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Source ISBN: 9780008307097

Ebook Edition © January 2020 ISBN: 9780008270568

Version: 2020-11-28

Dedication

For Christine Marie

A sister is both your mirror – and your opposite

Elizabeth Fishel

Epigraphs

Mirrors from Lohr were so elaborately worked that they were accorded the reputation of always speaking the truth and became a favourite gift at European crown and aristocratic courts. Uniquely, the mirrors also talked, in aphorisms like one that reads in the upper corner of a frame: Elle brille à la lumière (She is such a beauty).

Karlheinz Bartels, Schneewittchen: zur Fabulologie des Spessarts (Lohr am Main, 2012)

I don’t remember who started the rumor that Mars was scheduled to collide with the Earth that summer of 1938 … the next summer, not Mars, but a little man in Berlin changed the course of human history.

Maria Riva, Marlene Dietrich by her Daughter (New York, 1993)

1 Cover
2 Title Page
3 Copyright
4 Dedication
5 Epigraphs
6 Contents
7 Prologue
8 The Devil is a Woman
9 Someday I’ll Find You
10 The Scarlet Empress
11 I Like America
12 The Garden of Allah
13 Sigh No More
14 Stage Fright
15 This Time Tomorrow
16 The Lady is Willing
17 Bonne Nuit, Merci
18 The Little Napoleon
19 The Party’s Going with a Swing
20 The Woman One Longs For
21 Farewell Song
22 Manpower
23 Dream Girl
24 Song of Songs
25 I’m Old Fashioned
26 Follow the Boys
27 Poor Lady in the Throes of Love
28 A Modern Dubarry
29 There are Bad Times Just Around the Corner
30 Desire
31 You’re the Top
32 I Loved a Soldier
33 World Weary
34 A Foreign Affair
35 The Stately Homes of England
36 The Ship of Lost Souls
37 I Wonder What Happened to Him?
38 The Spoilers
39 Down with the Whole Damn Lot
40 I Kiss your Hand, Madam
41 Love a Little
42 Angel
43 Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans
44 I Am a Camera
45 Cowardy Custard
46 Around the World in 80 Days
47 This is a Changing World
48 No Highway in the Sky
49 Top of the Morning
50 Leap into Life
51 Twentieth Century Blues
52 The Big Bluff
53 Wait a Bit, Joe
54 Man by the Roadside
55 When My Ship Comes Home
56 The Imaginary Baron
57 When We Were Girls Together
58 Heads Up, Charley
59 Ace of Clubs
60 Touch of Evil
61 Let’s Do It
62 Madame Doesn’t Want Children
63 Bitter Sweet
64 Knight without Armour
65 Sail Away
66 Why Cry at Parting?
67 Why Must the Show Go On?
68 The Imaginary Baron
69 Dearest Love
70 Black Fox
71 Don’t Put your Daughter on the Stage
72 Art of Love
73 Nevermore
74 No Highway in the Sky
75 How Do You Do, Middle Age
76 Nights of Love
77 Pageant
78 Golden Earrings
79 London at Night
80 In the Shadow of Happiness
81 On With the Dance
82 Dishonored
83 Tonight is Ours
84 I Lift up My Lamp
85 The Party’s Over Now
86 Rancho Notorious
87 There’s a Younger Generation
88 Show Business at War
89 We Were Dancing
90 The Happy Mother
91 The Dream is Over
92 Kismet
93 Suite in Three Keys
94 Princess Ololah
95 Waiting in the Wings
96 Witness for the Prosecution
97 Kater Through the Looking Glass
98 Why Does Love Get in the Way?
99 The Tragedy of Love
100 I Travel Alone
101 I Wish You Love
102 Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
103 Just a Gigolo
104 You Were There
105 The Countess of Paris
106 Just Let Me Look at You
107 Paris When it Sizzles
108 Let’s Say Goodbye
109 The HMS Disgusting
110 The Blue Angel
111 Epilogue
112 Author’s Note
113 Also by Paula Byrne
114 About the Author
115 About the Publisher

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Prologue

Berlin, 1993

Die Deutsche Kinemathek

My mother was still alive when the wall came down, but she made no comment except this: ‘I have cried all my tears for Germany. They have dried and I have washed my face.’ She had the loveliest face since Helen of Troy, but her beauty was in flight, like Nike of Samothrace.

