Marlene: A Novel
Page 24
To our surprise, Morocco was a hit. Critics hailed me as “a seductive rival to Garbo,” which thrilled the studio. When I got the call from Schulberg himself that the picture had broken box-office records, he offered an immediate contract renewal, doubling my salary along with the stipulation that von Sternberg would continue to direct me. He also offered a spacious Mediterranean-style villa, paid for by the studio, in Beverly Hills.
I had just become Paramount’s new female star.
My next picture, Dishonored, was rushed into production. Kept busy from dawn to dusk with fittings for costumes by the studio’s premier couturier, Travis Banton, and publicity shoots, I was permitted studio-organized evenings at the Cocoanut Grove or Club New Yorker, escorted by several of their upcoming male stars, although I found enough spare time to continue my dalliances with Gary.
I had everything I’d worked for so long to achieve. I was famous, regaled wherever I went. I earned more than enough money to support my family; even my manufactured duel with Garbo, stoked incessantly by the studio press, ceased to bother me, for I’d accomplished as much as she had in the same span of time. I might not be deemed worthy of coveted dramatic roles yet, but those would come. I’d hone my skills and master my craft. No actress would know more than me about filmmaking. I would be an asset, a tool, von Sternberg’s willing marionette. I had only just begun to explore my potential.
Yet instead of reveling in it, all I wanted was to see Berlin again.
SCENE FIVE
GODDESS OF DESIRE
1931–1935
“THEY SAY VON STERNBERG IS RUINING ME. I SAY, LET HIM RUIN ME.”
I
Dishonored was about a widowed Viennese streetwalker recruited to spy during the war. She falls for a Russian agent and is betrayed, then shot to death by a firing squad. With a complete script, Schulberg mandated that we finish the shoot in under two months, so he could capitalize on my success and keep audiences begging for more.
He was wrong. Perhaps because it was rushed, my second picture did not fare as well as Morocco. After being inundated with initial publicity about me, the new face at Paramount, audiences had flocked to see my first film; now, they weren’t so curious anymore. Nevertheless, a few perceptive critics lauded my performance and Schulberg affirmed his trust in my collaboration with my director, stating that no picture was doing very well at the moment.
Von Sternberg chose to be insulted. “All they care about in this town is profit,” he said, tossing our notices aside. “It’s a better picture than Morocco, and you’re better in it, but as they don’t understand it, who cares? America did not suffer as we did during the war.”
He was restless, tired and fed up with the studio oversight. He needed a rest. We both did. We’d been working nonstop for over two years, shooting three pictures in a row. My new contract wasn’t due to start until the spring. With Dishonored finished and Christmas upon us, I took advantage of the lull, hiring staff to prepare my new house while I departed for Morocco’s London premiere, followed by a long-awaited reunion in Berlin with my family.
RUDI, TAMARA, AND HEIDEDE GREETED ME as I disembarked. I rushed to embrace them while photographers yelled out my name. My family looked well; Heidede would soon turn eight, and I was astonished by how much she’d grown, her long legs, messy curls, and defiant expression reminding me of myself at her age.
“Did you miss me?” I asked her as the studio-assigned chauffeur evaded the clamoring reporters and drove us via side streets to the flat. “I missed you so much.” I held her close until she wriggled away, looking askance at me, as though she wasn’t sure who I was.
“Children forget,” Tamara reassured me that evening, after Heidede was put to bed and we sat at the table. Tamara had made a gloriously fattening supper of roast pork loin, potatoes, rye bread with butter, and sauerkraut. I hadn’t eaten so well since I’d left. “But she’ll come around. You have changed. She doesn’t recognize you.”
“I haven’t changed that much.” I took a swig of my beer and deliberately let out a burp.
