Marlene: A Novel
Page 25
My ocean crossing was uneasy because I was uncertain if he agreed or thought me irresponsible and reckless. By the time we reached New York, I braced for the onslaught, dressed to the teeth in my new European fashions, hoping to distract the reporters. I had Gerda and Heidede disembark first and take a private car to the Hotel Ambassador. I appeared an hour later, followed by my mounds of luggage. The press flashed their cameras in my face, besieging me with questions about my trip, but to my relief, no one asked about my husband or my child.
“Don’t think they’ve forgotten,” chided von Sternberg when we arrived in Beverly Hills. “You may have dangled couture bait to confuse them, but someone will spot the child coming and going from here, and that will be that.”
“Then I’ll tell the truth. Germany isn’t where she should be right now.”
“The truth is hardly the point. A loving mother, anxious for her child, can always be turned into good publicity, but the husband she left behind? Not so easy.”
He was astute. Within days, the Los Angeles Times printed on its front page a photograph of Heidede and me shopping in Berlin—leaked by Paramount’s associate and rival, the UFA, who wanted me back and must have thought adverse publicity would spoil my carefully crafted American image.
Paramount sprang into action, spinning, as von Sternberg had assured me, hay into gold. A series of studio shots supervised by my director were taken, with Heidede and me in matching velvet outfits. This visible evidence of our reunion proved irresistible to the gossip mill, with Louella Parsons herself coming to my defense. But my secret was out. Marlene Dietrich had a husband, too, the studio had to declare, lest anyone thought my child illegitimate. He worked in Berlin under Paramount’s auspices, but the studio hoped to secure him a job soon in America.
In the meantime, Heidede was tutored by Gerda, who also assumed the role of my private secretary. I went back to work.
ENVELOPED IN A SHEATH OF BLACK and a veiled cap, egret plumage sprouting about her throat and a skullcap of raven curved enticingly around her left cheek, Shanghai Lily has a chance encounter with a British officer and former flame upon the serpentine train traveling through war-torn China. “It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily,” she purrs, but he is the man for her, and her surrender to the sadistic Communist rebel leader in order to save him brings her full circle, back into her officer’s arms.
Clive Brook played my flame. Already established in his own right, all jawline and British stoicism, he had no issues with von Sternberg’s authoritarian style or mandate that I be front and center. He understood my name had top billing and was confident enough to take it in stride. I didn’t find him nearly as engaging as Gary, but who was? He could recite his lines and knew when to step aside—and that, said von Sternberg, was all we required of him.
To my delight, Shanghai Express reunited me with Anna May Wong. She’d returned to Los Angeles and von Sternberg cast her as Lily’s companion-in-sin, Hui Fei. Being with Anna again was a joy; we laughed together off camera at the ridiculous script and gossiped in my dressing room, where she told me that our other sister about town, Leni Riefenstahl, was still acting in Fanck’s Alpine epics and had taken to hobnobbing with influential Nazis.
“After she lost The Blue Angel to you, she decided she wanted to be a director and make her own films,” said Anna, with a sarcastic roll of her eyes. “She’s become very friendly with Goebbels. Probably sleeping with him, too. Leni always did know how to work a trick.”
I grimaced. “She’ll regret it. I was in Berlin. What they’re doing there is awful.”
“Yes, I heard you made quite the splash, taking your daughter out to shop in Jewish stores.” Anna smiled at me impishly. “Did you indulge in violets while you were there?”
I lit a cigarette. “How could I? The press followed me everywhere.”
She slid her long-nailed hand over my thigh. “They like violets in Hollywood, too, though here we call them sewing circles. I could show you. It’s more common than you think. Louise Brooks and Garbo herself are known to partake. Unlike men who suckle, everyone turns a blind eye to us, provided we’re not too outré.”
“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned Garbo,” I said. “How can you be so sure? No one ever sees her. As far as I know, she never leaves her house except to go to the studio.”
“I know because she has a lover. Did you think that noli me tangere air of hers is just for the press? She does indeed want to be left alone. To do as she pleases.”
