← Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood
Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood
193. Marlene Dietrich - From the Vault
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Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to who did what now, the history podcast. That is not your history class. With me, your host, Katy Charlewood, history harlot and reader of books. If you got a wee bit of deja vu from reading the title, you're not wrong with it being Pride Month. We are pulling some of my favourite LGBTQ people from history from the vault and bringing them back for another go around. We're also going to see the return of the Bitty Swords this month, just because there are so many things I want to talk about, but they just don't fit into a full hour long episode, so. So the Bittisodes are going to return for Pride Month, at least. I don't know if they're going to be next month, but definitely for Pride. On top of that news, housekeeping news, I guess. So the tour will be starting later this year and if you want your country, State, city, if you want me to show up in your town, go over to the Hooded what Now? Pod website. If you go there, there is a sort of a page where you can go into Google form and fill out your details and there's also an option to be notified when tickets go on sale in your area.
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Okay.
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So if you want to do that and vote for me to be places, that would be amazing. And it also helps me organize my tour so it is split into three separate categories. We have usa, we have Canada, and we have Europe. I don't know, I don't have out with that at the minute. I haven't got Asia planned. I haven't got that far yet because that's even more complicated for me to organize. So we are not there yet. If you want to hear more of me and you want to hear me talk about one of my favorite things ever, which is Poison. Every Wednesday, my new podcast with my dear, dear friend Jay is being released. Day and Nightshade. Yes, that is the name.
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Yes.
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I'm very proud of it. No, I did not come up with the name myself. I asked my other dear friend Paul. I was like, I need a name for this. And it's about this. And he was like, what about ABCDE? And I was like, yes, sold 10 out of 10. So that means if you're listening to this on day of release, you'll have this episode to listen to. And then 10 tomorrow on day of release, you will have more to listen to. I am very excited to bring Day and Nightshade to y'.
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All.
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I. I don't think you understand just how excited this has been. Like Several years in the making. Like we've been trying to do this and Jay has been flying over from Germany so that we can record together in the same room. And it's. It's literally keeping her friendship alive, I think, at this point. So. So don't let our friendship die. But what else? I have more. I know I have more news.
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I feel like I have more news.
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Goodness, there is.
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Oh, I can't tell you that yet, actually.
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But anyway, with that.
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I know what you're thinking.
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You're thinking, katie, quit your jibber jabber.
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In fact me. In fact you. I will. But first we've got to get our source on Marlena. D G L Life and Legend by Stephen Buck. Marlene Dietrich by Maria Riva. Blue angel the Life of Marlene Dietrich by Donald Spodo Stemberg and Dietrich. The Phenomenology of Spectacle by James Phillips. A Woman at War, Marlene Dietrich Remembered by David J. Riva. The Sewing Circle. Hollywood's Greatest Secret Female Stars who Loved Other Women by Axel Madsen. The Girls When Sappho Goes to Hollywood by Diana McClellan. And of course we have our old favorites, history.com and biography.com. are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then let's begin. So Marlena Dietrich was born, as most of us are. She was born. Yeah. So she was born Marie Magdalene Dietrich on 27 December 1901 in the Luber Strauss in Berlin. I will do accents. They will not be pleasant. You're just gonna have to accept it. So she was born to Wilhelmina, Elizabeth, Josephine and a name I'm gonna fuck up. But luckily I don't have to say it more than once. Louis Erich Otto Dietrich. It's a very sharp shot. Sharp, sharp, sharp, short. Oh my God. Getting worse. It's a sharp, short name. It's like Louis Eric Otto Dietrich. See, it's. It's very difficult for Maui tongue to do. Is it. You know, it likes the long names, the elaborate names. But this is. This is where we're at. So Lewis, he was a police lieutenant. And Wilhelmina, or Wilhelmina probably. Wilhelmina was rich. She was from a rich family, a well to do family. They made their money on jewellery and clocks. And Marlena here, she is one of two children. She has an older sister who's like a year older than her. So it's 1900. Her sister Elizabeth is born and then she's born the year after. So there's like a year and a half between them, but there's the two girls and. And that's it. That's enough. That's it. So starting