Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1935)

For the First and Last Time Marlene Dietrich Talks I CONTINUED FROM PAGE 43 I saying, "Where's the old Marlene.'' Why is she jumping around!" She told of her recent trip to New York She wanted badly to see " Point Valaine" with Noel Coward, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. By the time she had arrived in New York, the play was closed. That array of great talent was not enough to fill a theater in New York, where tastes are pretty high and well delineated. "Yet they ask us to please the audiences of every theater in the world," she smiled; " I don't think you can do that unless you keep right at the average line." I wondered if that wasn't her job. "That's a question," she replied thoughtfully. "I don't know. It may be my jobbut it isn't what I want to do "TF I were a film actress at heart, if 1 could •not live without making a picture — that would be different," she explained. " I have always made pictures because I wanted to work for Mr. von Sternberg — not because 1 wanted to be a film star "I only came to Hollywood to work with him. I only stayed to work with him. I have always admired him. I think he is a great artist. I had had offers to come to Hollywood before he called me, but I said no to them I did not want to leave my family and my country just to be a screen star." That is true. Both Fox and B. P. Schulberg tried to talk Marlene Dietrich into a contract. She wouldn't listen. After von Sternberg had finished "The Blue Angel," made in Germany Dietrich gave him a book to read on the boat— "Morocco." "I think it will make a good film for you,'' she had said, but there was no idea of herself in the part. "From the boat he cabled me to come to Hollywood," she told me. "When he told me to come, I came I would have come to work with him if he were in Australia." If that sounds as if Marlene Dietrich holds no particular love for Hollywood, then certainly she can't be blamed for that. It is hard to feel sorry for anyone as beautiful as Marlene Dietrich. It is always hard to feel sorry for a motion picture star who apparently has everything in the world Yet there is no doubt that Dietrich has been treated shamefully here. She was greeted— few could explain just why — more like an intruder than a visitor when she arrived. Immediately the Svengali-Trilby legend was spun to invest her with an unholy aura. She was accused of imitating Garbo. Of course, what no one knew or bothered to find out was that Marlene Dietrich was not a recluse by nature, nor was she interested in drawing herself into a shell to create a legend. She was merely alone in a strange, aggressive, frightening country with but one friend She was desperately lonely without her husband, her adored little girl, her family. She heard preposterous stories about herself, but soon learned there was no use talking back. No one wanted to believe her. They could make up much better stories. So she said nothing. Only recently on her trip to New York, she went down to the boat to see her husband, Rudolf Sieber, off. News cameramen were all over the place and snapped them from all angles. But not a picture was used in the newspapers. With Sieber sailing for Europe, and Marlene returning to Hollywood, a separation story was much more intriguing, and pictures showing them together at the boat didn't help that out very much! " I have been miserable often here in Hollywood," she told me. " During those first two years, when I was without my husband and Maria, I was terribly depressed. For the first two years when I lived in Santa Monica I saw no one. I had no friends to see. When I returned to Europe for my family the crowds actually frightened me, I became hysterical f had been so alone in Hollywood." For little Sybil Jason's debut picture, Warners built a whole story about her, "Little Big Shot." The reports were so good that they now have cast her in the important "I Found Stella Parrish" Recently, of course, Marlene Dietrich has found a few friends in Hollywood. She pals around a lot with Carole Lombard and she advised me that the Richard Barthelmesses were steady customers for the bee's nest cake. But few of her friends are close. She still feels as she has always felt — like an expatriate, and there are no interests of any importance outside her work with von Sternberg, of which she says reverently, "the experience of working all these years with his beautiful brain is something I would not have missed for all the world." But now, of course, that is ended. Not because Marlene Dietrich wanted it to end and not because the studio wanted it to end. When she knew it was ended, when she saw that to insist longer was to harm him, she said: "All right, I shall go back to Germany." "You mustn't do that," von Sternberg told her. "They won't think you're sincere. They will call it a publicity gesture No one will believe you. You should stay and make two pictures at least with someone else "It will be good for you," he went on, "and it will be easier for you It is so easy, after what we have been doing on the screen to show emotions in the natural, average way. You must stay." It was some time before Marlene Dietrich's new contract was signed. She wanted to go back to Europe, but she saw that if she did, it would make von Sternberg out as the bad man — the Svengali. They would blame it on him They would say he told her to go One day she called him up from her dressing room. The contract was on her dressing table. " Shall I sign or not? " she asked him. " You are always right. Tell me — because I really don't want to sign." "Sign," said von Sternberg. "So I signed," smiled Marlene Dietrich. "But I shall go home in the winter. "My plans?" she repeated slowly. "Oh yes, my plans are definite." Then in the next breath she said, "I never make plans." It didn't sound as absurd as it reads. It wasn't even contradictory to me, for I knew she was talking about two different things — the plans which were to complete the new con tract she had just signed — they were definite Beyond that — who knows? "Yes," she said, "everything is decided." Although her voice is always soft and her manner deliberate, there now seemed but little spirit in her voice Like champagne that has kept its bouquet but lost its bubbles Perhaps she was tired ' T SHALL make two pictures here. The first ™ is ' Desire,' an original story written for me — one that Ernst Lubitsch was to direct me in before he became production head of the studio. I play a French adventuress. Gary Cooper plays with me and Frank Borzage directs it. "The second is to be 'Hotel Imperial' — you remember? — the picture Pola Negri made years ago with Maurice Stiller. Lewis Mile stone will direct it. "The first is light and adventurous. The second is dramatic and thrilling They are regular film stories," she explained. Her slow smile widened " But my contract will be up soon and then I shall go to Europe. I think I shall stay quite a long time. There are many places I want to go —England, Italy, Austria I want to see my family, my sister and my mother in Berlin and my husband who is now in Paris. Maria is ten now. She adores America, but I want her to be educated in Europe. It is time she started in school there I can't think of being separated from her. "Pictures? I don't know. Perhaps I may make pictures in England or France or Germany— perhaps not. Perhaps Mr von Sternberg will come to Europe. I hope he does. "Miss Hollywood? Yes, I probably shall I may want to come back. But I will not sign a contract — any contract — just to be signing "It would have to be like the one I have now You know," she smiled, "in my contract I have my choice of story, cameraman — " "And director?" I asked "And director," she confirmed "Then you could have Mr von Sternberg again?" "Yes," she smiled, "if he would direct me.' I remembered the Paramount decree I had read in the newspaper. "We are going to re make Marlene Dietrich — " But I don't think you ever remake someone like Marlene Dietrich. You don't remake an idealist without remaking the ideal. 106