Marlene Page 9
Here I would like for a moment to revert to my arrival in America, that “unknown country.” As it was to all Germans, America was a riddle to me. In Germany we had heard about Indians slaughtering groups of white settlers, but little else.
Today, and I say this without the slightest ulterior motive, I love America and Americans, including those who committed mistakes and those who have been “badly treated.” I’ve known some gangsters who were friendly to me and whose “moral code” was absolutely compatible with mine.
I came to America at the height of Prohibition.
As the ship moored and I stood in the morning sun in a black dress and a mink coat, I was both fearful and enthusiastic. Officials of Paramount Studios came to my rescue, and I was taken to the Hotel Ambassador. Two hours later, I was told, I had to be ready and properly dressed for the “cocktail hour” (I didn’t know what that expression meant) at four o’clock in the afternoon. But my own priority was to find new dentures for Resi, my dressing room attendant.
I spoke with the members of the reception committee about it. Once they realized it didn’t involve me, they refused to help me. Yet, with Teutonic stubbornness, I managed to find a dentist in this unfamiliar city, left Resi in his office, and then went on to the press conference organized by Paramount. I was much more concerned about Resi’s new dentures than the press conference. Who would have thought that the young actress, hailed as “the discovery of the century” by von Sternberg, was wandering about New York looking for a dentist for her dressing room attendant? It was unthinkable. Loyal as ever to my principles, I didn’t care what people might say. So I managed to locate a dentist, and after he treated her, I returned to bring Resi back to the hotel.
On that night the vice president of Paramount, Walter Wanger, said that he would come with his wife to pick me up and show me around New York. I phoned Sternberg in Hollywood and told him how things were going. He advised me to do what was asked of me, but to phone him immediately should any difficulties arise.
So Walter Wanger appeared at the Hotel Ambassador. He waited for me at the reception desk. “My wife’s not feeling well,” he explained, “so we’ll have a tête-à-tête dinner.” Credulous, I asked no further questions and went with him to a restaurant. Later I learned that this type of establishment was called a “speakeasy,” in which all the guests surreptitiously reached under the table for a bottle of Scotch or Bourbon.
I sat stiff as a board in this dark hall in which everybody was drinking. Walter Wanger had met a friend named Chrisie (I no longer remember how one properly writes his name). In the course of the conversation, Wanger said: “In one of your interviews you said that you’d like to hear Richman. Well, here he is.” And in fact Harry Richman entered the tiny stage and sang a song that had been a favorite of mine for a long time, “On the Sunny Side of the Street.” To see this singer, whom I admired, in the flesh moved me to tears, and before I knew it Walter Wanger had dragged me off to the dance floor.
Annoyed over this abrupt, authoritarian gesture, I, in turn, made a move to go back to the table to get my handbag. The moment Walter Wanger released me, I grabbed my handbag and made my quick exit from the speakeasy. I ran through the streets of this unfamiliar city without knowing where I was heading. Finally, I hailed a taxi driver and gave him my address, “Hotel Ambassador.”
Once in the hotel (the doorman paid for the taxi), I phoned von Sternberg in Hollywood and told him about my adventure. He was quiet for a moment and then he said, “Come here tomorrow by train. Ask the doorman to reserve seats for you. Don’t talk with anybody, anybody, understand? Leave New York immediately.”
I woke Resi up; we packed our possessions in the trunk and didn’t sleep a wink until we were seated on the “Twentieth Century” en route to Chicago. There we were to board a Santa Fe line train. I slept for two entire days, woke up, ate the tasteless meals that were served in our luxury compartment by polite waiters, after which we again went to sleep, all the while wondering why we ever came to this darn land.
Von Sternberg had promised to meet us in New Mexico. Naturally, I thought he meant Mexico. I had never heard of New Mexico before. The heat was unendurable. We spread bedsheets over the seats of the compartment and joked, but our hearts were heavy.
