by Paula Byrne
The boys teased Mother about having the Swede’s sloppy seconds. For once, when her rival’s name was mentioned, she seemed amused: ‘You know, the White Knight really has ideas above herself. She’s terrified that Garbo will discover our affair, and so she’s taken to wearing an oversized fedora to disguise herself. The other day, she climbed into the studio car with a controlled furtiveness that Sir Henry Irving would have envied.’
The boys howled and looked at Mother adoringly. They giggled appreciatively when she told them that the Swede was a peasant who wore dirty underwear and who didn’t know how to please a woman.
One of their jobs was to watch over me as I swam in the new blue pool, and I hated to see them snigger when I appeared in my lurid red polka-dot swimsuit and red rubber cap, looking like a boiled lobster. I loathed the boys as much as they loathed me, but a small compensation was their King Charles Spaniel called Gus. He was adorable, and would splash around with me in the pool.
The boys encouraged Mother to join the Hollywood circuit. Mo Goldberg had never permitted her to go to social events; he wanted her to maintain her mystique. The studio was equally delighted that she was more visible and willing to be photographed at the latest party. Mother found it difficult to make friends with other women, so she relied on the boys to give fashion advice. They would never lie to her. OK, so Andrew was ‘matchy-matchy’ in the accessories department, but she knew they would never lead her the wrong way. Ben was a fan of sequins. Preferably gold. He was all about the dazzle.
Costume parties were suddenly all the rage in Hollywood. Mother was invited to a ‘come as the person you most admire’ party. She discussed the possibilities with me.
‘Angel child, I should come as myself, but I think it would be more compelling if I came as Leda and the Swan. Get Travis on the phone. We will need real swan feathers, and lots of them.’
They put me straight through and I handed the phone to Mother.
‘Travis. You don’t know the myth of Leda and the Swan? I thought you were intelligent. Let me remind you: “He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.” Now, the swan must look enfolded within her. Order long feathers from the wings, and short ones for the neck. How about real emeralds for the eyes?’
Travis was jealous of the boys, but he could not resist the challenge. He had always loved feathers. Could my mother look more beautiful? Swathes of billowing white chiffon festooned with feathers sculpted her body, and the swan curled around her legs, her neck, and rested its head on her right breast. Goddess and swan entwined.
I asked Mutti about Leda and the Swan: ‘You and your obsession with stories. Why don’t you ask Lacy when he’s next in California?’
She took a young starlet as her special guest, dressed as Madou in top hat, monocle and tails. They were the sensation of the evening.
I was to go to a party of my own. I had never been to a children’s party. Travis made me a new dress, and Mother tied a huge satin bow on top of my head. I looked like a huge Easter egg. Bridges, the new driver, delivered me to a big house in Hollywood.
All of the American children knew each other. I was worried about my German accent, so I hid in the shadows and watched them.
‘Do you like parties?’ a voice whispered.
‘I don’t know. I’ve never been to one before. My mother arranged for me to come to this one.’
‘Who is your mother?’
‘Miss Joan Madou.’
‘Oh she’s so famous. Do you like being her daughter?’
Nobody had ever asked me that before. Before I could think about it my reply slipped out …
‘No, I don’t.’
The voice trilled a laugh, the loveliest laugh I had ever heard.
‘Do you hate being fat?’
‘Yes. I do. And I hate this stupid dress and bow. But where are you?’
I heard the creak of a porch swing.
‘Come and sit with me.’
‘Whose party is it?’
‘It’s mine.’
‘Really, but why are you sitting here all alone?’
‘I worked at the studio today. I’m so tired.’
‘Oh, which studio?’
‘MGM. But I don’t really like it. No one lets me eat. They weigh me and measure me, and tell me to do this and do that. I like it when I sing, because then they all stop talking and listen.’
A scent of hotdogs wafted over.
‘I wish I could have a hot dog.’
‘Wait there.’
