Marlene Dietrich

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a download from the Desert Island Discs archive.

Speaker 20:05

This extract from the original programme is the only material remaining in the BBC archives.

Speaker 20:11

Details of the music can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Discs website.

Speaker 20:17

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen sixty five.

Speaker 10:21

Desert Island discs.

Speaker 20:22

This is a recording as it was being broadcast rather than the studio recording, and for that reason you may hear some interference.

Speaker 10:30

Each week a well-known person is asked the question, if you were to be cast away alone on a desert island, which aid gramophone records would you choose to have with you?

Speaker 10:39

As usual, the castaway is introduced by Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:42

How do you do, ladies and gentlemen? This is one of the rare occasions on which this program comes from outside the studio. I'm speaking from a dressing room at the Queen's Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue, and I'm happy to introduce as our castaway in Desert Island Disc this week, Marlena Dietrich.

Presenter0:57

So sea tree sh

Presenter0:58

We're dumping you very unsympathetically on this island. Could you face loneliness?

Marlene Dietrich1:04

Oh yeah.

Marlene Dietrich1:07

For sure, if it'd only be me alone there and nobody else suffering, I would be fine.

Presenter1:12

Uh

Presenter1:13

Apart from loneliness.

Presenter1:14

Is there anything in the situation of a desert island that you'd be particularly frightened of?

Marlene Dietrich1:20

Uh

Presenter1:20

Uh

Marlene Dietrich1:20

No, no, no, no, I'm frightened of nothing.

Marlene Dietrich1:23

Have you a religious faith with

Presenter1:25

It helped you.

Marlene Dietrich1:27

Um

Marlene Dietrich1:28

Mm, I don't think so because

Marlene Dietrich1:32

I think I'm too little at anything great.

Marlene Dietrich1:36

My ninjas would bother with me.

Presenter1:39

Uh

Presenter1:40

What would you be happiest to have got away from?

Presenter1:44

Nothing.

Presenter1:46

So you have these eight records that you've chosen. How did you set about choosing them?

Presenter1:51

Are they chosen to remind you of the past or to give you...

Marlene Dietrich1:55

No, no, no, no. Just when you asked me, I quickly thought of what I love best and it's rather difficult for me because at the moment I'm not at home.

Marlene Dietrich2:04

Because when I'm at home it's easier to

Marlene Dietrich2:08

recollect and look at things that I

Marlene Dietrich2:12

Have and that I like.

Marlene Dietrich2:14

So I quickly had to think and the first thing that came to my mind was naturally Stravinsky.

Marlene Dietrich2:21

who is one of the great idols of my life.

Marlene Dietrich2:25

uh Satre du Planton, which I have always had with me. I never travel without it.

Marlene Dietrich2:32

And uh when I met him

Marlene Dietrich2:34

I told him that and I told him I loved Moose the cot where the girl runs away.

Marlene Dietrich2:41

from the man in the woods and he looked at me and he said, I've never written any such thing and I said, but that's how the music sounds and he said, well, if it sounds like that to you, that's fine, but that's not at all what I meant.

Marlene Dietrich2:55

But I still um think that when I hear the music and I always carry it with me and I love the record most that he conducted himself.

Presenter3:22

An excerpt from Stravinsky's L'Esacro du Pranto, the New York Philharmonic conducted by the composer.

Presenter3:29

What's your second choice?

Marlene Dietrich3:30

Well, second choice sounds strange because

Marlene Dietrich3:35

You asked me something different and something of today.

Marlene Dietrich3:40

So I say I love very much I record the bird crack.

Marlene Dietrich3:46

has written the song for and the arrangement.

Marlene Dietrich3:50

And it's called There's Always Something to Remind Me.

Marlene Dietrich3:54

And it's sung by Sandy Shaw. And Bert Bafferak is your musical director, isn't it? Yes, he's not only my musical director, but he is

Marlene Dietrich4:03

The arranger naturally, the conductor here at the queen.

Marlene Dietrich4:06

And he's also a great friend of mine and he's also an absolutely wonderful man.

Marlene Dietrich4:11

Yeah.

Presenter4:12

They're awarding partnership.

Marlene Dietrich4:13

Uh

Presenter4:13

Let's listen to this song of his.

Presenter4:15

Sung by Sandy Shore.

Presenter4:24

Sandy Shaw.

Presenter4:25

The Tietrich, you were born in Berlin.

Presenter4:27

Yes, I am. I do come from a a military family.

Presenter4:31

Mm-hmm.

Presenter4:32

And as a little girl, your upbringing was rather spartan.

Marlene Dietrich4:37

Well, I think it sounds Spartan to most of the world. I don't think it sounds Spartan to English people at all.