I considered. My affair with Gary had waned. He’d called me to suggest a rendezvous, but I heard Lupe ranting in the background and decided her lunacy wasn’t something I wanted to risk, not with Heidede living with me. And with Gerda back in my life, albeit in a platonic way, I missed the intimacy of women. I never felt as though I had to be an ideal with my gender; it was easier, less fraught with expectation.
The call came at the door. “Ten minutes, Miss Dietrich.”
Stubbing out my cigarette, I said, “Why not? I could use some divertissement.”
Anna purred, “When our circle sees you, you’ll be more than entertained, Liebchen.”
IN WHITE TIE, my hair slicked from my brow and monocle in place, I danced the tango with Anna May before the ladies in a back-alley club. As we pivoted in our ballet of seduction, the women’s lips parted as they leaned to whisper to one another in their seats.
“Is she . . . ?” I imagined one of them saying.
“She must be,” another replied. “I hear before she was famous, she did it often in Berlin.”
Thrusting my hips against Anna May, I kissed her ruby mouth.
The company of the sewing circle was delectable.
III
Shanghai Express premiered in February 1932. It was a huge success, earning more than any of my previous pictures and staving off bankruptcy for Paramount. It was also nominated for five Academy Awards, but not for me. I didn’t win for Morocco, either, nor did von Sternberg, who remarked, “We’re still Krauts, no matter that we pay the studio’s bills.”
And the studio knew it. Determined to avert the lackluster receipts of Dishonored, Paramount had wallpapered the country with posters for Shanghai Express, promising a return to the Dietrich of incongruous glamour. My languid drawl and fluttering eyes—during the preview, I cringed at my own performance—as well as my lavish wardrobe became a national conversation, with moviegoers quoting my lines. No one questioned how Shanghai Lily could possibly fit all of her luggage, along with Hui Fei and her gramophone, into a cramped train compartment. Nobody cared. The picture was classic escapism, crafted by von Sternberg in lavish detail—a fantastical China, where the locomotive spouted steam like a dragon as its unlikely passengers are tossed into an unlikely cauldron of passion and intrigue.
In Germany, the Nazis picketed the film. Under an agreement with Paramount, the UFA was screening my pictures, but Dishonored had touched a nerve with its indictment of the war. Hitler’s propaganda lackey, Goebbels, detested it so much that he called for a party ban on me, declaring me unpatriotic for playing degenerates—and non-German ones, at that.
“‘If she cares so much for her nation,’” Gerda read aloud from Nazi press releases, forwarded by Rudi, “‘why does Marlene Dietrich refuse to live here? Why does she take American dollars when so many Germans are suffering? She is not one of us. If she were, she’d support Hitler and our cause.’” Gerda snorted. “Not only does he write appallingly, but he makes no sense. American dollars over worthless marks? What is there to question? You must be doing something right if they dislike you so much.”
I tried to laugh, but I didn’t find it funny. Lighting a cigarette, I paced to my drawing room window. My fully furnished Beverly Hills mansion was as sumptuous as I could want, a pantheon to my elite status, with eucalyptus and bougainvillea rioting at the gates and twelve spacious rooms. I found it cold and uninviting, like a set waiting for the crew to arrive. Outside in the garden by the aviary whi
ch von Sternberg had bought for me to celebrate our success, Heidede was feeding the captive birds with my maid, scattering seed into the cages, just like her father with his rooftop pigeons, I thought.
Without looking over my shoulder to where Gerda busied herself at the desk, I said, “Rudi telephoned me at the studio yesterday. The UFA is collaborating with the Nazis and has pulled Shanghai Express from their screens. The executives offered him a higher position, but he thinks the suggestion came from Goebbels, to make Rudi, and me, indebted to the party.”
Gerda paused in her rustling of papers. “What is he going to do?”
“I told him he should leave. He said he’ll consider it as long as he can stay in Europe.” I turned to her. “I’m requesting a transfer for him. Schulberg owes me, with all the money I’m making for the studio, and Paramount has an affiliate office in Paris. Schulberg said he’d look into it. He also said Rudi should come here for a visit, that it’s time for us to be photographed together as a family. But not Tamara. The studio won’t give her a visa.” I blew out smoke in exasperation. “Hypocrites.”