Every time the train came to a stop—and that was very often—we wanted to get off to stretch our legs, but the heat drove us right back to the compartment. It was as though a red-hot pillow was being pressed on our faces. Von Sternberg, at last, showed up on one of the stations along the way. He was unruffled. We went with him to his compartment, and he suggested that we try to relax. Now everything was going well—as always with him, he had “taken us over.” The train rode on and on, but at last we arrived in Pasadena. We weren’t far from Los Angeles.
Automobiles, drivers, trucks were waiting there to load our luggage. And not a single journalist. Thank God. I felt good, full of confidence, ready to shift all my problems onto von Sternberg.
Resi, who had gotten used to her new dentures, was insatiable. So was I. Hunger tormented me around the clock, which worried me very much. Up to then I had never given any thought to going on a diet. Yet on the way to Hollywood and to the splendid sylphs who ruled there, I suddenly felt too fat. I really was fat, but up to then I had paid it no attention. Yet now that I was on my way to Hollywood …
Von Sternberg refused to share my worries on this score. He found me perfect; I matched the image he had of me to perfection. I was the only one who thought that I had to satisfy a definite “ideal of beauty.” The woman, whom von Sternberg wanted to bring to life on the screen, was by no means to be thin and sexless, but well fed, full of life, with ankles, breasts and sex appeal—in short, the dream of the little man.
I didn’t see things exactly from this point of view. He must have found me hard to bear. I insisted on wearing black in my first American film so as to appear slimmer. Black is not easy to photograph but, as always, von Sternberg was infinitely patient and said: “Fine, I’ll take the risk of photographing you in black, if that’s what you want.” At that time I didn’t yet know enough about photography to appreciate the significance of this promise and the difficulties that he would have to overcome. So I wore black, glossy black (the most difficult to photograph) When I had to speak tender words, I would position myself behind a broad armchair. And he endured my stupidity, day in, day out.
Up to now I’ve mentioned only the visual aspect of shooting a film. Now I’d like to speak of a second, equally important element: sound.
The work of the sound engineer is decisive. Whereas the cameraman must wait until the next day to see the results of his labors, the sound engineer, who listens in on everything directly, can demand a new recording as soon as a scene is filmed. All he has to say is “Bad for me,” and the performance, even of the greatest actor, is ruined. At this moment the sound engineer’s assistants come out of the dark to place the microphones elsewhere. Often they turn directly to the actor, something that von Sternberg had always forbidden. “Explain the problem to me,” he would repeatedly say, “and I’ll speak about it to the actor if I decide it should be done that way.”
Despite my inexperience, I understood his reasons: If you ask an actor to speak more loudly it can alter his performance. When the sound engineer was dissatisfied, von Sternberg simply suggested that we emphasize our words more. The firmer the voice, the better it registers on the microphone. A very simple technical trick. What made the whole thing so difficult was that those responsible for the sound received tapes without pictures. Since they couldn’t see the actor’s lips, they could depend only on what they heard. Many directors who ignored this filmed the same scene a dozen times until the actor was exhausted and his acting unnatural. The sound engineers, of course, were satisfied.
The sound engineer’s “Okay” let us breathe easier, especially when I no longer worked with von Sternberg.
Once, in Golden Earrings, I had to run screaming through a forest behind the
man who deserted me, screaming louder the more I distanced myself from the camera. I was breathless when I came back to the director, and the sound engineer standing next to him said, “Why did you strain yourself like that? There’s a microphone behind every tree.” “But if that’s the case,” I tried to explain to myself and to him, “then they must have picked up my voice as if I were very near. And since the camera doesn’t move, as the image becomes smaller and smaller, my voice still sounds as though I were close to the camera.”
The sound engineer assured me that these technicalities would be solved in the “echo-chamber” and that my voice would sound properly distant.