things off. She comes from a pretty privileged background, her family's prosperous, things are going well, she's doing all right for herself. Unfortunately, like most of our stories, tragedy strikes because of course they fucking do, right? Of course it does, of course. So her beloved father, father Louis. Louis, one of those, he is thrown from a horse and dies of his injuries. And she's only six years old when this happens, leaving her mother a widow who is just not doing great. Unsurprisingly being the turn of the 20th century, her mother goes into full on mourning. So she is in her mourning garb. She doesn't go places, she dresses all in black. Like it's very much the done thing of especially the well to do. But she is absolutely done. Like she is full on grieving and you know, her husband has died and she's allowed to do that. You're expected to do that especially, you know, in this era. And what happens is things are going okay until the outbreak of World War I, the Great War, the first war, however you want to phrase it. The war breaks out and the family business is not doing great because, you know, war, although war is good for business, it's not necessarily good for that business. Not really a lot of clocks needed at this time. And so desperation. Their mother gets a job as a housekeeper, but she manages to work for one of Lewis's old friends, Edward von Loesch. So Edward was a colonel in the Grenadiers and he was, you know, relatively well to do as well. So things were okay. She could have landed on her feet there. But when they get married in 1914, sort of the war has broken out and then a little while later they get married. Wilhelmina, the mum is wearing her mourning clothes for her first husband. Like that is her wedding dress is her mourning garb. Like I'm not saying that that was bad sign, I'm just saying. Does that flag look vaguely maroon to you? Just, just a question, just a thought perhaps. So they get married 1914, and he's in the army, he's not around too much. And then two years later, 1916, he dies. He dies in combat as one does when one is in the army during a full on world war. There is a wee bit of a silver lining though, because they were married, they had his pension, so they had von Loesch's pension to kind of tide them over and keep them going. I should probably mention where the name Marlena came from. So basically the second half of her second name and the first part of her first name smooshed together. So when she was younger, people would call her Lina, sort of, for reasons, I guess. And so she decided to mix those together and make Marlena, so. Marie Magdalene. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Marlena. There you go. She's got a name. Good for her. She chose her name, and we have to respect that. So as she's grown up as well, is she's playing the violin, and she dreams of being a concert violinist, but then she starts getting these pains in her hand and she goes to the doctor. As it turns out, she has this bone injury that didn't heal. So she's got this injured wrist, and she just can't play to the level of, like, a concert pianist anymore. And here's the thing. Like, she was doing, like, theater and poetry and all this other stuff as a backup. Like, it was a backup plan for her. Like, imagine. Imagine your massive, amazing, wonderful career being a backup because you stumbled upon it. Like, you fell into it. Like, by happenstance, you know, when I fall into things, I end up covered in mud. You know, I end up drenched and ruined and broken. She ends up with a career like, oh, no, I just fell into it. Oh, no. Like, I end up in the bin next to Oscar the Grouch, and she ends up at the Oscars. You know, I mean, like, that's. That's fun for everybody involved. But, yeah, she was doing this as a backup, but I'm getting ahead of myself a wee bit. So when she's. When she's, like, 17, 18, she gets a job as, like, a violinist in an orchestra pit in a theater in Berlin. So, like, back in the day, what would happen is silent films would play and the orchestra would play along. You know, they would do the dangerous music when the train would be getting towards the train tracks and the damsel be tied to it by the devious villain. You know, they would play the appropriate, like, soundtrack for the movie. And that's what she did. She lasted four weeks before she was fired. But, of course, a girl needs a job, and so she gets one as a chorus girl. And so she's on tour with the Guido Daisher's girl. Cowboy. Fuck me, my throat is so sore I can't pronounce words properly. Like, I'm usually pretty good at, you know, European words, places. Nope, not today. Everything. I'm buggering it all up. But it's fine. I'm sure you'll. Sure you'll forgive me. So, yeah, she's on tour during these, like, vaudeville shows, and she tries to get into a drama academy. She auditions when she's 21 and she's desperately trying to get into this drama academy, what is it, the Max Reinhardt's Drama Academy. And they were like, no, she didn't get in, not even a wee bit. And so she ends up doing chorus girl stuff, small theatre parts, you know, bits and pieces. And she's doing this around Berlin. But what she also does in Berlin is she starts going to the underground Berlin gay bars and drag balls. So she was very much part of this scene. And throughout her early 20s, she is going out partying, she's shagging men, she's shagging women, she's probably shagging people who are gender non conformist. She's doing everything, everyone, some might say, and she's having the best time and we love this