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Lily Latte came to America in lowlier fashion, without fanfare, entourage, or publicity. She had lingered in Paris for six months. The refugee flow did not abate, and one of the newly arrived was Peter Heiman, the Max Reinhardt assistant director who had become acquainted with Fritz Lang in Berlin in the early 1930s under curious circumstances. In Paris in mid-1935, Heiman met Latte for the first time and they became lovers. At first he even hoped that they might emigrate to America together. It took Heiman some time to realize that Latte had a prior attachment to Lang, who was already in Hollywood. The relationship with Lang had been temporarily broken off, but Latte was hoping their romance would resume in America. Meanwhile, Lang phoned Latte often, and "practically every second day a telegram appeared," according to Heiman. She was busy making arrangements for most of Lang's belongings to be packed up and shipped from Germany to France to the United States, and selling some items for cash. Heiman had difficulty getting his travel papers in order, and Latte sailed for America ahead of him. Immigration and Naturalization records show that Latte crossed into the United States on December 20, 1935, from Calexico, California, near El Centro , along the Mexican-U.S. border. Her papers state that she was a "reporter" who would be taking up residence with Fritz Lang at 2141 La Mesa Drive. Her race: Hebrew. Her nationality: German. Her hair color (curiously,for those who remember her as Lang's blond archetype): auburn. Her records—and the timing of her application, a year and a half after Lang had relocated to America—suggest that according to immigration law Latte had in fact left the country in order to re-enter with a permanent visa. It was common for German refugees with temporary "visitor's visas" to choose to reenter the United States at Calexico, with sworn affidavits from people who guaranteed they would not become public charges. Thus it seems possible that Latte had continued to travel freely between Berlin and Hollywood throughout most of 1935, tying up loose ends for herself and Lang. The loose ends Latte tied up in Europe included her marriage—she had gotten a divorce; her daughter Susanne, according to the 1935 immigration papers, lived with Hans Latte in Barcelona, Spain. That Latte arranged for the transportation or sale of prized possessions Fritz C H A P T E R 1 1 1934 1936 208 FRITZ LANG Lung claimed to have left behind in Hitler's Germany appears certain. In the very first, pre-Fury press release about the director, with the byline of MGM publicity head Howard Strickling, Lang is described as owning a "collection of objects of primitive art, principally South Seas and Negro, Chinese and Japanese," said to be "extensive and valuable." Other publicity items trumpeted the fact that the newly arrived director owned "one of the nation's finest collections of Polynesian art objects."* Another release announced: "Recently, he imported five thousand volumes of his personal library." There was no indication, as there would be in countless future interviews, that the director had had to sacrifice any of his art treasures, first editions, or signed works. Of course there was no mention of the Goebbels story, nor of Lang's distaste for the Nazi government. The fate of Lang's art collection, conveniently itemized after his divorce and left behind in Berlin with Thea von Harbou for safekeeping, is especially mysterious. Otto Kallir compiled the definitive catalog on the works of Egon Schiele; according to his granddaughter Jane Kallir, the present-day operator of the Galerie St. Etienne in New York, "Lang confirmed in correspondence that four Schieles, as well as four Laskes, were left in trust ('zu treuen Handen ') with Thea von Harbou when he emigrated from Germany. She apparently sold or gave them away, without his permission, sometime thereafter, and he never bothered to pursue the matter." The best-known works in Fritz Lang's collection, the Schieles, vanished for a time after he left Germany. Von Harbou's secretary, Hilde Guttmann, who was employed by the scenarist until 1938, did not recall that they were ever displayed in von Harbou's home after Lang and his wife split up. Von Harbou's relatives adamantly maintain that she never kept or sold them for Lang. They were Lang's to do with as he pleased. In Otto Kallir's catalog, four Schiele paintings...

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