Marlene: A Novel

by C. W. Gortner

  In that moment, she was a sacrifice I was willing to make.

  FROM THE BEVERLY HILLS HOTEL, in a top-floor suite with a guard at the door, I phoned Rudi in Paris, sobbing. He said I must send Heidede to him at once. But Paramount and the police investigated the threat and it turned out to be a scam. The culprits were never found. Still, reporters caught wind of it, exaggerating the drama until I had to declare in an unauthorized telephone interview with Photoplay that while no harm had been done, besides the tremendous fear we’d endured, I couldn’t stay in America and was considering returning to Europe.

  The studio was furious. I’d spoken out without permission, intimating they hadn’t protected me, though they’d provided every security measure possible—a bodyguard for me and Heidede, a private car, a German shepherd watchdog, and enough grills on the windows to keep out Houdini. I was under contract, with a picture that required urgent attention. Von Sternberg was nowhere to be found; he’d disappeared before that abysmal screening. The studio suspended him, hired another director, and demanded I return to the set at once. Demonstrating that he wasn’t entirely without scruples, von Sternberg resurfaced in New York to issue a statement. He refused to reshoot the picture, citing creative license. Schulberg sued him for breach of contract. Sequestered with Heidede in my prison of a home in Beverly Hills, as she cried incessantly for Gerda or Rudi, for anyone but me, I would not leave her alone for a second.

  The studio suspended me, too.

  Blonde Venus was a disaster. I wasn’t surprised when von Sternberg eventually called me, apologetic. “I honestly thought we’d made a splendid picture. But if we don’t do as they say, we’ll never work in Hollywood again.” He paused. I did not say a word. “Schulberg is willing to rescind both our suspensions if we agree to reshoot the offending scenes.”

  I didn’t have to ask why he had relented. He needed the money. He had court-appointed alimony payments. I could hold out, not for very long, but longer than he could.

  “Which scenes?” I finally said, not caring if the picture was consigned to a bonfire. Gerda’s departure had taken time to sink in, but when it did, I wept bitter tears. She was right. I had let my success change me. I’d been so mired in my own preoccupations, I’d lost her friendship and alienated my child. I was beginning to question my willingness to be a star.

  “What else?” he said. “Helen’s prostitution. Hiding her boy under the bed so she can meet a john. Oh, and a new ending, where she runs a bath for her son. In an evening gown.”

  “Of course.” I sighed. “I’ll meet with Travis Banton. When are you arriving?”

  By the time he appeared on the set, Helen had a new black satin dress, backless and clinging to me like wet skin. Despite the uproar and excoriation by critics, Blonde Venus proved popular with audiences. The Lindbergh tragedy gave it timeliness, as did its depiction of a mother forced into purgatorial depths by the Depression. Von Sternberg had performed an impossible sleight of hand, demonstrating once again his capacity to add luster to my name.

  Still, we faced the inevitable. Schulberg resented our actions and von Sternberg agreed to step aside. Despite my ire, for the first time since my arrival in Hollywood, for my next picture, I would be directed by someone else.

  V

  It was 1933, the year of my thirty-second birthday.

  Hitler had won the chancellorship in Germany, ousting the cabinet, and abolishing the Weimar Republic. More friends fled, joining our ranks of exiles in the United States. My former director from Little Napoleon, Ernst Lubitsch, had been one of the first to leave and established himself in Hollywood. He suggested an adaptation of the classic Sudermann novel, The Song of Songs; the author was German, as was the setting. Not only would my role be unique—a devout girl in turn-of-the-century Berlin, who poses for a statue of the faithful lover in the Song of Solomon—but our collaboration would demonstrate solidarity with our nation, and our shared odium for Hitler, for Sudermann had been Jewish.

  Schulberg liked the idea, but did not endorse Lubitsch as my director, hiring instead the Russian, Rouben Mamoulian, fresh off a popular screen adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

  “A former stagehand,” I complained to von Sternberg as he prepared to leave for his own directorial assignment. Since the kidnapping threat and Gerda’s departure, he’d been attentive, staying in my spare bedroom to keep us company at night. Though I had more staff than I knew what to do with, given my chauffeur, the maids, the bodyguard, and the dog, I no longer felt safe. I wanted to change residences, which the studio would not allow. “What can he possibly know about Germany or Sudermann?”