When she died alone, in her Paris apartment, she left no will. Her millions had been spent. But she had kept every possession in cardboard boxes: hats, scarves, gowns, shoes, clocks. I sorted 45,000 pages of correspondence, 16,500 photographs, and over 3,300 textile objects, and I sent everything I had to the Deutsche Kinemathek.

She was finally being honoured. Berlin’s most famous and infamous child. I could never imagine her as a girl. She was a goddess; unknowable, unreachable. When I was a child I had a doll called Heidi. She was the most beautiful doll, with golden hair, and nobody could have loved her more than I. But every day, I prayed that I would never have a daughter. Dolls could not feel pain. Could not be hurt. I feared girl children. I would not know how to be a mother to such complex creatures.

And now the last box has been sent. As I enter the museum, I find myself in a mirrored lobby, like a jewel box. A hundred images of myself are reflected back at me. I am old now. I see an elegant, white-haired lady in a smart suit. There are eyes everywhere, and with a sudden burst of grief and clarity, I know how she must have felt. Every aspect, every angle of her life scrutinised, photographed, filmed, analysed and judged. Nowhere to escape, and nowhere to hide. And now I understand what she meant when she told me ‘Kater, I was photographed to death.’

The Devil is a Woman

It’s funny how I can remember every single person who’s ever been kind to me.

When I look back now, I see so much, but I guess that’s the way it is for most people. I never knew my age in those days when we first went to Hollywood. That was because Mother constantly changed it, so I never had a chance to celebrate my birthday. To her friends and fans, I was a baby, to others, I was a young girl of nine, or maybe eight. All I knew was that I had the most beautiful mother in the world and that I was ugly.

My face was covered with pimples. Mother blamed the cream pastries I ate. It was one of the things I most loved about America: the food. For breakfast, the maid would bring me a stack of pancakes with maple syrup and whipped butter. There were strips of salty bacon ‘on the side’. American waffles with cream and blueberries. Gloriosky!

Mother glared at me, sipping water mixed with Epsom Salts. This was how she stayed pencil thin.

‘Sweetheart, hurry. The car is here. That Big Girl’s Blouse will be weeping into his coffee if I’m even five minutes late.’

Her co-star was English. Peter somebody. On the whole, she disliked Englishmen, ‘thick, white ankles, fingers like uncooked sausages’. She was obsessed by the beauty of her own slender ankles. ‘Aristocrats have thin ankles, only peasants have thick ones.’ She looked at my fat ankles, accusingly, as she said this.

I felt sorrow for my mother because she had given birth to such a plain child. I looked exactly like my father, but what was handsome in a man was plain in a female. In the mirrored dining table where we were eating a hurried breakfast I could see my reflection: high forehead, large flat nose, and deep-set eyes. My bushy eyebrows made me look perpetually cross. My hair was fine and a pale shade of ginger. I had blotchy brown freckles that I tried to scrub off with lemon juice. It never worked. But I had a lovely mouth, with a Cupid’s bow. It was the only feature that I had inherited from my mother. I decided then that it might be best to avoid mirrors.

As usual, it was an early-morning call. Mother was expected to be in Make-up at 5 a.m. Her car and driver were already outside the house. A hot Santa Ana wind had been blowing that week, and the Hollywood hills were sharp-edged and the colour of elephant skin. The morning air was cold, however, and I wrapped a warm rug around Mother’s legs. On the way to the studio, she talked non-stop: ‘It’s fine for stage actors, they’re the fortunate ones, they don’t have to be acting a love-scene at 9 a.m. after being in Make-up since 6 a.m.’

‘Any country that can make a dog a film star is not to be taken seriously.’

‘Harlow was at the dinner. That shows you the level of intelligence there last night!’

‘Abominable country, America.’

Mother was always edgy during pre-production. I listened and nodded and smiled and tried not to get carsick. I longed for the studio, and the hum of the carpenter’s saw. Only then would I know I was home.