“Evidently not.” Rudi grinned. He seemed content. He was working full time now, employed by the UFA and Paramount as an associate producer, in charge of the American studio’s distribution in Germany. I got him the job, lobbying Schulberg to hire him; the studio had agreed, no doubt because keeping Rudi busy would preempt his appearance on my doorstep in Beverly Hills with our daughter. Paramount was still trying to hide my marriage, offsetting my unwitting remarks in New York with a barrage of fabricated gossip in Louella Parsons’s newspaper column about the idol du jour spotted on Miss Dietrich’s arm at the Cocoanut Grove.
“I’m still Lena,” I said. “Dietrich is an illusion. Lighting and makeup.”
“She’s more than that.” Tamara touched Rudi’s shoulder before she started to clear the table. “You’re so slim and stylish. And that fur coat—it’s lynx, isn’t it? Must cost a fortune.”
“Take it.” As her eyes went wide, I said, “Whatever you like in my luggage, you can have. It’s just clothing. The studio can buy me more.”
“Oh, thank you, Marlene.” Tamara floated out with a smile on her face.
I gazed at Rudi. He said, “You’ve just made her very happy. Everything here is so expensive, she can’t afford brand-new clothes.”
“Well, she makes you happy. She loves and cares for Heidede. It’s the least I can do.”
“You do more than enough by sending us money. You don’t have to give away your wardrobe. Tamara adores you, no matter what.”
Smiling, I lit a cigarette. He might look well, but I detected a reserve in him, as though he was holding something back. “Everything okay in the new job? Are they treating you well?”
“Okay? That’s very American. Yes, it’s fine. I’m the secret Mr. Dietrich.”
I winced. “It wasn’t my decision. I announced when I first arrived that I was married and had a child. The studio was upset. Apparently, women of mystery must remain unattached.”
“It’s not that.” He met my eyes. “Marlene, have you been reading the newspapers?”
“Yes, whenever I can. They send me clippings of my notices and—”
“Not about you,” he said. “About Germany. Don’t you know what’s happening here?”
I recalled what Gary had said, I hear it’s not so nice now. Lots of unrest. The war knocked you Krauts down pretty hard, and guiltily shook my head. “Not really.”
“Well, things are worse.” He reached for my cigarettes. I was taken aback to see his hand tremble as he struck the match. He wasn’t just holding something back; he seemed frightened in a way I’d never seen before. “Unemployment and inflation are at record highs. In September, Hitler gained forty-five percent of the vote. His party is now the second-most powerful party. He uses the wireless to give speeches written by his propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels, who wrote a novel that no publisher will touch because it’s so anti-Semitic. Goebbels has refined Hitler’s message that Jewish financiers plot our downfall. Many people believe it.”
I had a sudden memory of that day when Leni and I were stopped by Hitler’s acolytes and felt once again the same surge of revulsion. “Surely, not everyone is so stupid. The wealthy, the financiers and literati—no intelligent person would ever believe such nonsense.”
“The steel tycoon Thyssen made a major donation to the party. So did the industrialist Quandt. Even the American Henry Ford supports them. They think only Hitler can save us.” Rudi sighed. “Many of our best talent are starting to leave. William Dieterle, whom you worked with, has gone to America to direct pictures. So are others. Among those who do read the newspapers or listen to the speeches, there is fear. We think Hitler will win the chancellorship in the next Reichstag. It’s what he’s been campaigning toward and he won’t stop until he gets it.”
I clenched my hands. “What are you saying? Do you want to leave, too?”
“No. At least, not yet. But Heidede—we want you to take her with you. T
amara and I have spoken about it, Marlene. We don’t want to send her away; we know you love her dearly, but with this business about hiding our marriage because of the studio . . .”
“Forget the studio.” I leaned to him. “What do you want?”
“She’s in school now,” he said. “The Nazis have support among teachers, who tell the children that Jews are our enemies. I don’t want her exposed to their propaganda.”
It horrified me to hear this, but his request also took me aback. “You want me to take our daughter away from everyone she knows, from you, Tami, and my mother? Rudi, she is German. She was born here, like you and me. I may work in America, but it’s not our country.”
“I know. But I don’t think Germany will be our country for much longer.”
“You can’t possibly be serious,” I said.
