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with Marlene Dietrich By Jack Nichols
"If she had only her voice," observed Ernest Hemingway in a lucid moment, "she could break your heart." What is immediately noticeable about Marlene Dietrich in her films is that she can seem both blunt enough and smart enough to outsmart any smart men who too often assume themselves to be superior. A particular quality she exuded was a kind of all-knowing 'world-sadness'. There was no surrender in this expression, however. Dietrich once said that 'world-sadness' is a necessary component of beauty. But woe to any contender who took as a sign of weakness the larger face of tragedy that Dietrich could project. Behind that nearly sad nod-to-reality was the assurance of a fierce commitment.
On many occasions Dietrich went into actual battles right up to the front lines where World War II America was battling Hitler. There she entertained and entranced U.S. troops, this beautiful German-American woman, using all the energy and magnetism of her self-crafted personality in the struggle against the Third Reich. How she must have infuriated Hitler projecting against his arm-waving hysteria, her warm, knowing, seductive persona.
Fans of Dietrich, including the most interesting men in my life, know how she used her vocal talents as a propaganda tool in the all-out fight against Hitler, singing popular American love songs in German in order to seduce those Nazi soldiers tuned in on the underground radio. The first such song I heard was Lili Marlene. A wartime song. Romantic. It tells of one who waits under a lamppost outside the soldiers' barracks-- for a lover. Outside the barracks, by the corner light I'll always stand and wait for you at night We will create a world for two I'll wait for you, the whole night through, For you, Lili Marlene, for you, Lili Marlene. Lili Marlene ranked first among World War II's most haunting songs, wildly popular with both the German and the American troops. The last verse in Lili Marlene remains, for me, one of the great love-song lyrics of the 20th century: When we are marching in the mud and cold And when my pack seems more than I can hold My love for you renews my might I'm warm again, my pack is light, It's you, Lili Marlene, It's you, Lili Marlene.
Dietrich, by standing up against Hitler, demonstrated in real life what she'd shown in her films, a refusal to curtsey. Fools demanding her subservience discovered she enjoyed a kind of self-esteem that could only deny such a demand. She spoke up against the racism and the fascist fundamentalism that Hitler represented. Also, closer to home for me, she spoke up for same-sex romance and, in films, even practiced cross-dressing, entertaining in a tux. Dancing so in one such film, she kisses a woman in her audience. Her daughter's biography of her (Marlene Dietrich by Maria Riva, Published by Alfred A. Knopf, 1993) reveals that such happenings took place in the course of her off-stage life as well. Dietrich knew the power of tones. She was a great projector of attitude. How else could she have posed so confidently in her signature song, Falling in Love Again: Men cluster to me like moths around a flame And if their wings burn, I know I'm not to blame. There has seldom been a woman admired by so many who emitted such confidence in herself. At the same time, she was one of the reigning queens of glamour, the most expensively costumed star in Hollywood.
Marlene Dietrich grew old still beautiful, the media dubbing her "America's Sexiest Grandmother" in the early 1960s. When she decided she was no longer glamorous-at age 75-- she refused to be photographed, and later, even, to be seen by the public, so eager was she to maintain an unblemished legend for her beauty. Her art, in great part, was her life too.
As a performer she had gone to lengths to protect an image, part of which, she knew, was lighting. Such details she refused to leave to stagehands and, before a show, she arrived early to fix the lighting herself to her best advantage. That's my kind of performer. This woman, because she crafted a unique image, sultry and provocative, still casts today her long-ago spell, transcending many decades. What is it about her that allows her to live on? |
I'm feeling plenty satisfied seeing how both Germany and America are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the late Marlene Dietrich's birth. This week, Turner Classic Movies is celebrating the star's long ago appearances -- on a non-stop basis.
Both the German and English versions of this song are among the selections on a CD titled The Cosmopolitan Marlene Dietrich.
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