Marlene (16 page)

Mae West's dressing room lay between the studio and my dressing room. What a remarkable woman! She was very friendly to me and often gave me good advice. She gave me the strength I lacked with a sensitivity that astonished me. But I wasn't the only one. The Paramount executives were just as captivated and carried away by her. She was never a “mother” to me, since she wasn't the motherly sort. For me she was a teacher, no, a rock to which I clung, an intelligent woman who understood me and who divined all my problems. At that time I don't think she was aware of what a great influence she had on me. I was so bad in expressing my feelings.

When I read Ernst Lubitsch's screenplay for
Desire
, I was horrified: The film was to begin with a close-up of my legs. My legs, always my legs! Yet for me they have only one purpose, they
make it possible for me to walk. I didn't want so much fuss made over my legs. But Mae West advised me to take another view of the matter and to let the producers have their way. She always had a thousand good reasons for her opinion, and I listened to her. So the film
Desire
begins with a close-up of my legs. It's an extraordinary film and could have dispensed with such a beginning.

Mae West was wonderful, intelligent, shrewd, and understood her metier. She never was seen at Hollywood parties. Probably only starlets went to them. We never attended them. It was already difficult enough to screen off our private sphere, to attend to the day-to-day demands of our job, to spend a few relaxing hours with the few friends we had.

No lexicographer has yet succeeded in exactly defining the word
glamour.
It just cropped up one day, but nobody can explain it or trace its etymology. I've often been asked about the meaning of this word and have always had to throw up my hands.

The greatest “glamour girl” was Mae West. Then came Carole Lombard. And then Dietrich. At any rate according to Paramount's view. MGM, of course, also had its glamour girls in Jean Harlow, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford … At that time there were no “sex symbols.” In my opinion this notion first came into being with Marilyn Monroe. Sex then was taboo. “We must do all that only and exclusively with the eyes,” Mae West explained to me one day. And we all stuck to this. There was no scene in which we undressed or appeared semi-nude, nothing improper. I must confess I prefer that method to what you see on the screen nowadays. I don't like it, and I'm sure the public shares my dislike.

Today sex is tremendously important. It's the only thing that has something to offer people. Everybody is so frustrated that the pursuit of pleasure has become a veritable sickness. That's why “shrinks” are so popular, many people pay horrendously exorbitant sums to their “shrinks” for their life-supporting therapy (all the better for the “shrinks” when they can become rich that way!).
Despite that, I feel sorry for people who need such a deceptive form of assistance.

The word
glamour
means something indefinite, something inaccessible to normal women—an unreal paradise, desirable but basically out of reach.

I find all that pretty stupid. Of course, we're beautiful in the photos and also in life, but we were never so extraordinary as the image that was sketched of us. We clung to this image because the studio demanded that we do so. But none of us enjoyed it. To us it was a routine job, and we just did it well. If one had asked the Harlows, the Crawfords, the Lombards for their opinion, I'm sure they would have said the same.

Marilyn Monroe was an authentic “sex symbol,” because not only was she “sexy” by nature but she also liked being one—and she showed it. And she came at a time when the censorship to which we all had to submit (cheerfully, I would say) no longer existed. The skirts rose to the hips, panties became visible and the eye of the public was riveted on them. The performance no longer counted.

The directors of the thirties respected us and didn't demand that we show our “derriere.” They attached no importance to it. We had to do without “tricks” of this kind. And what we did we did very well. We stimulated the imagination of the public all over the world; we awakened dreams and filled the movie houses.