She continued to complain that no drawings had been sent to her, and Nellie, her hairdresser, had not seen a single wig sketch. Von Goldberg, she knew, was still making adjustments to the script. What was everyone doing at Paramount? Hiding W. C. Fields’ gin bottles?

We drew up at the Bronson Gate. In those days – before the big earthquake – there was an elaborate stone belfry framing the famous archway. I nodded to the frieze of Shakespeare, who seemed to be presiding over the studio lot.

‘Good morning, Miss Madou. Good morning, Miss Kater.’

‘Harry, take me straight to Wardrobe. I need to speak to Travis.’

‘Yes, Miss Madou.’

That was the day I became my mother’s dresser.

Like most little girls, I thought my mother was perfect. Except my mother really was perfect. Everyone told me so, and she had the face and body to prove it. I guess that’s why I never told anybody the truth. Who would believe me? It’s strange how people refuse to think badly of the beautiful.

I remember the first time that my mother went to an airport full of ‘civilians’ – that is, not ‘Hollywood People’. She was horrified by the ugliness, the commonplace, the fleshy bodies. At the top of her voice, she exclaimed, to whoever cared to listen: ‘No wonder they pay us so much!’

In later years, when she had left the film industry, she was bemused by modern actresses, who relied on their talent and not their good looks to succeed. Not that she truly cared about her beauty; it was a commodity: ‘Glamour is what I sell. It’s my stock in trade.’ Mother liked her maxims: ‘Darling, the legs aren’t so beautiful; I just know what to do with them.’ Another favourite: ‘The Possible we do immediately. The Impossible may take a little longer.’ And another: ‘Nothing bad can ever happen to you when you’re with your mother.’ But the one she liked best was this: ‘Kater, remember, the mirror never lies.’

Someday I’ll Find You

Here they come, podgy daughter trotting alongside her, little piggy on the way to market. They’ve buffed and polished me so that I’m ready for her. And I go wherever she is. They all need me, the stars and the starlets, but nobody loves me more than Madou. The feeling is mutual. My passion for her remains unimpaired. Even when she is tired, she is staggeringly beautiful. I live for the moments when she gazes into me, and we become one.

Madou is to play a Russian empress. Perhaps the most famous woman of all time: Catherine the Great. Mr Goldberg (everyone knows that he added the von to make himself appear noble) could not resist. And who can blame him, darlings? The transformation from vulgar tart to sovereign ruler is just too delicious.

Naturally, his star cannot envisage the role until she has first created the wardrobe. Every seed pearl, every sequin, every feather, has to be perfect. Travis, head of Wardrobe, a man of indescribable and imperishable charm, will set her right. Travis dresses impeccably, like an English gentleman, exuding elegant masculinity. He always looks as if he has just stepped off a yacht, so unlike that vulgar imposter, Mr Moses von Goldberg, who looks like a Jewish schmatta tailor. Never trust a man with short legs, I always say, his brain is too near his bottom.

Travis’s rooms are exquisite; book-lined and stuffed with antiques. I reside in the right-hand corner: a huge floor-length looking-glass, dotted with bulbous lights. The daughter never looks my way, studiously avoids my gaze. Well, who can blame her, when she looks like a baby porpoise?

Madou looks directly at me and speaks.

‘She must look young, Travis. But who will believe that Madou is virginal? You must overdo the image. We need frills and flounces for the early gowns. Then later, when she gets to Russia we will need pelts; sables, mink, ermine, white fox, not chinchilla. So vulgar, so Garbo.’

Travis chuckles: ‘Kater, dearest, have a sandwich. It’s an American standard, egg-on-white. Delicious.’

Madou casts a critical look at him. She dislikes other people feeding her child: ‘Now, where are the sketches? Kater, lay them on the floor, so we can see.’

Madou emits a sigh of appreciation as she scrutinises the gorgeous designs: ‘Travis, sweetheart, that black velvet gown trimmed with ermine is magnificent, but it must be bottle-green. You understand? It will film better. And the fur should be mink, the white of the ermine will make the trim too distracting against the dark material.’

‘Joan, my dear, are you absolutely sure about the dark green?’

