Marlene: A Novel

by C. W. Gortner

  “Guilty as charged. And I know who you are.” His gaze roved over me with admiring insolence. “But if I’d had any doubt, that getup disproves it. I heard you like to wear slacks.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. All of Hollywood and most of America, I should think, has heard by now.” His smile made fetching crinkles around his eyes. “Your publicity photos. You’ve been keeping the studio busy, plastering your mug shot in Photoplay and every other fan rag. ‘The Woman Even Women Can Adore.’ It’s a lot to live up to. I hope you’re ready.”

  I laughed. “Schulberg released those photographs.”

  “He did. He thinks you’re sensational. I think he’s right.”

  Drawing myself to my full height (I did not reach his shoulders) I said, “Would you happen to have a cigarette, Mr. Cooper?”

  He took out a gold-plated case from his jacket. As I leaned over his lighter, I caught a hint of his smell. Or rather, I noticed the distinct absence of cologne. He smelled like a man—of hair tonic and tobacco, and something faint, almost indecipherable, but salty, I thought, like the sea.

  Like sex.

  I lifted my eyes to his telling smile.

  He’d recently, perhaps only an hour or so ago, had sex. And hadn’t showered afterward.

  “I’ve worked with our director before,” he said, a sardonic lilt in his voice, as though he could tell what I was thinking. “In Children of Divorce with Clara Bow. I was fired because the rushes were awful, but they replaced the director with von Sternberg and he reshot my scenes. He made me look good, helped save my career. I owe him.”

  Heat stirred in me like a fire. It had been months since I’d—

  I made myself stop, using my cigarette as a deterrent, inhaling smoke while he stood there, as attentive as a gentleman but not gentlemanly at all. He was thinking the same thing I was, and I darted another look to where I’d left von Sternberg. He was no longer there.

  “I’m looking forward to working together,” I managed to say, turning back to Gary. “Von Sternberg has told me how much he enjoyed making that picture with you.”

  “Oh, I doubt that.” His smile widened. “He wanted Gilbert for the part. But he’s stuck with me, thanks to Selznick.”

  “Well.” I coiled my voice. “I’m glad we are stuck—with you.”

  His eyes gleamed. “I also heard your English wasn’t very good. Sounds good enough to me.” Leaning to me, he whispered, “How would you like to ditch this party and go out for—”

  He didn’t have the chance to finish. From seemingly out of nowhere, a woman in a white sleeveless dress slithered to his side. Her glossy black hair was parted, drawn in an intricate bun at her nape to show off a face made for the camera, highlighted by her surly cat-green eyes.

  “Gary, mi amor,” she said, hooking her arm in his. “Where have you been? I’ve looked everywhere for you.” She had a Spanish accent. An actress, no doubt, but I had no idea who.

  “I was talking to Miss Dietrich here,” he said quietly. “She’s working with me in my next picture. Remember I mentioned her?”

  “No.” The woman stared at me. “I don’t remember. Who is she?”

  “Marlene,” I said. “I’m new to Paramount and—”

  “Sí,” she interrupted. “I remember now. You are a Kraut.”

  Gary looked down at his feet as she tightened her arm about his. “I’m Lupe Vélez,” she said. “From Mexico. I work for RKO.”

  She wasn’t trying to instill camaraderie, that much I understood. She must be his lover, the one he’d recently had sex with. Feeling threatened, she was claiming her property.

  “Strange, no?” she said, looking me over. “You dress like man.”

  “Yes. It’s all the rage in Krautland,” I replied.

  She frowned, unsure if I was mocking her. Then she gave a fake laugh. “You make fun. But everyone talk,” she said, her voice taking on a venomous edge.

  “Better to be talked about than ignored.” I forced out a smile. “It was lovely to meet you,” I said, though it wasn’t. I did not like her and she didn’t like me, with that unerring instinct women have for a rival. Only I wasn’t her rival. Not yet.

  “Come, Gary.” She reverted to little-girl plaintiveness. “Claudette ask for you. You so strange, always disappearing. Come, mi cielo. Say good-bye to Miss Marlene.”

  He lifted his gaze, holding mine for a moment. “See you on the set.”