“Well, if Rudi transfers to Paris, he and Tamara will be safe enough there.” Gerda met my eyes. “You look worried. Did he tell you anything else?”
I grimaced. “Only the usual. Hitler shrieking over the wireless and gaining more popularity every day.” Unease went through me. “Rudi believes he’ll win the next Reichstag. He lost this last election, but that fool Hindenburg is now making concessions to the party. Rudi says many think that if Hitler wins, he’ll start another war.”
Gerda went quiet. She’d shown only gratitude for my assistance, setting aside her journalistic career to assume charge of my correspondence and Heidede’s education, handling the overwhelming volume of fan mail forwarded by the studio and preparing signed, glossy publicity shots of me for admirers in far-flung towns I’d never heard of. But I knew she remained attuned to events abroad. Our circle of expatriates was growing, and while I had no time to socialize, she did. She went out several evenings a week to meet with fellow journalists who’d washed up in California, all penniless and bedraggled.
At length, she said, “I think he will, too. He wants power, legally or otherwise.”
“You think he’ll go to war?” It was becoming my most pressing fear, that this little Austrian with his ridiculous mustache would pull Germany into conflict.
She lifted her shoulders. “Many of those I’ve spoken to think the same as Rudi. They say the signs are all there, that he’s whipping up patriotic fervor to prepare the country for it.”
“Dear God. I can’t imagine it. Not after the last one.”
“Neither can I. Maybe he won’t win the election,” she said, but she didn’t sound convinced as she returned to her agenda. “Shall I make the arrangements for Rudi’s visit?”
“Yes.” I turned back to the window. Heidede was clapping her hands, making the parrots caw. “I’ll telephone him next week; I should know about the Paris transfer by then.”
RUDI ARRIVED WITH TWO STEAMER TRUNKS filled with teddy bears and books in German for Heidede. He was dapper and smiling, as if he hadn’t spent the last twelve days traveling, and I was so happy to see him that I insisted on taking time off. Von Sternberg was not pleased. He was impatient for us to start working on a new script, telling me that Schulberg was willing to consider a maternal role for me, if, after the studio writers had failed to deliver anything worthwhile, we prepared a suitable treatment. I delayed von Sternberg with the excuse that I had to spend some time with Rudi and Heidede, which prompted him to join us as we toured sites around the city and took a trip to Monterey. Because of his brooding presence, I did not query Rudi about the situation in Germany, as the mere mention of Hitler could make von Sternberg rabid. But I did let Rudi know he had the job in Paris, and Gerda would handle, via studio intermediaries, moving Tamara to an apartment there and terminating the lease on the Kaiserallee flat.
I took comfort in my renewed domesticity. I liked having my family about me, and cooking for them gave me a sense of purpose, the one activity where I could brew the ingredients and create the result, rather than be something others brewed in my name. Besides, Rudi wasn’t used to American cuisine, if there even was such a thing, so I inaugurated my cavernous kitchen by making him roast beef, goulash, potato pancakes, cheese blintzes, and scrambled eggs with slices of the Bavarian sausage that he’d brought stashed in his trunk.
Von Sternberg often joined us. He had no other place to go since his recent divorce, his wife having left him and suing him for alimony he couldn’t afford to pay. He watched me sardonically as I served the table in my apron, my brow beaded with steam from the pot.
“Ah. The devoted hausfrau,” he mocked. He’d been drinking too much, already halfway through his bottle of bootleg vodka. “You’ll do anything to get a picture made, won’t you?”
“Josef, please,” I said. Heidede was watching him curiously. She liked him. She enjoyed his oddities, as he came by frequently to sleep in a spare bedroom and sometimes dragged out an easel and canvas to the garden to paint. Unlike his films, his paintings swirled with color, vivid skies and clusters of birds of paradise or lemony acacia. She had one of his paintings in her room. I always wondered how such a monochrome mind on camera could produce such joyous riots on canvas.
“Cooking soothes me,” I went on. “And we have nothing to shoot. But I’ve started drafting a story about a mother who loses her child. I’ll show it to you when it’s finished.”