journey for her. When she's 22, she gets a teeny weeny role in a film called the Little Napoleon. So that's her. That's her debut to the moving pictures. That is not her accent. That was bad. That was really bad. So she's on the set of Tragedy of Love, very optimistic one there where she meets Rudolph Seiber. Now as someone who's just constantly this big party girl and she's out shagging this person, that person, whoever, right? And she suddenly flips on this. She tells everyone that she's fallen madly in love, but all the evidence suggests that this, in fact was a shotgun wedding. So effectively, Marlene Dietrich was pregnant and being, you know, the good man that he was, I guess, I suppose maybe Rudolf Seiber decides he's gonna make an honest woman out of her and they get married and it's in like, like a civil service and they get married in May. And then Marlena's only child, their daughter is born in December, Maria Elizabeth Cyber. Just, just, you know, May to December. That's. I mean, that's, that's. That's eight months. I'm just, I'm just saying that's. It's not a long time. Just, just putting it out there. It's a good day for a shotgun wedding. Yeah, I know, I know. I squeezed it in there. I did it. I don't care. I did it. So they have this cookie cutter, like family, husband, wife, baby. And they're married. Yeah, and they stay married. Like they don't get divorced because, I don't know, maybe they couldn't be arsed. Maybe they stayed friends because, you know, they both got around and they seem to be pretty chill. Like he's living with like another woman for like 20 years. And Marlena is just kind of doing whoever she wants and they're, they live separate lives but they just can't be arsed getting divorced. I couldn't read anything about them not getting on. So eh, maybe they were fine, you know. But yes, nuclear family, you might think, ah, you know, she might settle down. Absolutely not. So she continues working on stage and on screen all through sort of the 1920s. But then in 1929 she meets Joseph von Sternberg. And what's interesting about these two is as far as I remember, they currently hold like the most collaborations between an actor and a director. So these two have worked together more than any other. They've been in more productions than any other actor, director. So go them. That's actually fucking cool. So she gets her break as Lola on his film the Blue angel. And this is her big break. And he's out there telling everybody that he discovered her. And for years afterwards Marlena would say that, you know, this was her first film and you know, and would pretend like the old ones in Germany didn't exist, didn't happen. But no, no, no, this was just her being discovered. So she ends up being signed to Paramount Pictures just because this film does so fucking well. And she gets signed because they're trying to find like another Greta Garbo who's Swedish. And so they wanted somebody else and she's German, so you know, she's, she's foreign, she's out there and she's doing well and that's what they want. They want someone who has the same kind of appeal, that same, I don't want to say exoticness but like imagine like, oh, they're so exotic. They're German like. But Meltro, Golda Mayer, they had Garbo and Paramount wanted their own Garbo, but they couldn't have another Swede because that would be a turn up for the books. I regret nothing. And so, and so they wanted their own. And so enter Marlena. So she leaves Berlin for Hollywood. She, you know, kisses her husband and, and her daughter goodbye and she's like, I'll be back soon. But she's not. And it doesn't really matter because at that point his mistress is like a dancer, I think she's, you know, in there, you know, involved in that situation while Marlena's headed over to Hollywood and she's there and she arrives and Joseph von Sternberg, he just starts showering her with gifts. One of which is a green Rolls Royce. Now I don't care much for green cars nor for Rolls Royces, but I would not say no to one, even though I do not drive. That is not the point. If I had one of those, if I could afford a Rolls Royce, I feel like I could afford a driver, you know, Except I would call him a chauffeur, because I'm bougie like that. So Marlena is just cruising towards the US Preparing for her next film role, maybe flirting with some people on the boat and, you know, because she has to travel by boat because that's how one got around in the past. And she gets to the States, and the moment she steps off the boat, she is served with papals. Because Joseph von Sternberg's wife, she was suing Marlene Dietrich for $600,000 for label and for stealing her husband's affection. So basically, this suit was accusing her of seeing in an interview with some magazine in Germany that von Sternberg was in love with her and that he was going to leave his wife for her. And. And the studio is like, oh, no, we can't have this. This is not something we can do right now. And Marlena is just, like, wanting to fight it because she's like, fuck this for a game of soldiers. And what happens is the studio basically pair off and they make it settle and to not go public. Like, they're just like, no, no, no, no, no. Keep it schtum. Keep it schtum. We're not. We're not having this. We have a reputation to think about. And, like, the Hays Code was starting to come into effect at this point, too. So if you don't know what the Hays Code is, it was this level of censorship that was adopted by sort of the motion picture scene by all of the major studios, and they all just kind of agreed