“The name begins with a caress, only to end with a crack of the whip,” the poet Jean Cocteau had said of her: Marlene Dietrich sailed the horizon of the twentieth century revered as an icon.
As a child, her strict upbringing held little appeal to her; she was insolent and rebellious, wanting to shine and become an artist. During the 1920s, the world of show business and cabaret fascinated her. These were wild times in Berlin, when Marlene Dietrich lived her sexual liberation to the full, delighting in the bohemian ambiance of the city’s cultural venues. Before the rise of Nazism, she had the most important encounter of her life when she met Josef Von Sternberg. When Sternberg discovered Dietrich, during preparations for The Blue Angel, Marlene was still an unknown actress who had only played bit parts in small German films. He immediately recognised the potential of the star who would come to be Greta Garbo’s greatest rival. In the space of a single film – a single scene – in which Marlene Dietrich would sing “Falling in Love Again” in a top hat and suspenders, a legend was born. The film was an immense success, and Dietrich became an overnight sensation in Germany. The Blue Angel had also been co-produced by a Hollywood studio, which bought her a passport for the West coast of the USA. When Germany was overrun by the Nazi regime, Marlene Dietrich fled her beloved country, as the angel spread her wings once more.
Goebbels was furious when he found that the most famous German woman of the age obstinately refused his most persuasive offers. “Marlene Dietrich is a German actress who prefers to play a prostitute in America,” he said. This is how she is seen all over the world, where she portrays a false image of Germany.” But Marlene Dietrich was firm and unyielding in her choice. She even used a portion of her salary and Hollywood residuals to help other Germans and Austrians to flee their countries. She had found her home; she had found her path. Marlene shook the supremacy of her great rival and future lover Greta Garbo, for there was something so mysterious and unconquerable enveloped within that ethereal cloud of cigarette smoke. One look and you would have followed her to the ends of the earth; with her deep, melancholy gaze, her long eyelashes, the soft halo of her blond hair, her classical and sensual features, her mystical air and her lithe body, she could hardly have set foot in a church without flustering the deacon. At parties Marlene Dietrich remained indifferent, as if nothing perturbed her; she smoked her cigarettes in the shadows, oblivious to the other guests devouring her with their eyes. She was a deadly angel, seducing all in her path, from Gary Cooper to Joseph Kennedy.
Marlene Dietrich loved the stage and the feeling that it gave her to stand beneath the projectors, sharing the moment with her admiring audience. She found herself unable to completely renounce the stage in favour of studio movies, and was only too glad to perform for American troops before they shipped out to the war. The soldiers could hardly believe their eyes as the most beautiful woman in the world stood before them, cajoling them with her eyes, blowing kisses and crooning love songs in her deep, sensual voice.
Our two shadows looked like one
That we loved each other so much
You saw that right away
And all should see it
When we’re by the latern
Like long ago, Lili Marleen
Like long ago, Lili Marleen…
Alan Alfredo Geday
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