I went over to the barbeque and took two hot dogs, corn on the cob, and Coca-Cola. I made sure there were onions and ketchup and mustard. I put it all in a cardboard box and returned to the porch swing. We feasted, and the juices ran down our chins, which made us giggle. Then we told our secrets. We became friends. Whenever we met throughout the years to come, we returned to being two fat girls on the porch eating hot dogs. We were shadow children.
When I got home, Mother asked, ‘Did you like Judy Garland’s party?’
I chose my answer carefully because I wanted to see her again.
‘I prefer our parties, Mutti. They’re more interesting.’
Mother was pleased with my answer. I had done well.
Poor Lady in the Throes of Love
Each night as she takes off her face, she tells me everything; the good, the bad and the ugly.
Madou is Paramount’s darling. The pictures are second-rate, but it doesn’t seem to matter very much. She is never late for the studio, takes direction, and learns her scripts on time. Always the consummate professional. Always so disciplined, so diligent. She never seems to tire. The harder she works, the more money she sends back home to her family in Berlin. The Hollywood Reporter announces that she is the highest paid actress in Hollywood. Mo’s desertion is proving to be a triumph.
But without his protection, and without Lacy to pay court, she is lonely and bored. The boys arrive, on cue, and report that the White Knight is reconciled with Garbo. Madou is livid. She sits at her dressing table and removes her hat. She takes out a cigarette, and picks up her favourite gold lighter; a gift from the studio when she renewed her contract. It is encrusted with rubies in the shape of her initials.
‘The Swede plays around. She’s in hospital with gonorrhoea. And she’s mean. You know she counts the sugar cubes so the maid doesn’t steal anything.’
The boys shriek.
Madou swivels around to face the boys, takes a slow drag from her cigarette.
‘Calling herself the White Knight. What pretension. But she is a welcome relief from this Hollywood mentality. You know, they should build their churches out here in the shape of a box office.’
When they have left, she telephones an order to her florist to send weekly bouquets to the White Knight; lilac and lavender, naturally. Flowers are supplanted by expensive presents; an engraved cigarette case, a diamond pin, silk lingerie, a silver-framed photograph of herself, dressed in male clothes.
Madou bans everyone from her dressing room, sending the Child to sit with Travis or Nellie. Madou feeds her White Knight with her famous coq au vin, believing that she is consumptive. It is her job to comfort and console. And, even better, to steal her away from her rival, Garbo.
The relationship reaches a new level of intensity when Madou presents the Knight with a doll; the symbol of Sapphic love. She telephones her husband to tell him of her latest conquest.
‘Papilein. I met someone interesting at Thalberg’s party. A woman with jet-black short hair, like a toreador. She wears a tricorn hat and a cape. An heiress. Garbo is crazy about her. She calls me her Golden One. I will send you her love letters for you to file. I kiss you, Papilein.’
Madou is in between films, and needs to be distracted, but I know her better than most. She will tire of adoration. She hates to feel suffocated. The White Knight will go the way of all the o
thers. Personally, I find her rather humourless. She shan’t be missed.
The Child falls ill with influenza, and Madou, a believer in the healing benefits of sea air, demands a beach house in Santa Monica, not Malibu, ‘where all the nouveaux riches like the Schullbergs live’. The studio obliges, and off we pop to the seaside.
Suddenly, tennis parties are all the rage. A famous tennis star, name of Fred, comes to dine, wearing pale flannel trousers and a creamy silk shirt. Madou is entranced, and insists that everyone wears flannels. She adds a white beret to her look, and ties her hair with a cream silk ribbon. Even the Child wears flannels and a beret; she looks like a swollen field mushroom. Fred teaches Madou to play tennis, in between flirting and kissing, but she is ever skilful at keeping him away from the White Knight.
Mo returns for one night. He despises himself for his addiction to a woman he no longer respects. He leaves, knowing he’s not welcome, that he’s outlived his purpose. Poor scoundrel. He catches himself in the mirror as he leaves, and I notice that he’s wearing white flannel trousers.
