Blue Angel (2 page)

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.

T
HE DEDICATION PAGE OF
B
LUE
A
NGEL 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:
    
F
EBRUARY
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:
    
A
FTER
1973

N
OTES

B
IBLIOGRAPHY

I
NDEX

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.

—J
EAN
A
NOUILH
,
Cher Antoine

1: February 1978

F
EW 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

W
HEN
P
RUSSIA
’
S
K
ING
W
ILHELM
I
WAS PRO
claimed 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.

“He who writes for Berlin writes for the world,” trumpeted the newspaper
Berliner Tageblatt
in its first edition. Few would have disagreed, for in a sense the city was a microcosm. Immigrants flowed in from Austria, Italy, Poland, Russia, Hungary and France, all of them attracted by the promise of immediate employment and a superior standard of living. Additionally, the famous Berlin air—cool,
fresh and invigorating year-round—offered an appealingly temperate atmosphere for the enjoyment of a sparkling chain of lakes and public parks. Gardens, splendid in their designs, were planted thick with birch, pine, chestnut and lime trees.