“I am,” he replied somberly, “as everyone who has heard Hitler should be.”
I made no immediate decision. I wasn’t due to leave until April, so I focused on celebrating Heidede’s birthday on December 12 and my own, my thirtieth, two weeks later, amid the Christmas and New Year’s festivities, which my family celebrated with us.
I found Mutti careworn yet as stalwart as ever, and as unimpressed by my success. “Such drivel,” she said. “That desert picture. And must you always show your legs and arms? You’re not exactly slender. Is it the new style there, to have fat women parade about half naked?”
I sighed. “Mutti, I’m not fat. And I’m under contract. I do what the studio tells me.”
She eyed me. “Or what that Austrian Jew tells you. I’m not saying being fat is bad. I’m saying you should be more discreet. Playing prostitutes and showgirls is not an honorable way to make a career.”
At least, she admitted I had a career. I knew it was useless to argue, as her opinions were engraved in stone. I gave her money, told her to stop housekeeping (she wouldn’t), and saw Liesel, who was happy in her marriage but forlorn over her inability to bear a child. During a sad afternoon with Uncle Willi, whose business had suffered from the downturn, I learned that Jolie had indeed left him—for an aviator, of all people. My uncle was disconsolate. I gave him hugs and advice, and money, as well. I longed to ask him about his homosexuality but didn’t want to force a confession or a barrage of denial; with Jolie gone, there seemed to be no point, and it was, after all, his secret to keep, even if it had cost him his marriage.
Then I went to visit my old haunts: the cabarets in the Nollendorfplatz, the Reinhardt academy, the Nelson revue, and other places where I’d performed. I was eagerly welcomed, invited to drink and dine, but my fame proved unavoidable. One night at Das Silhouette, where I’d hoped to arrive incognito, dressed in a man’s overcoat and fedora, I was identified within seconds. A mob erupted, tearing at my clothes; I had to be ferried out the back door. And when I attended Friedrich Hollaender’s new show, the audience refused to let it start until I took to the stage and sang. Eventually, I had no choice but to agree to the UFA’s repeated behest to go into their studio and record some of my stage and film songs in German for a limited-release disc.
I wanted to feel flattered. Germany had not forgotten me. But for the first time, I realized I might never be able to return and live in my own country. I was too exposed here, without the muscle of an American studio to protect me. Becoming famous had been my ambition, but the reality of it didn’t fulfill me as much as I’d imagined. I was beginning to discover that fame could gnaw away pieces of my life that I might never recover.
And Berlin was no longer the same. The Nazis had plastered their swastika on buildings and marched down the boulevards just as they had in the past, only now in ever-increasing numbers. Just the sight of their brown shirts and the tromping of their boots made me sick. And as I heard the people cheering them on, crying Heil Hitler!, Rudi’s warning rang in my ears. That taint I’d sensed years ago had started to spread like a cancer.
Still, while the climate was tense, how could Hitler amount to more than a passing phase? He hadn’t contended with our character. We were too practical. His aggressive stance would unmask him as a petty tyrant, grinding his grievances on everyone’s back.
Nevertheless, the Jews bore the brunt of it. Their districts had been vandalized; I saw shocking evidence of hatred in the grand emporiums of the Wertheim chain on Leipziger Platz and the Kaufhaus des Westens on Wittenbergplatz, the display windows smashed, the facades spray-painted with insults like Judenschwein! In defiance, I took Heidede and Tamara with me to shop there, allowing myself to be photographed and purchasing as much as I could. But these venerable stores, some of Berlin’s most refined, were now half empty, the shelves depleted of goods and the sales staff clearly on edge.
Then von Sternberg telephoned me. Morocco had been the most successful picture of the year in the midst of the Depression, earning four Academy Award nominations, including one for him as director and me as best actress. Before I could absorb this incredible news, he went on to say that on the heels of Morocco’s success, the studio had released The Blue Angel. It, too, made a significant profit, cementing my image as an erotic temptress.