Marlene Dietrich4:44

I think the English

Marlene Dietrich4:47

And the Germans of that time

Marlene Dietrich4:50

We're very m similar in upbringing. Cold baths and all that sort of thing.

Presenter4:54

Yeah.

Marlene Dietrich4:55

Yes, sure. I do not take yourself too seriously.

Presenter4:58

Uh

Presenter4:58

What was it your first ambition to be?

Marlene Dietrich5:02

Well, I don't think I had any ambition even then. I don't have any now.

Marlene Dietrich5:07

My ambition or if you can call it that, my education was to

Marlene Dietrich5:13

be a useful human being and that's what I've tried to be. You did study as as a concert violinist, I believe? No, I started as in as a violinist and then

Marlene Dietrich5:24

they thought I could be one and then

Marlene Dietrich5:28

I practiced the Bach solo sonatas, uh

Marlene Dietrich5:32

Like I always do everything in excess, I did too much of that and I injured my fourth finger of my left hand and I in those days they put you in a cast and uh

Marlene Dietrich5:46

When I came out of the class they told me that I couldn't ever last to concert and um

Marlene Dietrich5:52

I gave up the violin, much to the distress of my mother, because

Marlene Dietrich5:57

She had thought that I would be a violinist, but even then I hated uh doing things in halves.

Presenter6:00

Yeah.

Marlene Dietrich6:04

And so I said, If I ever can't play a concert, I'll give it up now.

Presenter6:08

Was that a great blow to you? Yes.

Presenter6:10

So decided to act instead.

Marlene Dietrich6:12

No, I didn't it sort of came later. I wrote a lot of poetry then.

Marlene Dietrich6:17

And I thought well.

Marlene Dietrich6:20

Something was so beautiful, this Hoffman style I read then, that it would be nice to see it up on the stage or wherever people could hear it and uh this is what led me to the theater.

Marlene Dietrich6:32

Did your family like the idea of your going into position? Isma Lena.

Speaker 16:41

No, my name, my name

Marlene Dietrich6:47

And it was pulled together, the MER of Mary and Magdalene from Magdalene, the L E N E and it was done by my mother because Mary Magdalene was too long for school and she didn't want me to be called just by the first name or the second name.

Marlene Dietrich7:02

So she pulled the two names together.

Presenter7:04

And there are now thousands of mileas all named after you.

Marlene Dietrich7:08

Well, I think it's a very old, old, old German name.

Presenter7:13

How did you start in the theatre? What did y did you go to a a drama academy? Yes, I went to the Reinhardt School.

Marlene Dietrich7:17

Okay.

Presenter7:19

What is your favourite?

Marlene Dietrich7:19

That's professional opinion.

Marlene Dietrich7:21

My first professional pianos is the widow in the fifth act of the taming of the shrew.

Presenter7:27

Absolutely tiny party.

Presenter7:29

Then plays and musical comedies and reviews. You were only played by Bernard Schor in Berlin, I agree.

Presenter7:35

Mhm. Let's say yellow.

Presenter7:37

And

Presenter7:38

You made a number of films playing leading parts. In fact, your career was getting along very well. And then there was one engagement that gave you international success.

Presenter7:47

The Blue Angel.

Marlene Dietrich7:49

No, that's not true. My career was not going well at all. The Blue Angel was the very first film I made.

Presenter7:54

Mhm. And you made this film in three versions.

Marlene Dietrich7:55

And you make

Marlene Dietrich7:58

Uh

Presenter7:58

No, and two. Two in German and in English.

Marlene Dietrich8:00

Let me

Presenter8:02

Oh, Josef von Sternberg was a a very distinguished director. Had you any inkling when you made this film that it was going to turn out to be one of the great films of the time? No, no, nobody knew this, not even the

Marlene Dietrich8:09

No, no, no, nobody knew

Marlene Dietrich8:11

Really?

Marlene Dietrich8:13

I don't think anybody knows when they're making a masterpiece.

Presenter8:17

Shall we have your third record now? What shall we have next?

Marlene Dietrich8:21

One s so we have Lister?

Presenter8:23

By all means.

Marlene Dietrich8:24

who's my f favorite pianist and I met him when I was in Edinburgh.

Marlene Dietrich8:29

And he was so kind and he came to see my show because I had seen all his shows in the afternoon. I was playing myself in the evening.

Marlene Dietrich8:37

And he came to my table where I was eating dinner and he had a rose in his hand and he gave it to me.

Marlene Dietrich8:44

And I I got up and I didn't know what to do at all. He was so good to me.

Marlene Dietrich8:49

Well, Lister has always been my great God.

Marlene Dietrich8:53

It's not a news record.

Marlene Dietrich8:55

And um

Marlene Dietrich8:57

I love everything he plays naturally. But I love most Schumann.

Marlene Dietrich9:03

Schubert Barnes.