A Modern Dubarry
Mother’s friendship with the White Knight was brought to an abrupt end. A love missive had been sent, which Mother deemed excessive. She read it aloud to the boys, her ever-appreciative audience.
‘Watching you in the darkness made me think of a black tulip, and gave me exotic and uneasy dreams.’
I never thought it unusual that my mother took women to her bed. She inspired complete devotion in everyone. Later, when I was a mother myself, I asked her why she went to bed with so many lovers. She simply replied, ‘But they asked so nicely. Wouldn’t you?’
I deeply resented Mother’s friendship with the boys. I expect I was jealous. I was convinced that they were hangers-on, fair-weather friends, and not to be trusted. Fame begets scavengers. But I misunderstood her need for a different kind of adoration. Later, she confessed that she felt safe with pansies. They were the only men who didn’t pounce. They were kind and so much nicer than ‘normal’ men. In the case of the boys, she appreciated their wit, their style, and their love of Hollywood gossip. They bestowed uncomplicated veneration, wanting nothing more than to be in the orbit of her dazzling presence.
I guess I felt left out, ignored. But I was relieved by the departure of the White Knight, who had made a false move on the Red Queen. No more bunches of lavender and lilac were exchanged. The Chinese doll that the Knight gave Mother was banished to a linen chest. The boys were temporarily exiled from Bel Air. And, best of all, Lacy was home for Christmas.
Santa Claus did not come to our household. Mother refused to be upstaged by an old man with a white beard bearing presents. She was the giver of gifts. Our German custom was to celebrate on Christmas Eve. In Berlin, Mother would play ‘Stille Nacht’ on the gramophone, and then I would open the door of the drawing room to gasp in wonder at the candlelit tree. I can still remember the aroma of pine and chocolate.
Now that we were in California, we went to Bullock’s for our Christmas shopping. I loved the store with its bitter chocolate and beige carpet, and pillars of gold and glass. As we came into the foyer I gave a gasp and even Mother stopped in her tracks. There it was: a huge white Christmas tree, draped in glass baubles and real electric lights. The lights were blue. The tree looked like it was frosted in snow.
I talked and talked about the blue tree for days on end. On Christmas Eve, I dressed in my new organdie dress and Mary Jane white leather shoes. Mother and Lacy each took a hand, and led me into the drawing room. There behind the heavy double doors was the blue tree. Now it was my blue tree.
Mother had persuaded the manager of Bullock’s to sell it. They delivered it to the Bel Air house. Later that day, carpenters from the studio came to saw the tree branch by branch and build it back together in the garden, so that the studio could take press photographs. In the blazing California sunshine, the glue melted, and thick oil paint began to drip. I posed under the branches in my new silk dress, looking up towards the great glass star that perched on the uppermost branch.
Later, Mother invited the press photographers to take some more pictures. In the sitting room there was a fireplace with a large gilt mantel mirror. There was only one light source, a single pinpoint spot above the mirror. She leaned against the mantel and tilted her head, her face and cheekbones perfectly illuminated. There it was: the ‘look’ that she and Mo had created.
Lacy watched adoringly. Later he presented her with a ruby and diamond ring. He gave me a book about a little girl and a white rabbit who fell down a rabbit hole. He said if I liked it, he would buy the sequel, which was about the same girl falling through a looking glass. Lacy didn’t know about my fear of mirrors, but I promised I should love the book, and made my best curtsy.
When they disappeared to Mother’s bedroom I made my way to the fireplace mirror, with the spotlight. If it worked for her, perhaps it could work for me. Maybe my nose would be smaller, my skin smoother, and my cheekbones sharper. I knew what magic Mo’s light could create. Perhaps if I faced myself I could stop dodging mirrors, and I could be brave enough to read Lacy’s book about the girl and the looking glass. I switched on the spot. I just needed to lean against the mantel, and look upwards.
But I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. I was frightened of what the mirror might reveal to me. I walked to the window, opened the blind, and took a last look at my blue tree, melting in the sun.