“Dishonored may not have paid off,” von Sternberg said, “but even Garbo has been forced to take notice. A journalist asked her what she thought of you and do you know what that Swede bitch replied? ‘Marlene Dietrich? Who is she?’” He rattled on, not allowing me a moment to get a word in. “I’ve a new picture for you, about a fallen woman on a Chinese train. Grand Hotel on wheels. I need you back as soon as possible. Schulberg is enthused; he’s hiring the Brit Clive Brook as your love interest.”
“But the studio told me I had until April,” I exclaimed. “I only just got here.”
“You’re scheduled for fittings on the first. Be here. And don’t get fat.” He hung up.
I knew that as soon as I returned, I’d be relegated to the studio, shooting all day and often long into the night. How would Heidede fare in an American school for children of celebrities, transported to and from home in a hired car, and only if Paramount let her stay with me?
The answer to my dilemma came unexpectedly. After returning from another shopping expedition with Tamara and Heidede, we entered the apartment with our purchases to find my past waiting for me. I came to a halt, dumping hatboxes at my feet.
“It—it can’t be,” I said.
Rudi chuckled. “She called me at the studio. I have no idea how she found me.”
“I’m a journalist, remember?” said Gerda. “Or I was. Now, I’m unemployed.”
I embraced her, so overwhelmed that I started to cry.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. “None of that. I won’t have it.”
Over coffee, she told me she’d been let go from her job in Munich. “That would be the genteel term to use. Actually, I was fired. My editor went on vacation, so I wrote an opinion piece on Hitler.” She grimaced. “They’re bullies, criminals, and thugs. The assistant editor agreed with me, so we ran the piece in the Sunday edition. When our editor came back, he was enraged. Turns out he wasn’t on vacation at all; he was attending one of their rallies! He sacked both of us without a reference. He said if he has his way, we’d never work in Germany again.”
“Oh, Gerda.” I took her hands in mine. She looked the same, in her dowdy skirt and old-fashioned shirtwaist, but thinner, her cheeks hollowed and her eyes dull. And when Tamara set a plate of cakes on the table, she devoured them like a fugitive. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Get out as soon as I can.” She gave me one of her mordant looks. “It’s what we must do these days before Hitler eats us all alive.” Her mirth faded. “Only I don’t have any money.” She forced out a smile. “But enough about me. Tell me about you. I saw The Blue Angel. Marlene, you were wonderful! Remember how I used to make you recite Shakespeare? Who would have thought you’d end up straddling a barrel in your underwear instead?”
I laughed but didn’t let go of her hand. “Gerda, you must let me help you.”
“I’m serious. You helped me so much. Just tell me where you want to go. I insist.”
She averted her eyes. Gerda hated tears, but she was perilously close to them. “I don’t know. Paris, maybe? They must need female journalists there with no sense of fashion.” She lifted her gaze. She was crying. “I have no idea. I don’t know where I belong anymore.”
I hugged her, letting her weep on my shoulder. Heidede wandered in and stopped, staring at us. As I looked over Gerda’s shoulder at her, I suddenly knew what to do.
II
I boarded the ship for America with my sullen daughter, who berated me for taking her away from Rudi, her grandmother, and Tamara. Perversely, she clung to Gerda, whom I’d hired to be her official governess. To my surprise, Gerda had a knack for calming my daughter’s tantrums; and once again, as with Tamara, I had to endure my child transferring her affection to a woman who wasn’t me.
It couldn’t be helped. I needed someone I could trust in America to look after my child, and once Gerda accepted my offer, I’d telephoned von Sternberg with my decision. There was a long silence during which I held my breath before he said, “Schulberg won’t like it, but what can he do? He can’t separate you from your child indefinitely.”
“Tell him I’ll do my best to keep her out of the press,” I said, suddenly anxious that I might put my contract at risk. “She has a governess, so she can be educated at home. Perhaps after this picture, we can do one where I play a mother, to prepare the public. I’ve just turned thirty. I can’t play cabaret girls forever.”
“We’ll see,” he said.