I couldn’t make any sense of it at all. Why all that work for the technicians afterward when it would be easier to handle these minor details on the spot? But I hate arguing and raising my voice while shooting a film. So I just shut up, but …
The von Sternberg-Marlene Dietrich collaboration in the United States began with Morocco in 1931. I had terrible difficulties since I had to speak correct English and appear mysterious at the same time. An aura of mysteriousness has never been my forté. I knew what was expected of me, but I wasn’t in a position to create this atmosphere. The Blue Angel had been something altogether different, the role of an ordinary, brazen, sexy and impetuous floozie, the very opposite of the “mysterious woman” that von Sternberg wanted me to play in Morocco.
The first scene was shot in the Paramount Studios in Hollywood. The action took place aboard a ship putting ashore in Casablanca or some other exotic port. Leaning on the rail, I stared into the distance (camera left, please), when I turned around and reached for my only suitcase, it suddenly snapped open and all my belongings fell out. Thereupon a gentleman (Adolphe Menjou) came up to me, wanting to help me gather up my belongings, and said, “Can I help you, Mademoiselle?” At that time the word “mademoiselle” immediately enveloped any woman bent over the mess of an opened suitcase in an aura of mystery.
I had to answer, “Thanks, I don’t need any help.”
Paradoxically, I could have really used some help on that particular day. Unlike most Germans, I didn’t say “SSSanks,” yet my pronunciation of the English “th” in thanks was far from perfect. And hundreds of people had shown up on the set to get a look at the newcomer Marlene Dietrich (two unusual words).
I knew exactly what I was doing wrong. As best I could, I spoke with what I really thought was an American accent: “Thanks, I don’t need any helllp,” pressing my tongue against my palate, hoping to produce a guttural sound. Von Sternberg, aware of the moment’s importance but, as always, infinitely patient, made me repeat my answer God knows how many times until I pronounced the word “help” properly. Today I understand that this first line and this first scene were of the greatest importance for the success of the film and of the unknown German woman called Marlene Dietrich. (When I asked von Sternberg if I could change my name, he answered: “Soon it will become quite well known.”)
At the end of the day I broke into tears. Not in front of the technicians, but in my dressing room in front of my makeup artist Dot, the dressing room attendant, the hairdresser … it was too much for me. I wanted to go back to Germany. If that’s what my life was going to be like from now on, the whole business no longer interested me. I had left my husband and daughter behind in Berlin, I would return to them immediately.
Von Sternberg was standing outside my dressing room, after knocking lightly he came in.
He restored my morale within twenty minutes.
“Never break off your contract, rule numero uno. Never give up, rule numero due. In other words, stay.” That’s what he said to me.
How tiresome it must have been for him to bother himself so over a young, impressionable woman who understood nothing of his aims, his wishes, not to mention his plans for his Trilby, his Eliza Doolittle, his Galatea—the dream of creating a woman according to his own ideal, like a painter who captures an image on his canvas. How could he ever have stood me? It’s impossible to answer this question. I understood nothing of his concerns or obsessions; I knew nothing of his aims. He had decided to make me a star overnight, but that left me indifferent. In reality, he was molding an unknown Berlin woman. I was young, vulnerable, of course, and I was there to enchant the great American public, but in my own eyes I was still what I had never ceased to be, a German woman merely concerned with fulfilling her obligations, nothing more.
I didn’t want to go to evening parties. He agreed. For me only my home counted. He agreed. I wanted to get my daughter out of Germany. He agreed. He even went to great pains to phone my husband (I didn’t trust myself) to ask if I could take Maria with me back to the United States. In short, he set me on my feet once and for all. Anyway, we both believed this, at that time.
He was father, confessor, critic, instructor, the one who adjusted himself to all my needs. Adviser, business man, agent, spokesman, he helped me to live in peace with myself. He was my absolute lord, whether it was a matter of buying a Rolls Royce, of hiring a chauffeur, or of teaching me that signing checks is a serious business. He taught me a myriad things, in addition to English and my chosen profession—acting. God knows how much I’ve learned from him! I don’t think I ever properly thanked him for all that. But, so far as I recall, he didn’t like to be thanked.
