to celebrate my success.

  The emeralds were paste of course, but it didn’t matter. I took to the curtain call like a newly minted goddess, bestowed with a bouquet of roses as the audience went wild, their applause and jubilant cries bathing me in justification. Did anyone notice the spray of violets pinned at my cleavage like a taunting corsage? If they did, no one mentioned it. Nobody cared.

  The Blue Angel was a hit.

  We had defied the censors—already kowtowing to moral rectitude imposed by the Nazi backlash against decadence—but the nervous UFA executives overlaid a Beethoven score on von Sternberg’s monstrous silent take of Rath’s demise, though nothing in the picture was remotely classical. He’d be enraged when he learned of it, but it was a minor setback in what otherwise promised to be a massive success.

  My name was suddenly everywhere. Before I’d even left the Gloria-Palast theater on the Kurfürstendamm, boulevard of my earliest aspirations and defeats, the UFA was begging me to stay and re-sign my contract with them, at whatever price I requested.

  “And miss meeting Garbo?” I said as the press blinded me with flashing bulbs and fans eager for autographs crammed the cordons separating them from my waiting car.

  I was taken to Uncle Willi’s house, where a celebratory party had been arranged. Rudi wasn’t there. His new job had taken him to Munich for a picture. He sent a telegram to congratulate me, and Tamara came in his stead, lovely in a pink satin gown, with Heidede at her side, grumpy and sleepy, a huge bow affixed to her curls (Mutti’s doing) that I yanked off at once, the sight of it reminding me of my school years in Schöneberg.

  “I’ll only be gone six months,” I told my daughter, cupping her chin. “I know you’ll miss me, but I’ll be back before you know it, my precious girl.”

  “I won’t miss you,” she retorted. “Mutti says you’re going away to please a gnome with delusions of grandeur.” As I stood there, astonished to hear such words come out of her six-year-old mouth, she turned away to bury her face in Tamara’s skirt.

  “She’s tired,” said Tamara. “I had a casting call today, so Josephine took her to housekeep and . . .” She sighed. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  I was distressed by Heidede spouting my mother’s venom, and suddenly doubt overshadowed my elation over the premiere and the offer from Hollywood. Was I doing the right thing, leaving my child and family behind for a country that wasn’t mine?

  “Perhaps I should stay,” I said. “The UFA wants to retain me. I could work here.”

  Tamara shook her head. “You must go. How can you not? Hollywood is where you belong. Von Sternberg is there; he’ll take care of you.”

  I wasn’t so confident. He’d take care of my career, but my well-being? Suddenly, his departure before the picture’s release seemed to me an omen.

  “It’s just last-minute nerves,” said Tamara. “You’ll be fine once you’re on the ship. And you mustn’t worry. I’m here. I’ll care for Heidede as if she were my own. You know how much Rudi and I love her.”

  “Yes.” I smiled weakly. I did know, and while reassuring, it did not give me confidence. My child was growing up without me, just as Mutti had said she would. I leaned over to kiss Heidede, who refused to say good-bye. Once I saw them to the car I’d hired to take them home, exhaustion washed over me. I was in no mood to celebrate.

  My trunks crammed with new outfits bought by the studio for my arrival were already loaded on my ship. At midnight, I was scheduled to take the last train to the dock at Bremerhaven for the five-day crossing. Thinking I’d slip upstairs to change and wipe off my makeup, I’d barely crossed the parlor when Jolie besieged me, giddy on champagne, her eyes glittering as she said, “I knew it. I told Willi from the moment I met you, she’ll astonish us all.”

  All of a sudden, I remembered. “I owe you a debt. And a fox stole.” Reaching into my beaded handbag, I extracted a fistful of marks. From counting out coins for tram fare, I was now walking around with more money than I knew what to do with. “Here. Whatever extra is left, have Uncle Willi save it for Heidede.”

  Her gaze fixated for a second on the cash in my hand. “You don’t have to.”

  “No, no. I always honor my debts. Sooner or later.” I softened my voice, seeing how downcast she looked. “Thank you for everything. I would never have made it this far without your encouragement. Please, take good care of my uncle Willi.”

  She bit her lip. I glanced behind us to where Willi was laughing with his theater friends, many of whom remembered my youth and how I’d been enthralled by their artistic conversations. As always, Willi was dressed to perfection, his mustachios waxed to points.

  “It’s not going so well between us,” Jolie said, bringing my gaze back to her. “Willi . . .” Her voice lowered. “Marlene, he’s—”

  “Yes,” I said. “I know. But he loves you, and that is something in this world.”

  Jolie sighed. “I suppose. You go,” she said vehemently, wrapping her arms about me and holding me close. “Be everything you were meant to be. Never give up, Marlene. We have this one life and we must live it to the fullest. Now, you are the one who inspires me.”