  “Mamoulian was a theater director in Russia; he’s been working here since the talkies.” Von Sternberg serenely folded his clothes into his bag, which only made me angrier. My resolve to be less attached to the foibles of fame had crumbled with the moment of truth upon me. He had built my career; I considered it our career. How could he now so blithely disregard it?

  “That doesn’t make him an expert,” I said.

  “Marlene. This stagehand, as you call him, was first hired to coach actors with their dialogue. He’ll make sure your English pronunciation is perfect. And he’s had some success.”

  “So have we. Don’t you care anymore?”

  “Of course I care. I’m not abandoning you. It’s just for one picture. And, my beloved, you chose it; it’ll be a good one, even without me, and especially without Lubitsch. Mamoulian has a refined visual style. And you’ll sing only one song, in period dress.” He chuckled. “No legs.”

  Everything he said made sense, but I still didn’t like how easily he could say it. “I don’t see why, if you have such an understanding of the material, you can’t direct it yourself.”

  “How soon we forget.” He kissed my cheek, unfazed. “Telephone me whenever you like. This film they’ve ordered me to do shoots nearby, at some dreary location called Mono Lake.”

  “Why bother?” I retorted. “Mamoulian might be teaching me how not to lisp.”

  I wasn’t about to let von Sternberg’s absence derail me, and set out to show my new director that my years of experience had provided me with a master class in technique. By now, I could test my key light by licking my finger and holding it up to gauge the heat, and I viewed the daily rushes to see if the telltale butterfly shadow was under my nose. Every day before shooting, I lowered the boom mike and said into it, “Oh, Jo. Why have you forsaken me?” which made the crew laugh and turned my director apoplectic. I also had a full-length mirror installed off camera, so I could gauge my angles, and insisted on modeling personally for the nude statue of Lily in the picture so it would look like me, all of which amused von Sternberg to no end.

  “Banton may cover you in muttonchop sleeves and bustles,” he said over the phone when he called me, “but you’ve made sure Dietrich remains on full display. More so, I believe, than ever before.”

  He made me laugh in spite of myself, and to my relief, the shoot took only ten weeks. After the premiere, which prompted another thundering Nazi condemnation of me for daring to make a movie featuring a nude statue and based on a Jewish novel, the wrap party was held in an oceanfront home in Santa Monica.

  Here, I met Mercedes de Acosta.

  SHE WAS A BIRD OF A WOMAN, with bright dark eyes, a spare frame, and a long neck enhanced by ropes of painted beads. She styled her lush black hair simply, coiled at her nape, and wore a flowing antique dress that gave her the look of a cameo. There was nothing overtly seductive about her at first sight, but her languid air, belying the intelligence in her gaze, attracted me as I sipped champagne and chatted with my fellow cast members. I could feel her watching me from across the room, poised by balcony doors and an impressive view of the Pacific surf beyond.

  She did not approach me. I wandered about as though I hadn’t noticed her, until I was beside her and she said in a soft voice with a hint of New York, “I hear the picture is beautiful, Miss Dietrich, and you are beautiful in it. But I imagine it mu
st have been difficult, working with another director after all this time.”

  It wasn’t a question. With a sidelong glance at her, I said, “It’s never easy to become someone else, no matter who happens to be behind the camera.”

  “Ah, yes. The dilemma of acting. Where does the fantasy end and reality begin?”

  I found her interesting. She was a writer, she told me, hired by the studios, but unlike others I’d met in Hollywood, she seemed unimpressed by celebrity—and by me.

  “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure?” I extended my hand. I wore a black-and-silver man’s suit over a tuxedo shirt and a bow tie, a velvet cloche on my head and my fingernails and lips painted red.

  She took my hand lightly, as if it were a petal. “Mercedes. And I’d like to see if pleasure is what I can offer you.”

  I did not look around, although we were steps away from Paramount’s crème de la crème, including Schulberg, who appeared harried. If The Song of Songs tanked, he would sink with it. With the economic crisis eating into studio profits and his resolve to separate me from von Sternberg for this picture, he couldn’t afford a misstep.

