Von Sternberg

The Woman All Women Want to See

The Woman All Women Want to See What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine. —Susan Sontag, “Notes on ‘Camp’” DIETRICH’S ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK had elements of farce. She later retailed the story to Leo Lerman in a tone of just-between-us-girls fausse naivete: In those days, maids were always seasick. Everyone was sitting together in first class and worrying about their maids. But Resi was not only seasick; she lost her teeth—and was the reason I was late for the first interview. Resi, she wouldn’t come out from her cabin until I promised to take her to a dentist immediately. All the American [passengers] had black dresses and pearls and mink coats and the orchids, ropes of orchids, they had been saving in the ice box all through the voyage. I had on what any German wore when traveling—a grey flannel suit and a slouch hat, very manly, and gloves. A man came aboard from . . . a tug boat, he took one look at me and said, “Oh, no. . . . I can’t let America see you like that. They’ll think you’re a lesbian.” So my trunk had to be brought up again, and I had to get dressed all over. . . . I left Resi and went to the interview and was an hour late.1 122 The Woman All Women Want to See 123 Dietrich chose not to remember that she wasn’t simply an hour late but an entire day late, and her wardrobe was not the only problem. As she stepped off the Bremen, an attorney representing Riza von Sternberg served her notice of two lawsuits. One, a $100,000 libel suit, related to an interview in Vienna’s Neues Wiener Journal, in which Marlene had called Riza an “undutiful wife” and claimed that von Sternberg planned to divorce her, if she didn’t divorce him first. The other, for $500,000, was for alienation of his affections. Paramount delayed the press reception twenty-four hours while lawyers negotiated. In return for keeping her suits out of the papers, they promised Riza generous treatment when the divorce came to court. Jesse Lasky officially unveiled Dietrich the following day at a press lunch. The press conference “was all men,” she complained. “Not a woman. Paramount arranged it that way.”2 The following day, studio publicists, anticipating a call for head shots of the new star, had her photographed by fashionable portraitist Irving Chidnoff. In Beverly Hills a house awaited, chosen by von Sternberg. Instantly , the Hollywood machine pounced. A dietitian helped her lose thirty pounds, and voice coaches worked on her English. For the moment, her hair remained brunette, but von Sternberg decreed it should be cut short and brushed back to accentuate her brow and cheekbones. After that, Marlene was placed in the hands of Dorothy Ponedel, the first woman to be admitted to the Makeup Artists’ Guild. Ponedel plucked her eyebrows and redrew them into high-arching lines that became her trademark. To accommodate von Sternberg’s preferred high-key lighting , with a lamp shining down directly from above, she accentuated Dietrich’s cheekbones by shading under them with her own improvised eye shadow made from burned match heads mixed with baby oil. Not only the area around the eyes but also the eyelids themselves were darkened. A white stroke under the eyes increased their apparent size, drawing attention from her nose, which was further diminished by a line of silver down the bridge. Used to the melodramatic Pola Negri and the secretive Greta Garbo, Paramount’s publicity department was nonplussed by Dietrich’s hausfrau manner and mannish wardrobe, as well as being nervous about Riza’s lawsuits. The studio rationed her public appearances, since Die- Von Sternberg 124 trich on the arm of von Sternberg tended to steal the show. One such event was a pre-wedding party at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel for Irene Mayer, Louis’s daughter, and producer David O. Selznick. Dietrich made “a spectacular entrance,” wrote the bride-to-be, “followed by Josef von Sternberg. She strode across the full length of the enormous dance floor. The silence was broken by applause. . . . She practically seemed the guest of honor.” Chidnoff’s New York portraits arrived. Although the photographer had a reputation for realism, these saccharine images showed a simpering...