  I nodded, watching her tug him to where Claudette Colbert sat surrounded by her friends. It was a deliberate snub. I’d been introduced to the room by Schulberg. Everyone knew who I was. But Lupe Vélez had seen Gary flirting with me and orchestrated an insult, excluding me from the inner circle, left to stand by the appetizers like an aspiring nobody.

  How tedious. I ate another canapé, and then made my way to the ballroom entrance. Von Sternberg had vanished. Going into the lobby, I called for my car and directed the driver to my apartment.

  Nancy or Susan was still there, waiting for me. “It’s not so bad,” she said, waving the script nervously, as I’d caught her lounging on my sofa, reading. “You’ve a wonderful part as Amy Jolly. At the end, she forsakes everything to follow her lover. It’s very romantic.”

  “Yes.” I shed my cap and shoes as I drifted to my bedroom. “I think it’s going to be very romantic, too. Please lock the door on your way out.”

  VII

  Shooting on Morocco began in late July, later than scheduled because of the script. In the end, we never saw a complete version. Instead, von Sternberg distributed daily pages for each scheduled scene; as promised, he reduced my dialogue to a minimum, although I’d spent weeks with the studio-assigned coach to refine my English. I still had an accent—it would never leave me—but my character was French, so I didn’t see why everyone was so concerned.

  But my lack of words enhanced the mood. As Amy Jolly, the chanteuse who flees from her past to Morocco, I played that enigmatic woman the studio wanted. And unlike Lola-Lola, love is Amy’s salvation, as she becomes enraptured by Gary’s careless legionnaire.

  I had two songs, including the seductive “What Am I Bid for My Apples?” which I sang in a black romper cut high to reveal my legs, and a raven-tipped boa. My favorite scene was when Amy first enters the café-cabaret in her black tails. The costume was my idea, approved by the studio. My publicity photos had indeed caused a sensation. Every magazine in America printed them, and having heard of my penchant for tuxedos in Germany, Schulberg exploited it.

  But the lesbian kiss was not in the studio plans.

  Smoking a cigarette as Amy strolls among her audience, I decided to have her pause by a pretty woman with an oleander in her hair. On impulse, Amy kisses the woman on her lips—then tosses the flower at the legionnaire. Like von Sternberg, Gary was taken by surprise by my gesture but stayed in character, placing the oleander behind his ear. He was a professional; he knew every line and mark, even as von Sternberg unleashed immediate vitriol toward him that soured the shoot from the start. When I expressed concern later that my sapphic kiss might make Gary’s character look weak, von Sternberg scoffed.

  “He’s a pretty soldier boy,” he declared, loud enough for Gary to overhear. “She’s the one pulling the strings. She is the star. Everyone else is here to make her shine.”

  During our much-delayed lunch break, Gary muttered to me, “Didn’t I tell you? He’s never going to forget that the studio forced me on him. He’ll ruin every scene I’m in.”

  I didn’t think he could. I saw how von Sternberg glared when he viewed the rushes. Gary was so handsome and assured that nothing could detract from him. He, too, was a star on the rise—and von Sternberg knew it. Their hostility simmered like the desert beyond the movie’s garrison setting. In our scenes together, von Sternberg insisted Gary remain seated, exalting my presence while diminishing his. When Gary finally lost his temper, shouting that he wasn’t going to be made to look like “a goddamn pansy” and storming off the set, von Sternberg s
aid snidely before the crew, “What does he know? He’s an actor. Chosen for his physique, not his brain.”

  I had thought Morocco was going to be romantic.

  Instead, it turned into a nightmare.

  ONE NIGHT, AFTER ANOTHER FOURTEEN-HOUR DAY, every bone in my body aching as I prepared for bed, a banging came at my apartment door. I opened it to find Gary swaying there, so drunk he could barely stand. As he lurched inside, he gazed with bleary eyes at me, still gorgeous in his dishevelment but, I feared, about to topple over and hit that handsome face on the floor.

  “You see? He does hate me,” he said. “That fucking dwarf—he thinks I’m not important. But I am the male lead! Without me, who will his precious star fall in love with? Him?” He let out an ugly laugh. “I bet he doesn’t have enough dick to get it up.”

  “You are drunk,” I said coldly. “It’s the only reason I’m not throwing you out. But if you insult him again, I will. Now, please go home.”