  I smiled at her. “Perhaps it can be arranged.”

  “Perhaps.” She let go of my hand. My fingertips tingled. “Look me up, Miss Dietrich. I’m in the sewing circle directory.”

  A few days later, I had lunch with Anna May. She cackled when I told her. “She is Garbo’s lover. They’ve been off and on for several years, but Garbo is away at the moment in Sweden. How cunning of you to steal from her, on-screen and off.”

  “I had no idea,” I said. “Mercedes didn’t mention her.”

  “She wouldn’t. You’re not exactly Garbo’s favorite person.” Anna May lowered her voice. “I hear our MGM queen had Mamoulian give her a private screening of your new picture. She liked it so much, she lobbied her studio to hire him for her next project.”

  “Did she?” I wished her the best of luck, as I had found him detestable. “Mercedes said I could find her in the directory. Is there such a thing?”

  Anna May burst out laughing again. “Mercedes de Acosta is the directory.”

  The very next day, I had my chauffeur drive me to the oceanfront house. In the daylight, it wasn’t so fancy, low and huddled into the cliff, but expensive enough, I assumed, located in a prime area of real estate. I’d heard Cary Grant and his lover shared a beach cottage nearby.

  Before I rang the bell, Mercedes opened the door. Her hair hung loose, a cascade of midnight melting over the sloped shoulders of her Japanese robe.

  “Marlene,” she said. “What took you so long?”

  I FELL IN LOVE FOR THE SECOND TIME.

  I sent lavish bouquets of roses and violets; when she sighed and said her house was starting to look like a flower shop, I sent Lalique knickknacks. I cooked German pot roast and organized her writing studio, which was a chaos of papers. I alphabetized her library, filled with books on every subject, from art to architecture, music, painting, fiction, biographies, poetry, and bound screenplays. I did her laundry and folded her sheets. I might have cleaned her floors, too—parquet got so dirty in beach houses, with all that sand and those bare feet—but she chided me, saying, “I have a maid. If you must get on your knees to please me, do it here. On my bed.”

  She fascinated me, with her magpie conversation and darting caresses, her small fingers sliding inside me. I found her intoxicating; I’d never met anyone who knew so much about so many topics yet never managed to bore me with her erudition, nor anyone whose tongue could probe me like a hummingbird seeking nectar.

  It was she who opened my eyes to the darkness descending upon Germany. She held private salons for exiles, many homosexual immigrants who’d fled Hitler’s stranglehold.

  “They’re burning books,” Ernst Lubitsch said. Though he’d not gotten the chance to direct me, he became a friend, and like many exiles, kept a yearning eye on the fatherland. “By the Mann brothers, Marx, Freud, Einstein, and others. They’ve arrested thousands and abolished free speech. Hitler authorized a censorship office, the Lichtspielgesetz, which specifies regulations for creative works that conform to Aryan ideology. Soon they’ll be burning whatever doesn’t fit their requirements—and anyone who creates it.”

  “Hitler used to paint postcards for a living,” I said. His very name made me see red. “He hates artists because he failed as one. He’s an ugly, envious man.”

  Yet that ugly envious man was erasing the Berlin I loved, that fabulous playground of decadent joy. I wondered about the girls at Das Silhouette, Yvette and the other transvestites who’d helped me to dress Lola-Lola. Were they being arrested, too? Had the Nazis barged in and burned all the cabarets to the ground?

  “He’s not a failure now,” said Mercedes. “His manifesto Mein Kampf is selling by the millions, both there and abroad. I can only assume no one’s bothered to read it. He’s very clear about his intent in his book. Germany has no idea of what’s coming if he stays in power.”

  Ernst Lubitsch nodded gravely. “It’s true, Marlene. Important people are being assassinated even after having left the country. The philosopher Lessing was shot at his home in Czechoslovakia by a Nazi hit squad. They’re rounding up dissidents, sending them to a work camp in Dachau. Anyone with resources is trying to get out now, before passports are revoked.”

  “Then he’s insane!” I exploded. I was incensed as I looked around the circle, at their haunted, disoriented expressions. “How can we let this happen? How can Europe stand by and watch?”