He also taught me to understand the American legal system, which, particularly in California, is so different from the European. In fact, he had come to know it quite well since his divorce, which had occurred long before we met in the States. He had put up a big fight against paying alimony to his ex-wife, whom in the end he hated. He even spent three days in jail once because of his refusal to meet the alimony payment deadline. This experience had pleased him extraordinarily. But this is all he ever told me about his private life.
Nor did he want me to talk about him. Now that he is dead, I’m free to do so. He created me. Only at one other time have I seen such a miracle, when Luchino Visconti was making a film with Helmut Berger. The eye behind the camera, the eye that loves the creature whose image will be captured on the film, is the creator of the wondrous effect that emanates from this being and calls forth the praise and enthusiasm of moviegoers all over the world.
All that is exactly calculated in advance and is in no way fortuitous. It is a mixture of technical and psychological knowledge and of pure love. Von Sternberg had already created stars before me: Phyllis Haver, Evelyn Brent, George Bancroft, Georgia Hale, but the “Leonardo da Vinci” of the camera wasn’t content with his “material,” as he called actors and actresses.
I had satisfied him. I was disciplined, punctual. Always and everywhere I followed his instructions, and I made my suggestions (which he often took) always at the right moment. In short, I tried not to disturb him. I grew up with discipline. I knew nothing else in my life. That may sound odd to all those who read a lot about personalities in show business, so it calls for some explanation.
When I arrived in Hollywood, I was what is called a “spoiled brat”—as far as my manners were concerned. Josef von Sternberg was the only person I allowed to patronize, instruct, and control me. Otherwise I remained my true, independent self.
The character trait that aroused his interest in me was the fact that I was a “disciplined” person. It wasn’t my beauty or my physical attractiveness that fascinated him. Rather, it was my unique capacity for discipline, an almost unknown quality among actresses he had known, that drew him to me.
I was conscious of problems that concern directors and actors interested in camera technique and in everything that goes on behind the camera. He dreaded the day on which, perhaps, I would become an ordinary star or a woman fascinated by her own image and simply be like one of the actresses that had crossed his path by the hundreds.
Never will I forget the wonderful moment when I climbed up to the set, a dark and hollowish set where he stood in the faint glare of a single light bulb. Lonely? Not really. A strange man whom I was still to get to know.
The team adored him because the technicians wanted the same effects he did, and they admired his way of “lending a hand.” For example, when the cameraman thought a scene that von Sternberg wanted was “impossible,” von Sternberg himself then would take the camera and show him what to do. When you want to have a say in a matter, you yourself must be able to carry out the instruction you give to others.
He designed all my costumes; Travis Benton, the costume designer at Paramount, was very fond of him because of his ability and sudden inspirations. Both created my film image; I, spoiled brat that I was, merely had to slip into it and let myself be fawned upon.
They worked together on several films. The crowning achievement of this collaboration was the costumes in The Devil Is a Woman, in my view the most beautiful film that was ever made. Von Sternberg always reserved the right to accept or reject what Travis and I—always following his instructions rather freely—had thought up. We worked during lunch, between takes and until late at night. By then Travis and I were experts in fighting off fatigue. Perhaps because we adored von Sternberg. Many people claim to have made my costumes from the days of The Blue Angel on. That’s not true. Travis Benton alone actualized von Sternberg’s ideas. He remained at my side up to the last film. Today Travis is no longer alive, but how I wish that he were still among us, with me, to help write this book.
On the other hand, I never trusted the cameramen. They constantly resisted giving von Sternberg what actually was his due. The reason for this is obvious. But after von Sternberg was accepted into the cameramen’s union and could put his stamp on the work of the camera people, he gave his genius free rein. Naturally, the “clan” of cameramen in the studios was not overly pleased, but that didn’t prevent them from imitating him. At the time when von Sternberg did not yet belong to the union, he behaved more than properly toward some young apprentices and so taught them one of cinema’s most beautiful styles. All of them became renowned cameramen and were thankful to him. Nobody ever disappointed him. Indeed, that was our greatest concern: never to disappoint him.