to it, and it's so fucking ridiculous. It had a list of actors and actresses who were blacklisted, effectively for being, like, openly, you know, sexy gay, who were using a lot of curse words in real life, who had behavior that was seen as immoral or unethical or, you know, not upstanding, traditional values. Like, he just said this. So stupid. It's so stupid. So it had a list of all these actors and actresses on it. And then it also had sort of rules that you had to follow. Like, you couldn't have relationships, quote, unquote, relations outside of marriage. You couldn't have, like, a couple sharing a bed together. You couldn't have anything that suggested sex. You couldn't have, like, a bunch of weird, weird shit. Like, my personal favorite was if a couple are in a bedroom, they have to have one foot on the floor at all times. Like. Like, you couldn't have really sexy. Sexy stuff going on, which, in a way, was really good, because it meant that at the time, women would get decent roles because they couldn't just be, like, a sex symbol like you. You couldn't just be that. Like, you couldn't be pigeonholed into this specific sort of. But at the time, as well, you had a lot of women working behind the scenes in Hollywood. Like, a lot of the major players initially were women, and then men realized you could make money off it, and then they came. But, yeah, it was. It was a very interesting time. So, yeah, the Hays Code comes in, so women get pretty decent parts because they can't just be a sex symbol, you know, about a fluff. And so they get decent roles. And then comes Marlena, who causes scandal on the set of Morocco because she's playing a cabaret star, as always. I say as always, but she is. She's playing a cabaret star, and she's wearing a suit, and she kisses another woman. Now, again, this is something that shouldn't be allowed according to the Hays Code, but she argues and argues and says that it's essential to the plot and that it's necessary, and she kind of bullies. Convinces the. The censors to allow it and to keep it in, and they do. And this is where she also starts having an affair with Gary Cooper, who's also having an affair with, like, another actress who wants to, quote, tear Marlena's eyeballs out. Like, okay, cool. That's. That's fun. So, naturally, this is a perfect time to go visit your husband. And she heads back to Germany, back to Berlin, and she gets there, and turns out her daughter doesn't fucking recognize her. And she's like, oh, no, this ain't good. And she decides, you know what? Y' all are coming back to America with me. Come on. Let's go. And off they pop. They head over to the States. Now, as our daughter grows up, instead of, you know, sending her to school like, you know, one should, she ends up having her become, like, a mini assistant and just drags her from set to set. So the more she's acting, the more she's getting around. She's bringing her with her. Now, part of this is probably, like, a wee bit selfish because she's upset that her daughter didn't recognize her. But another part was she gets this letter threatening to kidnap Maria, and they're gonna come get her and whatever. And so she always keeps her close. Like she tells, you know, Stiber, the husband, and he's like, yeah, I'm gonna call the cops. And so he's like, people have threatened to kidnap her eventually no one does, but, you know, yeah. Now Maria, she basically ends up writing this book which is kind of the equivalent of Mommy Dearest. And it is. It is not favourable. It basically says that Marlene Dietrich was, you know, a bit of a bitch, which we kind of expected to the best of her abilities. But it also said that she was a wee bit racist. She was also a little bit sexist, which, you know, weird for a queer woman to hate other women, but she did. She really hated Josephine Baker. And I don't know if that's just because Josephine Baker was amazing and she was jealous or because Josephine Baker was not white. So we have to take into consideration that no, not the best of people in the world as Marlene Dietrich. That being said, when von Sternberg goes back to Germany, she's like, maybe you shouldn't do that because things don't seem great over there. Because von Sternberg is Jewish and he's her friend and collaborator, possibly lovers, whoms to say. And she's like, let's not do that. So she is doing okay film wise in the 1930s. She's in well received movies, but she's gone away from Paramount and she's making movies in sort of other countries and she's making them in London and they're expensive and she's doing well. All right. But she ends up like number one, two, six in the box office rankings. And so she get labeled poison. Box office poison. Which apparently is a big deal. And just like everybody else, it's just kind of. She fell out of fashion a wee bit. It's not really that big a deal, you know, she just wasn't anything like. Fred Astaire at one point was labelled box office poison. Fred fucking Astaire, you know, Katharine Hepburn, Greta Garbo, like all of the interesting ones, they're like, ooh. And so she gets labelled as that. And that's fine. But speaking of Katharine Hepburn and Greta Garbo and such and allegedly, I've got to say, allegedly, because there's a wee minute of evidence, but not a huge amount of evidence, but there's enough of it. So here's the thing. This sewing circle, the sewing circle was like this. It isn't like a club, you know, it's not like a members Only jacket. No. Although we should have sewing circle jackets if you want. Like, let's do that. Sewing circle. A