  “I can’t.” He dropped onto the sofa. “My wife hates me, too. So does that bitch Lupe. Always nagging at me. Nag, nag, nag.” He belched. “Why do women think they own us?”

  I wondered what I should do. Sending him away in this state was out of the question. I could call a taxi, but if he was recognized, the press would hurt his image, not to mention our picture. And it was too late to telephone the studio, while von Sternberg, who was down the hall, would fly into a rage if he found Gary here.

  “I’m sorry you have problems at home,” I said at length, as his chin bobbed. “But I’m a woman and I don’t think I own anyone. I have no interest in collars, unless you’re a dog.”

  “You’re not a woman,” he said. “You’re . . . something else.”

  He passed out. As I took off his shoes and managed to heave him onto the sofa, overwhelmed by the stench of whiskey, he started to snore. At least he hadn’t thrown up. I’d deal with him in the morning. Thank God, the shoot was almost over. Gary with a hangover, directed by von Sternberg—I dreaded the thought.

  IT WASN’T YET DAWN when I suddenly woke from sleep. Groggy, momentarily confused, I started to grope for my alarm clock, thinking I’d missed my call and was running late. I had to be at the studio for makeup at five every morning before shooting.

  Then I saw him in the doorway. He did not move or say a word, but the look in his eyes was unmistakable—and remarkably sober.

  He closed the bedroom door. Taking hold of the bedcovers, he yanked them aside. He looked down at me. I slept in the nude. My heart started to pound as he unbuttoned his shirt, flung it to the floor, and unbuckled his belt. He had a smooth, muscular chest; I found myself wondering if the studio made him wax it. Then his shorts came off. I stared.

  “Like it?” he said.

  “Impressive,” I replied. “Like New York.”

  He took hold of his large shaft. “If you want it, you can have it. But not if you’re screwing that dwarf. I don’t mess around with another man’s woman, though he deserves it.”

  “I’m not.” I slid back on the mattress. I, too, was as camera ready as he was.

  “God,” he breathed. “I want you so badly. All day long on that goddamn set, all I can think of is what I’d like to do to you.”

  “Then why wait? No time like the present.”

  He missed my Berlin allusion. But he came. Before he even entered me. He did not roll off me. Instead he waited, kissing me slowly, trailing his tongue down my body until he was dipping into my wetness and I was arching my spine. Then he slid his newly hardened length into me, inch by magnificent inch, making me gasp.

  “Does it hurt?” he whispered. “My wife used to complain I was too big. Lupe loves it, though. She likes to sit on it.”

  “I . . . I think I should, too,” I said, as it might be easier to manage.

  Grasping me in his arms, he hiked me on top of him. His erection thrust like a skyscraper. I had never felt anything like it, and though it still hurt a little, by the time I started rocking, I forgot the sting, the burn of it. It became one with my pleasure, my climax imploding from within. I saw sands and white scarves; I felt the scorching heat of the desert, and then I felt him, shaking, withdrawing from me before he came again.

  Plunging downward, I took him in my mouth. He cried out.

  He was pure American, as robust as the plains of his native Montana.

  But he tasted like the sea.

  WITHIN WEEKS, EVERYONE ON THE SET KNEW. We couldn’t have hidden it if we tried. Our scenes crackled with electricity, every look between us charged with the aftereffects of our nights together. Gary stopped letting von Sternberg get under his skin. He had no room, not when I was there instead, so that when we passed each other on our way to our dressing rooms, he’d waggle his hand and quote his dialogue suggestively, “What am I doing with my fingers? Nothing. Yet.”

  Von Sternberg went as dark as a thundercloud, reducing his directions to as few words as he could muster: “Move to the left. Turn to the light. Hold. Cut.”

  And that was with me. With Gary, he ceased speaking at all. Through his silence, he made it clear he didn’t care how his male lead performed, confirming that he considered Morocco to be my picture. He was making it only for me.

  “I don’t give a crap,” Gary said as I rested on his chest while he smoked lazily, as nonchalant after sex as he was ardent during it. “He can’t hurt me. Selznick told me, forget about that asshole. He’ll make you famous despite himself. It’s a terrific part. I’m not the nice guy in this one. I’m the heel who walks away. The girl chases after me.” He ruffled my hair. “Betcha it won’t be like that in real life, huh? You don’t seem like the type to chase after anyone.”