  “They believe Hitler is good for Germany.” Mercedes clasped my shoulder where I reclined on a cushion by her chaise; I felt her squeeze me in warning. She knew how talk of the Nazis roused me to fury, but her gesture confused me, as her salons were always open to discussion.

  “Yes,” added Lubitsch. “France and Britain have implemented policies of appeasement; no one is doing anything to help the Jews.” He said to me, “Better warn von Sternberg; rumor is, he’s been making overtures to the UFA again. He’s the last person they want to see.”

  After they left, I asked Mercedes why she had stopped me. “I must hear everything, no matter how awful. My husband is in Paris now, but my mother, my sister, and my uncle are still in Berlin. If they’re at risk, I need to know.”

  “Are they dissidents?” she asked. “Jews? Marxists? No? Then they’re not at risk. I suggest you say as little as possible. Listen, but don’t state an opinion.”

  “Why? I’ve made no secret of my loathing for Hitler. And that propaganda minister of his, Goebbels, the failed novelist with the limp—he’s been campaigning against me.”

  “Let him. You must remain circumspect. You’re worried for your family? Well, not everyone who comes here can be trusted. Goebbels is known for sending spies disguised as refugees to get a sense of the mood abroad. The Nazis are doing more than attacking Jews and dissidents; they’re passing new laws to restrict women’s rights as well. They praise Kindersegen, mothers blessed with children, as national heroines; they want German women at home, cooking, cleaning, and bearing babies for the Reich. You are Germany’s most famous movie star, but you wear men’s clothing, you live away from the fatherland and your husband, and you show off your body. If you start denouncing the Reich, imagine how they’ll react.”

  I didn’t want to imagine it, but as soon as I returned home, I placed an international call to Uncle Willi—Mutti had not installed a telephone in her flat—and he reassured me, sleepy because of the time difference, that everything was fine.

  “Josephine is still cleaning houses. The situation isn’t as dire as you think. Yes, we have a new chancellor”—he chuckled dryly—“but how is that any different from the last twenty years? These regimes rise and fall like hemlines.”

  “You will let me know if it gets any worse?” I said. “You won’t wait?”

  “Of course. But where would we go, Lena, at our age? Your mother wouldn’t hear of it. You know how she is. This is her home. She continues
to behave as though the Nazis are an inconvenience one must put up with, like poor manners from a guest at the dinner table.”

  I had to smile. It would take more than a few book burnings to rattle Mutti.

  Ringing off with promises to call back soon, I then telephoned von Sternberg in New York, where he’d gone to see his ex-wife again, forever trying to cajole her into returning to him or at least reducing her alimony demands. Before I could deliver my warning, he said, “I’m not going. Perhaps to Europe at some later date, but not Germany. I’ve heard all about it; I’ve no wish to end up cleaning latrines in a camp. I’m headed to the South Seas to shoot a hurricane. I’ll call you when I get back. Oh, congratulations on the picture. I hear it’s going to be a great success. Didn’t I tell you? The Russian knows how to film a beautiful woman.”

  I didn’t ask why on earth he was filming tropical storms. It seemed fitting, for him.

  But he was wrong about my picture. The Song of Songs opened to excellent reviews but its tepid box office sealed Schulberg’s fate. He lost his job, moving to Columbia Pictures. To my delight, Lubitsch was made production chief in his stead—which explained von Sternberg’s dislike of him. A fellow émigré and competitor in the directorial chair, he couldn’t abide Lubitsch’s rise to power, though Lubitsch did not share his antipathy. When he invited me to his office, he said that given the poor receipts for The Song of Songs, he was open to my suggestion as to how we should move forward with my career.

  “I’ve been instructed to renew your contract for two more pictures, with an increase in salary. Paramount still believes in you, Marlene. You are our biggest female star.”

  “Then renew von Sternberg’s contract, too,” I said at once. “He’s the reason The Song of Songs failed. Had he been the director, he would have seen its flaws.”

  “I already tried.” Lubitsch rubbed a sore spot on his nose from his wire-frame spectacles. “He won’t take my calls. I suspect he’s still trying to woo the UFA, but as I told you before, he won’t find any work there, and no studio here will give him the license that we do.”