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25 April 2013

Marlene Dietrich Live In Amsterdam: Wenn ich mir was wünschen dürfte

Previously unissued live recording of Marlene singing Friedrich Hollaender's great song, "Wenn ich mir was wünschen dürfte" live at the Tuschinsky Theatre in Amsterdam, as broadcast on Dutch radio in 1960:

19 April 2013

What Marlene Dietrich's Handwriting Reveals!


(This article was originally published in the May 1932 edition of Movie Classic magazine as 
Marlene Dietrich will have only one great love, her handwriting shows)


Who knows what Marlene is really like? Louise Rice, who is world famous for her studies of character from handwriting —and tells you here what she finds in Marlene s signature. The German star, herself, could hardly tell you more!

MARLENE DIETRICH’s signature — reproduced herewith — gives  the graphologist an enormous surprise. For what have all the publicity men featured in their blurbs about the German sensation? You all know as well as I do — LEGS, and not much of anything else. But ask her director and her business manager, and I am sure that they will tell you that they have found her to have a head for business and a good understanding as well.

No, I didn't mean that last characteristic as a joke, although you may think that I was guilty of a pun, which is a serious crime in this country. I mean that she has the ability to think quickly and to the point on any subject that seems to her worthwhile. Also, that she has a sudden feeling or intuition that is often of great assistance to her in outguessing the “other fellow,”  when trying to carry out her plans. See if your handwriting shows the little breaks in the connecting strokes of the small letters that Marlene has in her words. If so, you also have  intuition and should use it to the best advantage.

12 April 2013

Dietrich at the Café de Paris: Perfume from Spain

Marlene's 1954 debut at London's Café de Paris  has become as legendary, and was  judging by the recording made of the evening  as lovely as the star herself, who was  introduced to the nightclub's chic clientèle by Noël Coward. 

Less remembered are her return visits to the club, in 1955 and 1958  making the article republished below (shared thanks to the generosity of the Crees Collection!) a delightful read. The clippping, while not dated and sourced, is likely a later recounting by journalist and wit Nancy Spain of her introduction to, and for, Dietrich in 1955.


MY evening out with Marlene Dietrich began when the Café de Paris — London's glittery night-spot — came on the telephone and said, ‘We’d like you to introduce Miss Dietrich on Wednesday. Douglas Fairbanks does it on Monday . . . Helen Hayes, the first lady of the American theatre, on the Tuesday . . .' And I began to babble incoherently.

How would you feel if you were suddenly to come face to face with The Legend, the Top Girl of the movies for the last twenty years, the woman to whom author Ernest Hemingway always takes his manuscripts for literary approval, the most glamorous woman in the world? And now, let alone coming face to face with her, I was to introduce her to a crowd of the celebrated and near celebrated, the distinguished and near distinguished who go to make up the clientele at the Café de Paris. ‘You may bring two friends,’ they told me.