Marlene (34 page)

“You should have insisted. Did you tell whoever answered that we’d received a threat?”

Gerda’s mouth thinned. “I didn’t. I thought of the press; you know how some people at the studio sell gossip to reporters. I called Schulberg’s office instead, but I had to try several times before his secretary picked up. By then, I’d decided to alert the police. I take care of Heidede every day and she was in no danger. She was here with me the entire time.”

“Some care.” I heard myself and knew I was being hysterical. The police had arrived. Heidede was unharmed—scared, but not hurt. But I
felt myself unraveling, fragments of my composure breaking apart inside me. “You let her play alone in the garden, feeding those nasty parrots. She’s constantly running around. Thank God we don’t have a pool. She could drown before anyone would notice. I pay you to look after her, and now I have to worry about her safety on top of everything else.”

“Marlene.” Her firm tone of voice wrenched my gaze back to her. “I take my responsibilities very seriously. This is not my fault.”

“I don’t care whose fault it is,” I shot back at her. “She’s my child.”

Gerda regarded me in tense silence for a moment. “I’m sorry about all this. I’d rather die than let anything happen to Heidede, but you have to admit—”

“What? What do I have to admit? Are you implying this is
my
fault? Did I send that note here for extra publicity?”

It was an absurd thing to say, and she confirmed it. “I would never think that. But the very fact that you think I might means everything. You are not the person I thought you were.”

“
Gott in Himmel
. Are you accusing me of something? If so, just come out with it.”

“Heidede,” she said, and the way she spoke my daughter’s name, the squaring of her shoulders under her button-up blouse with that antiquated collar she still favored, made me clench my fists. “She’s growing up without a mother. Without a father. She eats too much. She’s miserable. She doesn’t like it here. She never has. Have you noticed? Have you ever asked her? When Rudi left, she cried for days. She begged him to take her with him. Did you know?”

“No,” I spat out. “But if I had, it wouldn’t matter. She belongs with me. And it’s none of your business. I hired you so it would be nobody’s business but mine.”

“I see.” She reached into her skirt pocket and removed her house key, setting it on the desk. “I’m resigning, Marlene. I love you. But this is not my place. It’s not my country or the job I was trained to do. I won’t be your servant.”

“When did I ever expect you to be my servant?”

“You do. But you can’t see it. Me, Rudi, von Sternberg, the studio, even Heidede—in your mind, we exist only to please you. Nothing is more important than your success. When you’re happy, we’re happy. When you are not . . .” She sighed. “You’re extraordinary. But all this business of being Dietrich is destroying you.”

I flung out my arms. “Without this, there would be nothing to destroy. No Dietrich. No money. And no servitude for you to resign from.” And then, as I realized what I had admitted, the enormity of it, she replied, “You think that. You may even believe it. But none of this is real. Don’t forget it. One day, you may need your friends more than you know.”

As she stepped past me, moving to the staircase down which Heidede was coming with the maid and her suitcase, I wanted to stop her. I wanted to implore her forgiveness for being so selfish, so blind, that I’d not seen how much she’d given up for me, her career and her ambition to write, and Germany, our country, which neither of us recognized anymore. Instead, I said to her retreating figure, “I’ll leave your final pay on the desk,” and I let her go. I let her walk out of my life.

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

I
t 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 must 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.”