MOST HEROES ARE FORGOTTEN _ My July 4th Thoughts

 

"Marlene was staunchly opposed to autocrats and fascists. 

When she got to that position of security and fame she took every opportunity she could to oppose the Nazis," her daughter Maria Riva said.

"German foreign minister von Ribbentrop came to visit her [in 1937] at the Lancaster Hotel in Paris bearing a 'Mother's Cross' to woo Marlene back to Germany. 

It would have essentially made her 'Queen of Germany' with the promise of a carefree life, a castle, wealth. She said no then and many other times. 

Hitler never asked again, just labeled her a traitor to the Fatherland and put a death mark on her head."

In 1939 the actress, who had gone to Hollywood with von Sternberg in 1929, accepted US citizenship. 

During the war she sang in American uniform in front of US soldiers at the front.

"Actually I think Dietrich wanted to be a soldier and you couldn't very well be a soldier 

so she fought her way," said her daughter, Maria Riva,

For three solid years during WWII, Marlene entertained our troops on the front lines, despite a death sentence on her head. 

She was with the troops in winter frosts and under broiling sun.

 

She bathed out of a helmet like an infantryman, slept on the ground, and refused to be evacuated when artillary pounded the ground around her. 

She was willing to do anything to amuse the troops: playing musical saw and wearing a jeweled sheath over long G.I. underwear to parade to the sound of enemy fire in the distance.

3 years. 

And she didn't make one movie all that time and cared not a bit. 

She was awarded the Medal of Freedom. Hitler would have given her a bullet ... after long hours of torture.

 Marlene came back from her three years on the front lines of WWII very much changed. 

She never got over the horrors she saw there. She slept for months in jeeps, on floors, even on bare dirt.

 

One afternoon after VE Day, she was walking through a little French village. All around her was rubble, and she couldn't understand why -- 

all the buildings along the street were still standing with curtains blowing frilly and snapping clean-crisp in their windows.

 Then, she looked through one of the windows to see that there was nothing behind it. 

The fronts of the buildings were still standing, but everything behind them had been destroyed. 

There wasn't a single living person past the false fronts of those caricature buildings.

 

With her face cupped in trembling hands, she stood in front of that window, weeping silently, refusing to be comforted ...

 

"... for there is no comfort for the dead," 

she whispered.

 

When she returned to Hollywood, many producers said her looks were gone.

 But not director, Mitchell Leisen, for whom she had done a great kindness when he was an ill lowly assistant director before the war.

Marlene Dietrich prepared for her gypsy character spending several weeks in gypsy camps in the suburbs of Paris.

Due to a labor dispute, the principal actors had to "live" on the set for a few weeks to avoid crossing picket lines. 

No hardship for Marlene due to her wartime experience.

Marlene Dietrich took the time to learn how to play the zither; 

it was said she drove the rest of the cast and crew mad with her attempts to perfect her technique. 

Her efforts paid off, however, as illustrated in the scene where she plays the zither very competently.

The song "Golden Earrings", written for this film, 

It went on to be hit records by several artists, including Peggy Lee who co-wrote it.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1534981861

So it shouldn't come as a surprise that my only novel in which I star 

has me visited by the ghost of Marlene Dietrich and sadly an undead Hitler!

HAPPY JULY 4TH!