  I drew back. That fatigue I’d first noticed in her before Rudi and I wed had wilted her. She looked almost defeated. My uncle was a homosexual; she would not stay with him. It saddened me, both for her and for Willi. He could not declare himself and I doubted he ever would. He was a Felsing. The humiliation, for him, would be too great. He would lose this marvelous, eccentric woman out of dishonesty, making me glad that Rudi and I had not clung to our failing marriage but had behaved as adults and settled on an arrangement so we could stay together. Unhappiness was a terrible price to pay for conformity.

  I kissed Jolie again and went upstairs to prepare for my departure. I thought I would never see her again, and it saddened me that in saying good-bye to her, I was saying good-bye to my youth in Berlin.

  DESPITE THE ROUGH MARCH WEATHER that tossed the ship about like a toy, I found pleasant company onboard—Larry and Bianca Brooks, young owners of a theatrical costume company returning to New York after a long vacation abroad.

  Still desp
erate to persuade me, though I was halfway across the ocean, the UFA cabled me at considerable expense with notices coming in from the nationwide release of The Blue Angel. In need of diversion, I invited Bianca to my cabin to read my reviews.

  “‘She sings and performs common without being common. Altogether extraordinary,’ says the Berliner Börsen-Courier,” I quoted, setting my burgeoning scrapbook on Bianca’s lap. “And look here: The Licht-Bild-Bühne calls me ‘fascinating, with her narcotic face and exciting voice.’” I laughed. “From nobody to somebody. Such a difference does one part make.”

  I thought she’d appreciate it, as her husband was in the business and during our meals together in the dining hall, they’d plied me with questions when I told them Paramount had signed me. Now seated at her side on my stateroom couch, I watched her sift through the pages until she came upon some forgotten illustrations I’d purchased in Berlin years before, erotic sketches of women I’d intended to give to Gerda but hadn’t. I froze, anticipating her reaction. When she did not say a word, staring at them as if mesmerized, I said, “Exquisite, aren’t they? He’s a very talented artist, but for the life of me, I can’t remember his name.”

  I heard her draw in a quivering breath. “I fear you’ve made a mistake, Miss Dietrich.”

  “Oh?” Intrigued, I reached to my side table for a cigarette.

  She came abruptly to her feet. “Yes. A mistake. I’m not inclined that way.”

  I leaned back. “Which way would that be?” I blew out smoke, amused by her discomposure. “Surely you know that in Europe, we make love with whomever we like.”

  “In Europe, perhaps. But not in America,” she said, and she fled from my cabin.

  I sighed. Would I find America as tedious as she made it seem?

  REPORTERS ALERTED BY THE STUDIO, which had its financial headquarters in New York, mobbed my arrival as though I was a celebrity. It was my first demonstration of the studio’s power, summoning herds of journalists to the dock to report on someone they’d never heard of.

  I posed for them in my sable coat on my stack of trunks, answering a battery of inane questions. “How do you like America so far, Miss Dietrich?” they shouted.

  “How would I know?” I replied. “I’ve only been here ten minutes.”

  I was then taken by private car to my hotel. I had a few days to rest and intended to roam this astonishing high-rise city, albeit accompanied by the anxious studio-assigned publicist.

  Prohibition was in effect, but there were speakeasies with plenty of hooch, I found out, when a Paramount East Coast executive took me out for a night on the town. I had no idea what a speakeasy was until I realized it literally meant that: hidden places with bars that could be upturned and converted into dance floors, where one didn’t raise one’s voice lest it alerted the police. I found it absurd, forbidding people to do something they’d do anyway, and once I recovered from my overindulgence, I decided to sit for new head shots. The ardent executive’s compliments had fortified me more than the liquor; I wanted to present my best angles when I reached California. My profile, especially. I was still sensitive about my nose and uncertain about submitting to surgery. I wanted them to see that I knew my way around a camera.

  As I sat for the most expensive fashion photographer New York had to offer, ringing up a significant fee that I forwarded to the studio, my publicist must have been busy in return, for two days later a cable arrived from von Sternberg that bristled like the hairs on his forearms:

  NO ONE CAN TAKE YOUR PORTRAIT WITHOUT MY CONSENT. DESTROY ALL NEGATIVES. COME TO CALIFORNIA. AT ONCE.

  “Oh, my,” I said, turning to the studio escort, who looked pale. “Did I make a mistake?” My voice dripped with sarcasm, mimicking Bianca Brooks’s dismay in my cabin.

  “It is the protocol,” he said. “You can only be photographed under studio regulations.”

  “A pity.” I took up the folder of stunning black-and-white glossies of me in my Blue Angel tuxedo, gazing languorously at the camera. “But if the studio insists.”

  I signed each photograph in bright green ink, Love, Daddy Marlene, and had the hotel reception dispatch them to the UFA in Germany, for all the magazines and newspapers who had reviewed me. My American contract might bind me to studio regulations, but it said nothing about promoting myself in my own country.

  Of course I knew some of these magazines—which promptly reproduced my picture on the covers, splashed with the headline “Vati Marlene”—would make their way to Los Angeles.

  I wasn’t a star here yet. Reminding Paramount that Berlin waited for me with open arms couldn’t hurt.