Travis is one of the select few who is permitted to use her first name, just as she is one of the select few permitted to use Goldberg’s, which she shortens to Mo.

‘Of course I’m sure, sweetheart. You must remember how difficult black is to light well. The wedding dress is good. The antique silver lace is perfect, and the white seed pearls and diamonds. But the hoops should be wider. I need to check the width of the doors. Mo will need to make them bigger. The fur hat should not flop over the face, the face is important, Travis, not the hat. Kater, let’s go and ask Mo about the doors.’

Before she leaves, she turns to look at me, and there, reflected in me, is her image. Venus could not look more lovely. Joan Madou: you are the fairest of them all.

The Scarlet Empress

Oh boy, there it was. The familiar smell of sawdust lingering in the early-morning Californian air. And then I was whizzed through the soundstage door into freezing St Petersburg. Gee, it was busy; horses neighing, cameras being pushed around on wheels, carpenters moving planks, grips high above, on ladders and scaffolds, rigging lights into position. I could smell glue, spirit gum, and the disgusting smell of sticky, fake snow.

In the centre of the winter set was a beautiful ebony carriage, the royal coach. Its silver lanterns sparkled in the bright lights, and a team of eight black stallions strained against a heavy, ornate harness. Extras, dressed as Russian soldiers with resplendent black moustaches, sat around waiting or stroking their Siberian horses. I later learned that they were polo ponies, rented from the Riviera Club’s team, and given fake manes and tails, courtesy of Hairdressing. But, as Mother would say, why spoil the illusion with the bald truth?

When I first came to America, it was Mo who taught me my first important English words; Hair and Make-up, Wardrobe, Dressing Room Row, Soundstage, Grips. Mother insisted that we speak German at home, and even our maid was sent over from Berlin. One of the reasons Mother refused to let me go to school was because she didn’t want me to speak English with an American accent. But Mo understood that I needed to try to fit in a little, in this curious world of make-believe that is ‘Hollywood’.

Mother’s stand-in was at the door of the coach, wearing an imitation cape, made of brown squirrel, not the silver-tipped Russian sable that Mother had insisted upon. She kept up her joke about the head of the studio, and his origins as a furrier.

‘Sweetheart, he knows the cost of good fur. But I bet he never sewed on real sable.’

She chuckled, and there was a malicious glint in her eye. She loved it when she got one over on the studio bosses. They would be furious when they found out about the expensive sable. The thought was delicious to imagine: ‘But Mr Zukor, I thought you liked fur.’ Mother scanned the set for her director, until she found him astride a boom mic, like a witch on a broomstick.

‘My mirror, Kater.’

I held it aloft as she donned her sable cape and pulled the hood over her golden hair. Dot from Make-up daubed glycerine onto those perfect lips, and with a ‘We are ready for you, Miss Madou’ from the assistant director, she was primed.

She stood perfectly still, in front of the door of the coach, gazing in wonder at St Petersburg in the depths of winter. The last time I had been in the studio, I had been to Shanghai. I remember Mo painting cloud formations on the top of a real-life express steam train. I didn’t need to go to the real China or Russia. I had it all right here. That day in China, I had learned that when the director uttered the words ‘Quiet on the set’ I dared not move, even breathe.

Mother could stand still for hours without even taking a bathroom break. She was as still as a statue, just like Queen Hermione in my book about Shakespeare. That was a winter’s tale, too. The queen was accused of a bad thing and, to avenge her husband, she locked herself away for sixteen years until she returned as a statue who magically becomes human again – right in front of the audience.

Thus she stood, Even with such life of majesty – warm life –

I stood in the shadows, fidgeting, clutching her hand mirror. Travis had made me a white coat, in honour of my new occupation as ‘assistant to Miss Madou’. My stomach rumbled and groaned. I was so hungry. I hoped no one could hear. The commissary had a new sandwich. I wondered if I would be allowed a Coca-Cola. Or one of those wonderful vanilla milkshakes, with ice cream. My mind wandered.

‘Make-up.’

With those words, I dashed onto the hot set. Mother took the hand mirror and scrutinised her face. A false eyelash had dropped onto her cheek. She removed it expertly, handed back the mirror, and smiled at me. I had done well. I escaped back into the shadows.