little sewing circle. Omg. That'd be amazing, wouldn't it? Anyway, yes. So basically the sewing circle was more of a concept. And I'm not saying it's like a ring, you know, it's not like a drug ring, but it's a lesbian ring. Yeah, effectively. So lesbians in Hollywood, whether they were actors, actresses, I say actors, whether they were actresses or behind the scenes or writers or, you know, the wife of Jack Warner of Warner Brothers. Just saying. So they were lesbians in Hollywood, effectively, and that was the sewing circle. So I think Tallulah Bankhead, Claudine Colbert, so on and so forth. Marlene Dietrich. And Marlene is having affairs. Men, women, whomever, having the best life because of this. Because of this sort of known secret of who she was and who she was doing. That's kind of where Hollywood sort of loses its fizz with her and she gets an interesting offer. So it's the mid-30s, her films are doing okay, but they're not great. And she starts dating John Gilbert. John Gilbert had gone from, like silent movies to talkies. And he had a very light speaking voice, but the studios tried to like, alter his voice and like post to kind of go make it sound a bit more manly. And as such, like this rumour mill started going out that he had a high pitched squeaky voice in. It kind of tanked his career. Didn't tank his love life though, because he was married four times. And like in the middle of, like, I think between marriage two and three, he's dating Greta Garbo, who ends up leaving him at the altar. Like drama, drama central. Right? So allegedly his last marriage ended because of his affair with Marlena, but they like officially start dating between like 1935 and 1936. And she tries to get him a comeback in one of his films because, you know, things are not going great for him, but it doesn't work. And he basically drinks himself to death. Like, that's what happens, you know. And Marlena is very upset over this. Like, she actually breaks down crying in a church, like, sobbing. I mean, I'm hoping it's real and it wasn't just for show. Like, it'd be nice to know that she had that level of empathy. But you know what they say, nothing gets you over the last one like the next one. And she starts getting down with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Who was very much married to Joan Crawford. Now there are whispers, there are rumors that it probably happened. So basically there's There's a rumor that Joan Crawford was also part of the social. Social circle. No, the sewing circle. She was also part of the sewing circle, so. That's right. And they end up, like, going on holiday together, like Marlene Dietrich, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Like her husband Rudolph and Rudolph's mistress. Like just everybody all at once. But yet there's a thing as well, in Hollywood at the time and across America actually, is there was a thing called a lavender marriage. And a lavender marriage was that usually put together by studios, you know, where if one person was, like, a lesbian or a gay man and they would marry them to make them look like a heteronormative couple, even if. Even if, say, for example, both of them were bisexual. Right, it would be like that. Because have you ever noticed that if. And bisexual people, like, if. If a woman is bisexual, you know, men often think that women are, like, pretending to like other women, you know, for performative reasons for men, or that they can be easily, quote, unquote, turned, you know, and that gay men are going to be obsessed with them. Like, it's funny how the very concept of sexuality revolves around men, but I digress. So these lavender marriages would happen. I'm not saying this was one. I'm just saying that, you know, they assume that both of these people are going to be promiscuous and they're both going to, you know, fuck men. But the point is, they wanted it to look like this was a marriage, real marriage, genuine marriage. But it's Hollywood, so how much is real? So, yeah, these. There's rumours that she was having a wee thing with Joan Crawford. There's also rumours she was having a thing with Mae West. You know, just Hollywood's weird, that's all I'm saying. So, like, the whole thing with Fairbanks Jr. Is if she was chatting to somebody that she was, you know, interested in or was interested in her, if she would let him listen in on the phone call and then let him go, like, absolutely apeshit ranting about her suitors, which is. I mean, it's a level of, like, petty that I don't want to aspire to. But also, I appreciate her tenacity. But, yes, this is the point where she is box office poison, quote, unquote. ARR. You know, and she. She has some fans, right? 1939, good bunch of fans. And one of which is, you know, the leader of the Third Reich. So not the kind of fans you want. You know, I get it, I get it. I wouldn't want anyone following me or being Interested in me. I do not want Nazis, like, in any capacity to be supportive of me. Like, I don't. I don't want you just. Like, I don't want conservatives or Republicans. I want decent human beings who actually, you know, don't need explain to them that you should care about other people, that basic empathy is not virtue signaling, you know, not. Not keen on that in any capacity. Not my thing, no. Thank you. Bye. Bye. So, yeah, she's not doing well in the box office, but, you know, that's right. The Nazi government, you know, Nazi Germany, they contact her and they request that she stars in a range of propaganda films, you know, to show how amazing Germany is and the Third Reich