But we also played serious roles in which the notion of being “fatale” simply never came up. The films with Garbo and with me have made history. When today's young people come to see us decked out in boots and fancy robes and behold our so-called “hot” love scenes they become enthusiastic and love us. Perhaps because of something else …

I came to Hollywood too late. I would have liked to live there at another time. The anecdotes about the days of the silents made my mouth water. At that time a kind of rickshaw would bring the stars to the studio. If two stars couldn't stand one another, the rickshaw drivers had to take care that their paths never crossed. I heard that such was the case between Pola Negri and Gloria Swanson. There was also music in the studio. A small orchestra
played a melody suitable to the scene being filmed. Since sound recording did not yet exist, the orchestra played while the camera was running so that the actors wept and laughed to the rhythm of the music. That must have looked very strange. The moment the actors and actresses opened their mouths, one heard a “Cut!” coming to the rescue and the words would appear in beautiful script on the screen before they resumed their performance in the next scene.

At the time of the silent films all Hollywood reverberated with talk of famous, notorious wild parties. The great stars would remain there till late at night. On the next day they could nonchalantly appear four or five hours late at the studio. Just to make an appearance was all that mattered. Nobody would have dared to reprimand them, to bawl them out. These men and women ruled over the studios, they could indulge all their whims, they could exhibit their mistakes, their defeats, their dubious behavior, their bad performances, in short, all that was later to be labeled “bluff” in Hollywood.

I learned these stories from the truck drivers who helped me climb on the tailgates of their vehicles and brought me to the studio when my costumes were too bulky for me to sit with them in a passenger car. “Hold on, sweetie,” they would call out to me before starting off slowly for fear I might fall off. These drivers, the technicians, the makeup artists and dressing room assistants who showed the same patience I did during the hours-long fitting sessions were my best friends.

I never saw the big studio bosses. I was looked on as the recognized queen of Paramount Studios, a distinction of which I wasn't aware, of course, and I was not supposed to be bothered. So my not too extensive fan mail was received by personnel especially appointed for that purpose who always lamented that I didn't get more letters. That made me suspicious, but later I learned that the people who liked my films were not the type who wrote fan letters “to his or her favorite actress.”

I even had to get used to the previews. They were often held in the little town called Pomona. There the films were shown to a public that had no idea what it would be seeing. The poster simply
read: “Major Studio Preview.” A strange custom. In addition, cards were distributed in front of the movie house on which the public was invited to express its opinion of the film. These cards were then passed on to the studio and evaluated.

You don't have to have a Ph.D. in psychology to realize that a chance moviegoer who is asked to transform himself or herself into a critic will do his or her best to highlight mistakes, gaps, errors, etc. Nevertheless, the studio people conscientiously evaluated the cards and even forwarded them to the director and proposed certain changes to him. The directors I knew immediately threw them into the wastebasket. But I also remember a good example of the stupid influence of these previews.

After Josef von Sternberg finished shooting his first film for Paramount,
Morocco,
the film, as usual, was shown in Pomona. Gary Cooper played the leading male role. After the first half of the film, the auditorium was emptied. Finally, we watched the remainder of it all by ourselves. I asked for permission to leave, convinced that this showing signified the end of my Hollywood career. I began to pack my trunks the moment I got home. During my absence my big shepherd dog had almost devoured the black doll that had been my little mascot since
The Blue Angel.
I read it as a bad omen and packed my things even more feverishly. I wasn't sorry for myself but for Josef von Sternberg and all the others who had believed in me. On the other hand, I was somewhat relieved that now I wouldn't become a movie star and could go back to my family in Germany.

I didn't sleep a wink the whole night, as one can easily imagine, and I was ready to take off in the morning. At half-past nine von Sternberg phoned and asked me to see him in his office. There, I imagined, I would be told of my dismissal.

He had me sit down on the other side of the desk and threw or handed me a newspaper. “Read it,” he said. There before my eyes was a short article by a Jimmy Star—a name I didn't know. After giving a summary of the film the reporter wrote: “If this woman doesn't revolutionize the film industry, then I don't know what I'm talking about.”

I sat there, flabbergasted, and said: “But I've already packed
all my trunks, I'm ready to go home now. I thought that I might have disappointed you.”

“You can go back to Germany whenever you please,” replied von Sternberg, “but surely not because you think you've failed here in America.”

