M A R L E N E D I E T R I C H Marlene before The Blue Angel in The Woman One Longs For, 1929. M A R L E N E D I E T R I CH LIFE AND LEGEND S T E V EN B A C H UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRES S Minneapolis London The author gratefully acknowledges permission to reprint photographs in this book from the following sources. The four galleries of eight pages each in the book are not numbered but are numbered here, left to right, top to bottom. Frontispiece. Danish Film Museum, Copenhagen (Den). First gallery. 1-2: Deutsche Institute fur Film-kunde, Frankfurt (DIF). 3: Ullstei n Bilderdienst, Ber- lin (Ullstein). 4: author's collection. 5: Siiddeutsche Verlag Bilderdienst, Munich (SV). 6-8: Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin (SDK). 9: author's collection, courtesy Hasso Felsing. 10-11: SDK. 12: author's collection. 13: Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna (AUS). 14: Den. 15: AUS. 16: au- thor's collection, courtesy Hasso Felsing. 17: author's collection. 18: DIF. 19-20: SDK. 21: SV 22: DIF. 23-24: SV 25: Alfred Eisenstaedt, Life magazine, copyright Time Warner, Inc. Second gallery. 26: DIF. 27-30 (scene sketches by Fritz Maurischaat) and 31: SDK. 32: SV 33-34: DI 35: SDK. 36: author's collection, copyright Die Dame. 37: Alfred Eisenstaedt , Life magazine, copyright Time Warner, Inc. 38: SDK. 39: Magnum, Manuel Moses Collection (MM). 40-41: The Kobal Collec tion (Kobal). 42: author's collection. 43-47: SV 48: courtesy John Pommer. 49-50: SV 51: George East- man House, Rochester, New York (GEH). 52: SDK. 53: AUS. 54-55: DIF. 56-58: author's collection, frame blowups courtesy Stadtmuseum, Munich. Third gallery. 59-60: Archive Photos Stock Photo Library (Archive). 61: courtesy Barry Paris. 62: GEH. 63-67: Kobal. 68: David O. Selznick Archives, University of Texas at Austin. 69: GEH. 70: Bayerische Staatabibliothek, Munich. 71: AUS. 72: DIF. 73: SV 74: MM. 75-78: SV 79: Kobal. 80-81: DIF. 82: Kobal. 83: SV 84: MM. 85-86: DIF. Fourth gallery. 87: SDK. 88: Kobal. 89: photograph by Earl Theisen, copyright Look. 90-91: Kobal. 92: Archive. 93-94: Kobal. 95: Archive. 96: courtesy Bernard Hall. 97: Archive. 98-99: Kobal. 100: Archive. 101-3: SV 104: copyright Eve Arnold/Magnum. 105-8: MM. 109: copyright Anthony Armstrong-Jones/ Camera Press. Song credits appear on page 626. Originally published as Marlene Dietrich: Life and Legend (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1992). First University of Minnesota Press edition, 2011 Copyright 1992 by Outpost Productions, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or trans- mitted, in any form or by any means , electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bach, Steven. Marlene Dietrich : life and legend / Steven Bach, p. cm. ISBN 978-0-8166-7584-5 (pbk.) 1. Dietrich, Marlene. 2. Entertainers—Germany—Biography. I. Title. PN2658.D5B32011 791.43'028'092-dc22 [B] 2010054347 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunit y educator and employer. 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Else and Werner Rohr This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS A Note from the Author ix OVERTURE A Visit to the Theater: 1929 3 I BERLIN One. Beginnings: 1901-1918 13 Two. Weimar and Back: 1919-1921 29 Three. The Sorcerer's Apprentice: 1922-1923 46 Four. The Perfect Couple: 1923-1927 64 Five. Breakthrough: 1928-1929 80 Six. The Blue Angel: 1929 97 II HOLLYWOOD Seven. Fame: 1930-1931 125 Eight. Empress of Desire: 1931-1932 141 Nine. Apotheosis: 1933-1934 162 Ten. Tribute and Farewell: 1934-1935 185 Eleven. Saving Dietrich: 1935-1936 200 Twelve. Exile: 1937-1939 230 Thirteen. Phoenix: 1939-1941 248 Fourteen. Home Front: 1942-1943 268 Fifteen. Lili Marlene: 1944-1945 288 Sixteen. Survivor: 1946-1947 309 Seventeen. Pro: 1947-1950 326 Eighteen. Star Quality: 1950-1952 344 III LEGEND Nineteen. Solo: 1952-1954 361 Twenty. Back in Business: 1954-1958 374 Twenty-one. Helen of Troy: 1959-1960 390 Twenty-two. Odyssey: 1960-1967 405 Twenty-three. "Queen of the World": 1967-1975 422 Twenty-four. Monstre Sacré: 1976-1982 443 IV EXIT MUSIC Coda: "Allein in Einer Grossen Stadt": 1983-1992 469 Appendix A. Theater Chronology 479 Appendix B. Filmography 490 Appendix C. Discography 520 Acknowledgments 529 Source Notes 533 Bibliography 589 Index 611 A N O TE FROM THE AUTHOR I spoke intermittently but at length with Marlene Dietrich while research- ing and writing this book. She did not "cooperate" with it (and at one point tried legally to stop it), though because I had known and been a student of her great director, Josef von Sternberg, she gave me the oppor- tunity to experience her as a generous, intelligent, sympathetic, shrewd, and witty woman, sometimes difficult, often very funny, unfailingly out- spoken, if not always candid. She deplored "biographers," and always spoke the word in indignant quotation marks. Partly she felt vivid resentment that they were some- how appropriating what had been, after all, her life. More importantly, she understood Legend and wanted the world to remain unconfused by facts.