and everything that goes along with that. But, like, two years previously, she'd already applied for American citizenship and she was, like, ready to renounce. And that's what she was doing. She was renouncing her German citizenship because she was like, I'm not fucking involved with this bullshit. I'm not my circus, not my monkeys. No, thank you. Adios, Adolf. Like, fuck off. No, very much a fuck this for a game of socials. But when they request, when they contact her, when they ask her to be in these propaganda movies, she simply responds, nine. Just nine. Like, oh, we love you. You're amazing. We want you to be in this movie. We want you to promote a horrific fascist agenda. No, like, I. I love it. It's like the same. The same feeling I get about Princess Alice of Battenberg where she's just, like, lighting a cigarette and just being like, no, like, I love it. Like, no, like, I love that. Just putting the ash out on the soldiers. Like, shoes. Like, no, like, that's also terrifying. You've got Goebbels and Hitler being like, come be in our movies. Get to fuck me. No. Oh, actually, no, I'm. Correction, correction already. No, it wasn't 1939, it was 1937. So it was, like, pre war. So, like, she was watching what was happening in Germany and they're like, come and support our homeland. And she's like, no, no, she doesn't. She doesn't want to be involved in that. And, like, straight away, it's actually after this. Straight away, she's like, nope. Citizenship. Thanks. Bye. Bye. And that's what she does. She, like, doesn't renounce her German citizen citizenship until 1939, when, you know, the war technically starts and she's, like, definitely gone. Thanks, bye. But, yeah, bold move. And we love it. So Marlene Dietrich, she actually starts fundraising to get Jews out of Germany. So she starts, like, raising money for Jewish refugees, and she ends up donating, what was it, her entire salary from one of her films in 1937, you know, like half a million dollars. I think it is, like, towards this, like, fundraising. And when World War II breaks out, like, she, like, doubles down on it. So, like, she'd gone back to Paramount, tried a romantic comedy. Things did not go down well. Yes, the movie was A Knight Without Armor. So then when, obviously, the war breaks out, World War II, she becomes one of the first, like, celebrities, you know, public figures to start selling war bonds. And the best part is, is, like, she actually sells more war bonds than any other, like, person, any other celebrity, any other. She sells the fucking most. Because of course she does. Like, she even then starts doing, like, the USO sort of thing, like, the tours where she visits the troops. And so she even goes, like, pretty close to the German front, and she gets. She gets contacted by the oss, so basically the British sort of Secret Service, right, And they ask her to make a series of recordings in German, the whole purpose of which is to, like, demoralize German soldiers, which, I mean, I don't know how you can bring down the morale of Nazis because, you know, they're Nazis and pretty shit human beings and lack, again, empathy and consideration. But, yeah, she's. So she ends up doing these recordings, which is fucking brilliant. Like, and. And so, like, you'd think, you know, she's doing the bonds, she's raising money for Jewish refugees. She's. She's got these weird messages going on. She's visiting trips near the front, like, yeah, but J. Edgar Hoover is convinced. That's right. President of America is convinced. No, he wasn't the President of America. That's a lie. He was ahead of the FBI. Fuck me, I'm tired. I'm so sorry. So he's the head of the FBI, and he's like, that bitch is a German spy. And he. He ends up having her tracked and followed, which I feel was not the best use of, you know, those money and manpower just feels like a waste, really. So they end up, like, tracking her and, like, stalking her and, like, going through her mail and whatnot. And. And they don't find, you know, any, like, conspiracy and any spying. What they do find is salacious details and so many. So many lovers. Just an abundance of lovers, some might say. And so during World War II as well, which is, like, so fucking funny, is that people assumed that she was easy, you know, because she was known to have all These lovers and they thought, you know, they think if you're bisexual, you're clearly a slut. Right? That's just how they do things. And so men would come up to her and they'd be like trying to get it on. And she was like, I'll sleep with you over Hitler's dead body. Sorry, I will sleep with you over Hitler's dead body. Like, yeah, yeah, when he's dead, then I'll consider you, you absolute cork Womble. But yeah, yeah, she wasn't really into the whole fascist Germany situation, unlike her sister who was like running a cinema, hosting things for Nazi trips and just generally supporting them. And so when she tries to get to the States, she expects Molina to like help her get there. And she's like, no, I'm disowning you and your husband and your son because, you know, Nazis not happening. I mean, well, she kept them safe at first and she vouched them and she was like, they didn't do it. They were just in a bad situation. And then over time she was like, no, actually they're fucking assholes. I'm done of them. Which, you know, I respect. I respect being like, don't want to ally with people who allied with Nazis. Feels like a good litmus test, you know, Shitty. Family aside, Merlena gets awarded the Legion d' Honneur from France and the U.S. medal of