He was calm, as usual, his look, which I knew so well, rested on me. A faint cigarette smell hovered in the air, von Sternberg looked indifferent. I was as though paralyzed. Again, my overly proper upbringing and its imperatives. What should I do now? To me “to revolutionize the film industry” simply meant that I wasn't the flop I thought I was. How does one get up from a chair? How does one leave a room? I no longer knew. I remained seated, motionless.

“You can go now,” he said, “but let me know your final decision.”

I went back to the house I had rented. There I met my housemaid. I was restless. What should I do? The feeling of security I drew from obedience had disappeared. This time no one was giving me orders; I was torn in this and that direction and waited nervously for my husband's phone call. As usual, he would tell me what to do. Finally, late in the night, his call came through: “Here everything's going fine. Come to Berlin whenever you wish. But your film will be a huge success, don't give up the studio.”

I went to bed and immediately fell asleep, something that had not happened for a long time.

Why had the audience left the movie house on that memorable evening? First of all because they had been disappointed by Gary Cooper—who up to then had played only cowboy roles—and his new style. In
Morocco
he was never seen on a horse. Besides, it was time to light the stoves on the orange plantations of Pomona. The artistic merits
of Morocco
were not the issue. Meanwhile, previews have been given up, this stupid custom that has angered many great directors and whose passing nobody mourns.

1. John Barrymore was a master in every way. When I came to America, he was the most famous actor of all time. His name exercised a great magic even on us Europeans. I heard Barrymore on the radio and saw him on stage. He was superb. Years later when I made a radio broadcast with him, he was no longer the same, and we had to support him throughout the performance. He thanked us, aware of his weaknesses. When he left the studio, we all had tears in our eyes.
   
2. The “hm” actors. Those who don't at all deserve to be called actors, since to “act” doesn't mean simply to say “hm” or to utter one-word lines or incomprehensible sounds.
   
3. After the “hm” actors come the “mumbling” actors. They attach great importance to the fact that nobody, not even the director, not to mention the sound man, understands what they're saying (the script girls gave up a long time ago and pray to heaven that the lines of the “mumblers” coincide with the script). For many years these “mumbling” actors were the finest of the finest. They were considered geniuses because no one under stood a word of what they were “saying.” Sometimes their partners would try to outdo them by murmuring their dialogue even more indistinctly. The result was ludicrous.
   
4. After that there was a reverse tendency, actors again spoke correctly. That was before the “What's happened to my other shoe?” period. James Stewart was the inventor of this original style. Even when he visibly made an effort to play a love scene, he always gave the impression he was wearing only one shoe and looking for the other while he slowly droned his lines.
   

ONE DAY I TOLD
him about these ruminations of mine, and he answered: “How's that?” Obviously, his sense of humor was poorly developed. He performed this way throughout his life and became very rich and very famous. Now he no longer had to look for his other shoe. My American partners had a peanut where other
humans have a brain. I'm not saying there were no intelligent actors in Hollywood. There were, of course, but truth to tell I didn't get along with them.

The only really admirable actor with whom I worked was Spencer Tracy; unfortunately my role in
Judgment at Nuremberg
was a small one. We laughed a lot together since his sense of humor was like mine. European actors are quite different from their American counterparts. Robert Donat was magnificent, de Sica brilliant, comical, a director of genius.

Brian Aherne, my partner in
Song of Songs,
was very gifted and had a mordant English sense of humor I greatly appreciated. I never had the luck to work with David Niven. He was not only an actor but a writer as well, an amusing host, and listening to him was as pleasant as reading his books.

One time I thought luck was finally smiling upon me: I was scheduled to make a film with a friend, the great Polish actor Zbigniew Cybulski. But he died in an accident, all too early. You needed to have seen his face only once, with the eyes hidden behind sunglasses, for example, in
Ashes and Diamonds,
his best known film, and you would never forget it. I met Cybulski in Poland during one of my concerts. At that time he was making a film in Wroclaw (called Breslau before the war), and he would appear at my performance after a long and hard day's work. We were friends from the moment of our first encounter.