‘Cut. Print.’

Back in Mother’s dressing room, there was a buzz of activity. I knew that the first sign that Principal Photography was about to begin was the influx of slim white boxes containing flowers. Her director always sent her tuberoses or white lilacs, the studio sent snapdragons or lilies, her new co-star sent her red roses, a bad mistake, as she loathed red roses, especially ‘American Beauty’. She loved yellow roses, but they were only to be given at the end of the affair. Never at the beginning.

I put the roses on one side to be given away to the maid, then I began my job of filing away the flower cards, not so that Mother could send thanks, but so she knew who had forgotten to send flowers.

That morning, she had swept into her dressing room armed with white vinegar and bleach. She took it upon herself to clean every room she occupied. Surgical alcohol was used to sterilise the bathrooms. She would never sit down on a toilet seat for fear she would contract a disease. Many years later, I discovered the reason for her paranoia. At the time, it was just another mystery to be kept ‘from the Child’.

Then we unpacked the boxes. All of them were marked in German so that only we would understand their contents. The first box contained her African doll, her lucky mascot, her ‘savage’. He was a present from Mo, and he sat on her dressing table, propped up by the mirror. He was always the first to be unpacked and the last to be packed. I never liked him.

Besides, I had my own doll, with silky flaxen-blonde hair, like Mother’s, and enormous blue eyes. My Heidi. Mother said she was very expensive. She came from a famous shop on Regent’s Street in London. When I lay her down, her eyelids closed, like magic. When I pressed her tummy, she cried ‘Mama’. She had her own wardrobe: an outfit for every occasion. I loved to dress and undress Heidi. No one could be a better mother than I was to my doll. On special occasions, I would allow her into my bed.

Travis, one of the kindest of Mother’s friends, made doll clothes that were miniature versions of the ones he made for Mother. He even made Heidi a real sable coat and matching muff to keep her warm. He would wrap the doll clothes in fine tissue, and tie them with pink grosgrain ribbon. Travis was a man interested in detail. He told me that he was born in Texas, where the men rode horses and wore cowboy hats, even to the office. He spoke to me as he would to a grown-up, and if I didn’t understand a particular English word, he would take out his pencil and draw an image to explain it.

Travis had a secret. When he thought that no one was watching, he would take out his hip flask and pour amber liquid into his coffee, his hands trembling. He had such beautiful hands; slender and elegant, with perfectly polished nails. On his pinky finger, he wore a gold and black ring. I think he knew that I was watching him, but he knew that I would never tell on him. I was so good at keeping secrets.

After I unpacked Mother’s savage doll, I undressed Heidi and put on her white lace nightdress. I brushed out her long blonde hair with a doll brush that was made of real silver. I popped her into her doll bed. Then I got back to work.

Mother and I decanted vases, gramophone, records, ashtrays, cigarette boxes, pens, pencils, writing paper, special padded hangers, towels, bath mats, flasks. Thermoses, containing her beef tea and chicken soup, soon lined the shelves. Mother was the only star to have her own kitchen appended to her dressing room. Her famous goulash would bubble away on the stove, scenting the air with caraway and sweet paprika.

I went to the studio every day with Mother because of the Lindbergh baby who was taken away and killed in the woods. Mother, hysterical with fear, hired a bodyguard, who stationed himself outside her dressing room. To keep me busy, Mother gave me a list of duties.

Shine the shoes

Pass the hairpins

Pour the coffee (morning)

Pour the champagne (evening)

File the flower cards

Open the mail

Put cufflinks in boxes

Sharpen the black wax eye pencils

Pop out the top hat (this was probably my favourite)

The one duty I didn’t like very much was tidying her vanity table. It was always cluttered with pots of cold cream, flacons of No. 37 Veilchen, make-up, brushes, sponges, photographs, and the savage who stared at me with its tiny red eyes.

I kept my eyes averted from the silver and black glass triptych … mustn’t catch its eye. But I knew he was watching me, trying not to laugh at me, keeping his disdain at bay.

12 3 4 5 Keying.

Muallifning boshqa kitoblari

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