Freedom for extraordinary record entertaining trips overseas during the war. But like she gets his award and that's going great. But yeah, yeah, still not quitting the box office. So her professional life is not, it's not going well, but again, personally, not so bad. So at this point, Maria's in boarding school, so she actually gets to school, which is nice. So her daughter's in school and she'll go visit her husband and she'll go visit, well, her husband and his mistress and Tamara, that's her name, Tamara. And so she would go there and go to parties and she would just take these long trips and use it as excuses to go sort of connect with, you know, other celebrities and other well known people like Ernest fucking Hemingway and things. Things are, you know, they're warming up for her and she ends up having these long love affairs. She's got freed, she's got Mercedes de Acosta, she's got Dolores del Rio and so on and so forth. You know, I mean, she's, she's getting around. She's getting around. Basically there's, you know, a rotating door. It's rotating, revolving. It's a revolving door of lovers and they're just going through. And one of our lovers, Jean Jarbon, he is so mad that she's like sleeping with other people and she's like, you knew this when you got in this with me. Like I'm married and you are here staying with me in my house and you're mad I'm sleeping with someone else. Like what feels like a double standard. And he would respond to her actions with his fucking fists. He would beat the shit out of her. And clearly not want to take things lying down. She decided to just. Nope. Out of that situation. No, not dealing with that. Which again, fair. But she did get like a wee bit of revenge, which I am proud of. Is like. So he'd gone back to France for reasons. And he left like a bunch of really expensive paintings behind and that he was planning to come back and deal with. And she just fucking sells them all because of course she does. Which is, you know, the least she could do considering he beat the crap out of her. The absolute shitbag. Oh, actually, here's one of my favourite stories about Marlene Dietrich is like, she'd gone out to like a bar and she was flirting with a serviceman at a bar. As one does girls like a man in uniform. What can I say? Girls like a girl in uniform. We like women in uniform, not girls. I don't want a girl scout. That's creepy. I want a woman in a well cut suit. Just saying. Or a man in a well cut suit. Or a man or a woman. Her gender non conforming person in a cozy cardigan. Everyone looks cute in a cozy cardigan anyway. Like an owl. Ooooh. Okay, the medicine's kicking in. So yeah, Marlena is flirting with the serviceman in a bar and he is so taken with her that his wife actually cites her as the reason for their divorce, even though they did no more than like flirting a fucking bar. But anyway, her film career, it's not doing great. And so she ends up going back to the stage. So from like the 1950s all the way up to the 1970s, she's in, you know, she's on the stage, she's doing cabaret, like performances. Like she's in Paris, London, Las Vegas, Berlin. Like she's. She goes on this stage tour in Europe like in the 60s, early 60s, and she ends up in Berlin, which is, well, it's still split, it's separated at this point. So she goes to West Berlin and she gets booed. They're like, marlene, go home. And they're like totally pissed at her and they're I think there's like two bomb threats for the stage that she's on. And it's like she's like shaken up by this, obviously. But then when she goes to East Berlin and she performs there, everyone's like, yay, Marlena. So, you know, swings and roundabouts. But yeah, she's out touring, she's performing, she's singing, she's doing her stuff. And even though she's doing all this, she's still doing a bunch of other people. So at one point she's. She's in a relationship with Yul Brynner, you know, from the King and I. Yul Brynner, who's. Yeah, the man who like, was involved in the Vietnam baby situation, like with the Playboy. And it's madness. It's wild. Anyway, so she's with Mike Todd and George Bernard Shaw and John Wayne and Kirk Douglas and Frank Sinatra. Like, she is just getting into everybody and like, her and Rudolph are still married at this point. And like, she is supporting them, like financially. She buys them a ranch in California. And it gets. It doesn't go well for Rudolph's mistress though, because she's ill and she starts like declining, like mentally, and she gets agoraphobia and she stops eating and speaking and she ends up getting committed to a mental institute, you know, because they're like, she needs to go here and she goes there and another inmate attacks her and kills her. And like, she had been with, you know, Rudolph Sebra for like 35 years. Like, Maria saw her as like another mother. And yeah, she passed away. She passed away. She was fucking killed. So like in the 60s and the 70s, so like throughout that period, like, she starts using various techniques to mold her body. So she does like Spanx. Before Spanx, she has quote unquote, body sculpting, undergarments, you know, shapewear. And so she's like making the shapewear and like wearing it. And she's also doing non surgical facelifts. It's tape. It's all tape. So she like tapes her face back and then puts a wig on and she like disguises it and she has this fucking brilliant quote. So she says careful grooming may take 20 years off a woman's age, but you can't fool a flight of stairs. So yeah, you might be like conjuring and taping your face back