There are Bad Times Just Around the Corner
An old pal pays us a visit. His name is Billy. He wants to set up a fund to help Jews escape from the Nazis. Billy and Madou meet in her dressing room on the lot, so that they can talk in private. Madou wheels me into the corner, and switches off my lights. No matter. I can see everything from here.
Billy tells her that it is the Jews who have turned the movie business into a success, into a Golden Age. That at first they came to Hollywood because of their talent; Lubitsch, Lang and Goldberg, and now there are those who come to escape the Nazis. Madou sits and listens, nodding her head at intervals, allowing him to talk.
They speak about the old days in Berlin. Old stories of how he used to sit for hours in the Romanisches Café with his portable typewriter. He liked the noise and activity, the smell of good coffee, the sight of rich layer cakes (his mother ran a cake shop in Austria, he reminds her), the sound of conversation, the dancing of dishes.
‘You know, Joan, I arrived with one suitcase, and a letter of introduction, and before I knew it, I landed a reporting job at Die Nachtausgabe and a furnished flat on the Pariser Strasse. Then I got a job …’
‘I know, Billy, I know. At UFA, now where the hell is this going?’
‘Hella and me, we left at the Reichstag fire, and fled to Paris. We got out, we were the lucky ones. My mother is still in Vienna.’
He does not need to explain. Madou will help. She never refuses to help those in need. It’s her duty. She tells Billy that another approach has been made for her to return to Germany. They want her to be the face of the Third Reich. She refuses to return to the homeland, even though she fears for the safety of her mother and her sister, Birgitte.
She tells him how she has heard how her films are banned in Germany, and that Hitler has destroyed every copy of The Blue Angel but one, and that one he keeps to himself, filthy beast. She has heard that there’s a rumour of a list, a black book, and her name is in it. She has become an undesirable. Imagine that? The most desirable woman on the planet! It’s a badge of honour for her to be on Hitler’s list.
She writes a cheque and Billy kisses her hand and makes his farewell.
Madou sits in front of me and lights a cigarette. She thinks of her mother and sister in Berlin. She knows that her refusal to return to Germany has put them in danger. She has put herself in danger. And what about the Child? At least Papi has escaped to France and will be safe. She has just heard that the studio has loaned her out for a film
in London. She will see Papi there, and he will give her news of her mother.
People say there will be no war, but she doesn’t believe them. Those pansies who used to hang out with her at The Lady Windermere and Eldorado are now parading around Berlin in Nazi uniforms. Let’s face it, they always loved dressing up. She has to admit to herself, the uniforms were beautifully cut, especially the SS uniforms. Hugo Boss is a superb tailor, maybe he should make some suits for Madou?
She wonders who else might be on Hitler’s list, or if it does indeed exist.
She is glad that she has helped Billy with his fund.
Many of her closest friends are undesirables, but perhaps she is the one Hitler would have most liked to get his hands on. Noël Coward, also on the list, sends her a telegram: ‘My dear, the people we would have been seen dead with.’
Desire
‘Good morning, sweetheart. What would you like for breakfast? Shall I pour you some orange juice?’
I was speechless. Mother hadn’t eaten breakfast for twenty years, she hated all salutations, and she rarely spoke to me in English, only German. She forked crisp Beechnut bacon onto my plate and turned back to the oven where she tossed buttermilk pancakes.
She was playing Gershwin (gloriosky!), and was looking ravishing in tennis whites. Her hair was tied back with a white ribbon. Something very strange was happening.
‘Sweetheart, you are about to meet someone special. Maple syrup? I met him last night at a party. Wait until you see his smile. For a Hollywood actor, he is quite fascinating.’
Mother despised most Hollywood actors (‘they have peanuts instead of brains, and they are all impotent’), and only tolerated Lacy because he had been trained in the English theatre. I was intrigued to meet this latest actor, though I worried for Lacy, who seemed to have disappeared. I prayed that he would return, and see off this imposter.