  “Why should I?” I took his cigarette from his mouth and inhaled. “We’re both married. And your Mexican spitfire does quite enough chasing after you for the three of us.”

  “Do you love him?” he suddenly asked. “Your husband, I mean?”

  I paused, smoke drifting from my mouth. “Yes,” I said quietly. “I do. There are many kinds of love. We have a daughter. I miss them both. I miss Germany.”

  “Never been.” He folded his arms behind his head, stretching out his long limbs. “I hear it’s not so nice now. Lots of unrest. That war knocked you Krauts down pretty hard.”

  “It did.” All of a sudden, I wanted to be alone. “Are you staying tonight?”

  “Nope.” He uncoiled from under me, padding to the chair littered with his clothes. “Got to get up early. We’ve that final scene to shoot. Then I have to see Lupe.” He grimaced. “Talk about driving a man crazy. She’s got a screw loose or something.”

  I didn’t comment, though I agreed. From what he’d told me, Lupe Vélez had a nasty habit of following him around—she wasn’t stupid—shoving her fist into his crotch and threatening to cut off his huevos. I had no idea how he put up with it, trapped between a marriage he no longer wanted and a jealous mistress who might castrate him at any moment.

  “She thinks I’ll leave my wife,” he said, pulling on his jacket. “But she’s wrong. I’ll file for divorce as soon as the studio says I can, but not to marry her. She needs a mental ward, not a husband.” He pushed his fingers through his hair without glancing at my dressing table mirror. His lack of vanity never ceased to amaze me. He wasn’t like any actor I’d known. Once he was away from the camera, he couldn’t have cared less about his appearance.

  “Will you?” he said. “Someday, maybe?”

  “Will I what?” I reclined against the headboard.

  “Divorce. You say you love him, but, baby—a woman in love doesn’t fuck like you do.”

  “Is that so?” I chucked his chin as he kissed me. “Go home to your wife. And get a gun. Lupe might actually try to cut off those big balls of yours and, I must admit, I’d miss them.”

  Laughing, he strode out.

  It wouldn’t last. I knew it already. I enjoyed his company but we had nothing in common save for mutual lust. But until the picture wrapped or he starte
d to bore me, I was content.

  Even if von Sternberg was not.

  IN THE FINAL SCENE, when the trumpet calls her legionnaire to duty, Amy sees her name carved by him on a tabletop. Unable to resist, she joins his departing caravan, her white skirt and blouse billowing in the sirocco as she kicks off her shoes and vanishes into blistering sands.

  It was my idea to shuck the shoes. The studio was stifling, wind machines blowing acres of sand hauled from a nearby beach; as I stood with my hand shielding my brow while the caravan snaked over the ridge, I thought Amy would want to hurry. She’d want to join her man as soon as possible. The moment I kicked off my shoes, von Sternberg erupted from behind the camera. “Cut!” he said, and he marched up to me with his megaphone in hand. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking off her shoes. It’s the desert at high noon. She can’t walk in heels.”

  “She can.” His spit needled my face. “She’ll burn her feet. Put them back on.”

  “No. They stay where they are. Make it the last shot. A symbol of her past.”

  “A symbol! Are you directing this picture now?” But he trudged away to consider and the shoes remained where I’d left them, on the sand in the final shot.

  By the time we wrapped, no one ever wanted to see a grain of sand again. The preview was held in a dusty suburb called Pomona. I’d never heard of previews, but we did our duty by dressing up and attending. The theater was half empty. No one applauded at the end, though the film was sublime and far less simple than I’d supposed.

  I thought we had a flop. The studio had aimed for a tamer version of Lola-Lola, but the undercurrent of perverse longing, my chemistry with Gary, and the cross-dressing lesbian kiss would be too strong for America’s white-bread taste. It wasn’t as overt as The Blue Angel, but no one could mistake it for anything else but what it was—a tale of masochistic surrender.

  Paramount must have feared the same. They held an extravagant premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theater, the first ever by the studio in that legendary Asian-themed palace, with all the industry’s influential columnists in attendance. I was stunned by the crowds, the photographers, and the cheering fans—a panoply of glamour fixated on me as I walked down the carpet in hip-clinging black chiffon and a silver fox stole.