and stapling bits and the wig on, but yeah, yeah, that those stairs, they're still gonna be tough to climb. You know what I mean? So, yeah, she does that. And then in 1965, she gets diagnosed with cervical cancer. And this is just not, not great for her. And so she ends up taking like, like she's self medicating with like booze and painkillers. And it gets to the point where like this just like really starts taking a toll on her. And then like, things start going wrong with her legs. Like the circulation starts going and she's having a lot of trouble with it. And in 1973, she ends up fracturing like her left, her left thigh and she has to get like skin grafts and a bunch of other stuff so her leg will heal because it just wasn't. And then in 1974, she falls and breaks her leg, her right leg. So it's like left thigh, right leg. And she ends up like, just not being able to like, perform properly. Like at some point during this as well, she ends up in a movie with David Bowie. David Bowie, Bowie. Boy, I don't care. She ends up in a movie. I mean, of all the queer icons to smoosh together in a film. I mean, it's not a great film, but you should still watch it because, I mean, I like to say they sing. She kind of sings. She does what she believes is singing. Again, respect the trip. Thank God the women had such good style. And yeah, so she's, she's breaking bets all over the place. I fucked it up again. She fractures like one leg. She fractures the other leg. And then in 75 she breaks her thigh bone. And she's like, okay, no more stage for me. I'm done now. And she has to basically like stop doing the whole stage performance because she's too old to do it now. In 76, her husband Rudolph dies. He passes away in 78. That's when she's in the Just a Gigolo movie with David Bowie. And they're in the movie like she's like the madam of the brothel and he works for her. It's, it's a movie that exists. So after this, she basically becomes like a recluse, a hermit. And she just like goes back to her little apartment in Paris where she only has like family or servants. And she doesn't like, go anywhere, but she does spend a lot of time on the phone. She has a monthly phone bill of like 3,000 quid because she's phoning everybody. So she's phoning world leaders like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Regan and this is the 80s and she's just like calling all these people. Like she's trying to save like a Peoplesburg Theater and so, like, she's happy to speak, but she doesn't want to be filmed, which is fair enough. So she's, like, chatting to these people, and she's trying to, like, save, like, this thing, or she's talking about the fall of the Berlin Wall. And, you know, it's. It's being, like, shared across, like, BBC and on, like, French radio and all that jazz. And, like, allegedly, according to her grandson, like, the reason she would phone up these politicians was to give out shit to them for being dicks. I just love the idea of Melina Dietrich just being on the phone to Margaret Thatcher being like, listen here, beach, have you tried, you know, not being a cunt? Like, perhaps. But, yeah, I love the idea of it. So at one point, she gets, like, these calls from a doctor who, like, offers to, like, fly out and see her, and she's like, don't speak to me. And she cuts him off. And then a few weeks later, she allows him to phone her again. And he's like, I'm spending $90 an hour on this therapist. And she's like, why give money to the therapist when you can give money to me? And so, like, he sends her a check, and she, like, sings to him on the phone every night. And, like, that's commitment. So Marlena, she becomes bedridden and just can't go anywhere. And eventually her kidneys give up. And on the 6th of May, 1992, the age of 90, she passes away from kidney failure in her home in Paris. Her funeral was a requiem mass held in Paris, which had, like, 1500, like, mourners with, like, important, like, dignitaries and whatnot from Germany, France, England, Spain. Like, the French president is there, and he's got, like, the Legion of Honor and everything for her. And, yeah, she has her funeral in France, and she is buried in Berlin, fairly close to her mother, actually. And then, like, the majority of our estate is sold to the Stiftung Deutsche Kinematik. So becomes, like, the main part of the exhibition of the filmhouse in Berlin. And so the. The family then also sell, like, a bunch of goodness, just papers and correspondence and letters and, you know, costumes and props and other stuff that she'd taken from, like, the stage and movies. And all of her personal effects get sold to, like, auction. So, you know, they're out there. You could buy them if you had enough money if you wanted to. So, yeah. Thus ends the story of Marlene Dietrich, who was, yeah, very polarizing figure in many scenarios. And if you liked my retelling of this story, even with my gravelly, sick voice. Please feel free to rate and review five stars. I'd appreciate it, but of course, it is recommendation time, so I'm gonna recommend for watching Just a Gigolo. Go watch the movie. You should live your best life. Treat yourself. For reading. I'm gonna suggest it's not a bloody trend, just book about adult adhd. If you were an adult with adhd, which you may be, because you're listening to me, might want to go read it. And for listening. For listening, David Bowie. Go listen to some David Bowie star man racing through the sky. You deserve it. Go to it. And with that, I shall bid you good night. Adios. Au revoir. Au revoir, my friends. Bye. Bye.