  V

  California was as hot as an oven, with a vast blue bowl of a sky, and spiked with palm fronds and traffic fumes. Automobiles had become so commonplace in America, they’d eradicated the quaint horse and carriage that was still seen, albeit less and less, in Berlin. Here, everyone who could afford a motorcar took to the roadways dissecting the city like blackened arteries, without a decent metro in sight. Perched on its hillside pedestal, the block-letter Hollywood sign could be seen from almost everywhere in the city, the genesis of this sprawling town, its deity and scourge, luring thousands to try their luck before or behind the camera.

  I found it fascinating, so unlike the decaying grandeur of Europe. But I reminded myself not to form any attachment. I was here for two pictures. After that, who knew?

  Von Sternberg picked me up at the train station. This time, there was no fanfare. Looking tanned and rested, he took me in a chauffeured Rolls-Royce to the furnished apartment on Horn Avenue that the studio had rented for me, a short drive from the gilded gates of Paramount Studios on Marathon. Another car followed with my luggage.

  I’d only just removed my shoes and coat, sinking wearily onto a sofa draped with a leopard skin that made me think of Leni, when von Sternberg said, “You’ve a full day tomorrow. Makeup and lighting tests, followed by a photo session. I’ll supervise everything; we’ve assigned you the best makeup specialist in the studio, Dottie Ponedel. After that, we’ll shoot a publicity reel, Introducing Marlene Dietrich, for the sales reps.”

  I gazed at him through tired eyes. “Bring me a cigarette, please.” When he did, lighting it for me, I inhaled deeply. “Why was there no one at the station to greet me?”

  “I was there. Am I so unimportant?”

  “I meant no reporters.” Melancholy overcame me. I wondered what Rudi and Tamara were doing right now (probably sleeping, given the time change), and Heidede—did she miss me? I missed her. I missed Berlin, the rustling lindens on the Kaiserallee and the winged chariot above the Brandenburg Gate, the crowds lining up outside the cabarets on the Kurfürstendamm, and the smell of sawdust, perfume, and sweat mingling in the air as the show began.

  Von Sternberg scowled. “No one was there because your stunt in New York was not appreciated. The corporate offices heard all about your boozed-up evening with their smarmy honcho. And then sitting for that photographer. They burned up the wires, telephoning Schulberg himself, our production head, to ask why you were so intent on derailing their plans for you.”

  I sat upright, wincing at the crick in my neck from the three-day train ride. “That wasn’t my intention. It was just a night out and some extra photographs. For fun.”

  “You are not on holiday. You’re a new personality for Paramount and they’re banking on our collaboration. You have a contract. They’ve bought the American distribution rights for The Blue Angel, but they won’t release it until we make a successful picture for them first. Your salary is five hundred dollars a week—quite the sum for an actress who has done nothing yet to earn it. You belong to the studio now. You must do exactly as they say. That is their system.”

  I gave him a cool look. “Their system? Or yours?”

  “I am them. Schulberg is my boss. He approved my offer to import a new star who can give MGM and Garbo a run for their money. Paramount owns two thousand screens in America, as well as bicoastal studios and an int
erest in the Columbia Broadcasting System. They have the best talent in the business: W. C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, Claudette Colbert, Clara Bow, and Fredric March. Everyone works together from preproduction to premiere; it’s how these studios excel, through a unity of vision. This isn’t one of those seedy cabarets or low-budget studios you’re used to in Berlin. Defy Paramount and your career will be over before it’s begun.”

  I drew on my cigarette. Paramount had approved his offer. He’d been the rat on his own set. I should be flattered, seeing that he’d gone to such trouble to get me here. But I didn’t thank him, waiting until he looked ready to explode before I said, “Then I should get my beauty sleep, yes?”

  He glowered. “My apartment is down the hall. Do not go outside. The entire point is to veil you in mystery. I don’t want to hear another word about how much you miss your family. You should never have told those New York reporters that you’re ‘happily married.’ There are no happily married women of mystery.” He scoured me with his eyes. “And you must lose some weight. Your ass is enormous. Did you eat that entire ship on your crossing?”

  He marched out, to my relief. Melting into the sofa with its leopard pelt, I shut my eyes.

  In my entire life, I’d never been so homesick.

  “IF WE PLUCK YOUR BROWS HERE, at the outer corners,” said Dottie Ponedel as I watched in the bulb-lined mirror, “and here to heighten the arch, then pencil them in, it will enlarge your eyes.” She smiled as she expertly pricked with her tweezers. “See? Much better. You have marvelous eyes, with such deep lids. Ideal for all sorts of effects: smoky shadows, bright paint, long eyelashes. Here we call them bedroom eyes, Miss Dietrich.”

  “And my nose?” I asked, inspecting her handiwork. “Is it too . . . ?”

  “Too wide? I can see why you’d worry. The camera does tend to exaggerate our slightest imperfection. But I have a simple solution.” Taking a thin tube from her tray of cosmetics, she drew a nearly imperceptible silver line down the bridge of my nose.