“She’ll show it to me!” He turned a spiteful smile on Rudi. My husband had been congenial, accepting of von Sternberg shadowing our every move, though it was clear that my director, embittered over his divorce, was envious that despite the odds, Rudi and I were still married. “She’s rejected a dozen ideas since Shanghai Express, insisting she must play a nice girl this time, and now she has a story. Schulberg is not impressed. He refuses to consider it.”
“What?” I stared at him. “You told me he was considering it. As long as we gave him something in writing that he could show to New York.”
“Did I?” Von Sternberg poured himself another glass. As he shifted the bottle to Rudi, my husband declined with a polite shake of his head. “I must have been mistaken. You’re not Kate Hepburn. You should stick to what you do best.”
“What I do is being banned, and not only by Goebbels. The Hays Office here is starting to complain, too. They say my image is ‘incompatible with American values.’” I quoted the direct source. The Hays Office was a hideous American censorship organization that Hollywood had endorsed and in so doing had created its own monster, with increasingly tight regulations as to what could or could not be seen on the screen that threatened us all.
Von Sternberg made a farting sound, making Heidede giggle. “Those Hays idiots are so full of gas, they wouldn’t know an incompatible value if it blew out their bottoms. Controversy is good. It sells tickets.” He paused, lighting a cigarette, though we hadn’t started eating. “Regardless of what the Hays Office says, the studio won’t hear of you donning an apron and serving goulash like you do here. That is not the Dietrich they hired.”
I turned to Rudi. “What do you think? You read some of those treatments the studio sent. Did you find anything remotely interesting in them?”
Conscious of von Sternberg—as amiable as they were on the surface, theirs was always a détente, as my director did not tolerate interference—my husband said, “I thought they were consistent. It’s what the public expects. You’ve made a lucrative career playing a certain type of woman and—”
I cut him off. “Must you agree with everything to avoid confrontation? I support you, don’t I? I found you a job in Paris. A certain type of woman is not who I am.”
Rudi went cold. “I never asked for your help.”
“You certainly take it,” I retorted. Pushing back my chair, heedless of Heidede’s astonishment, I marched out into the garden, pulling my cigarettes from my apron pocket.
Von Sternberg chuckled. “This is the woman I prefer.” He came to stand beside me, abruptly placid. “Does it matter so much to you, this silly idea of playing a mother?”
“Yes. It should matter to you, too. I’m not going to have a career much longer if I keep doing the same part. Much as you may lament it, I am not a whore.”
He tugged at his mustache. “You earn four thousand dollars a week. Others would suck Schulberg off for half your salary.”
“Let them.” I flicked my cigarette away. “As I said, I’m not a whore.”
“Is this about losing that Academy Award for Morocco?” he asked sardonically. “I lost, too. We both did. It’s no reason to change what we do.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t care about some foolish award.” I wanted to sound indifferent but a suspicious undertone had crept into my voice. “Maybe you don’t think we’re capable of making a picture that strays from our formula. You seem as unmoved as me by Paramount’s suggestions, only you never expressed an opinion until tonight.”
“My opinion is that I should go back to Germany,” he said, startling me. “I’m bored with this town, tired of Schulberg and the entire carousel.”
“Germany?” I was appalled. “But our friends are leaving in droves. Why would you consider going back there, with that hog Hitler breathing down our necks?”
“Hitler isn’t the hog yet. He might never be. He’s a brute, but like the Hays Office, I think, he’s also much ado about nothing.” He met my eyes. “You could come with me. I know how much you miss it. It’s your country, after all, and Rudi is there—”
“Rudi is going to live in Paris. He accepted Schulberg’s offer as soon as I told him. Josef, they’ve banned our pictures. You’re a Jew. They hate us. I thought you hated them.”
He shrugged. “I do. But I know how these things work. It’s all in the details. Goebbels is only making such a stink because he knows how much you could boost morale. The UFA wants you; they’d sign you in a second. And yes, I am a Jew, but I’m also the director who made you famous. Tell me you’re not tempted. We’d have so much freedom there. We could write our own contract. You want better parts? In Germany, you can have them. Any part you like.”