Marlene Dietrich9:05

But you say I can't take that many records to the island, so

Marlene Dietrich9:10

I can't choose one. Let's put them all in a bus.

Presenter9:14

Well we'll deal with this when we come to the luxury later. Choose one for the time being.

Presenter9:20

Come on.

Marlene Dietrich9:21

Well let's choose Beethoven then.

Presenter9:28

Viadis La Brichte playing Beethoven's Appazionato Sonata.

Presenter9:33

Ms. Deep Day, as a result of your great success in the Blue Angel, you were whisked off to Hollywood and given the full Hollywood treatment.

Presenter9:41

Did you go there with the intention of staying a long time? No.

Presenter9:46

Out of all those Hollywood films, Morocco, Scarlet Empress, Desire, Destri Rights, again, there are so many, which ones do you look back on with the most affection?

Marlene Dietrich9:56

Well, I cannot say that I look at anyone with affection.

Marlene Dietrich10:01

Because making films is a very difficult task, particularly for me, because I always had to play parts that had nothing to do with me at all. And it was a

Marlene Dietrich10:12

Isn't this yours?

Presenter10:14

No, no, hey uh

Marlene Dietrich10:17

I'm not an actress in that sense of the word I am.

Marlene Dietrich10:20

Don't like challenges at all.

Marlene Dietrich10:23

I was thrown into this business and I tried to do my best and uh it was hard work all along the line.

Presenter10:31

You made many of your early films with Sternberg, a very productive partnership. After him, with which director did you work best? Delimoired.

Presenter10:41

You made one film in in Britain in the thirties. That was the first time you came and and saw us, wasn't it?

Marlene Dietrich10:47

Yes, I I played uh a film that Mr. Hitchcock made called Stage Fight.

Presenter10:53

Yeah.

Marlene Dietrich10:54

And then afterwards I made a picture here.

Marlene Dietrich10:58

Corneau Highway.

Presenter11:00

But you would not return to Berlin to work under the Nazi regime.

Marlene Dietrich11:04

No, I did not.

Presenter11:06

You have by now become an American citizen.

Marlene Dietrich11:08

Finger.

Presenter11:10

The war came and for three years you traveled the world from Anzio to the Aleutians entertaining the United States forces often under the run of the world.

Marlene Dietrich11:17

Not only the United States

Presenter11:19

Designed many British troops.

Presenter11:22

This is all the Allied.

Presenter11:24

This must have been a heartbreaking time for you with your natural affection for your own people in the back of your mind.

Marlene Dietrich11:31

No, it was not. It was not a heartbreaking time. I I did what I thought was right and

Marlene Dietrich11:37

I did the best I could.

Presenter11:40

Work that your new country recognized with the highest civilian award.

Presenter11:44

After the war, more films in Hollywood and France and this country, then you decided on a new career as a solo artist, first Cafare in Las Vegas and London. You made a sensational success when you appeared at the Café de Paris in London.

Presenter11:59

with a a different celebrity to introduce to every night.

Marlene Dietrich12:02

Yes, wasn't that wonderful? I think the most famous people

Marlene Dietrich12:06

the English, because in no other country the great actors would have done that.

Marlene Dietrich12:11

I never believed it that uh

Marlene Dietrich12:14

Beginners

Marlene Dietrich12:15

Schofield and

Marlene Dietrich12:18

They all would come and introduce me in a gallery. I never believed in it until I saw them.

Presenter12:23

And from all of them it was from the heart.

Presenter12:26

And now you play a whole evening's entertainment on your own in the theater.

Presenter12:31

Yes, I do. Before we talk about that anymore, let's have your fourth record. What have you chosen next?

Marlene Dietrich12:37

Well, let's do what they told you.

Marlene Dietrich12:39

Until the third?

Marlene Dietrich12:41

Conducted by Toscanini.

Presenter12:48

An excerpt from Beethoven's Third Symphony conducted by Artiro Toscanini.

Presenter12:53

Misty Fish, where is your home now?

Marlene Dietrich12:55

Well, it's everywhere, New York, Paris, all over.

Presenter12:59

Go. This new profession of yours in which you give a whole evening's entertainment must be a very exacting and exhausting one.

Marlene Dietrich13:07

My little lover can love it more than me.

Presenter13:09

Yeah.

Presenter13:10

Some so.

Marlene Dietrich13:11

Anything else except records? I do love to make records. But I like this profession very much.

Presenter13:18

You sing some of your old songs and some new ones. What must a song have for you to choose in?

Marlene Dietrich13:24

Well, I think the lyrics matter most because um as I'm not a singer

Marlene Dietrich13:30

I need the words very much to give expression to the song.

Marlene Dietrich13:35

And um I just wish I could sing uh some more songs by Bert Backwright because he's such a popular composer. Well I'm sure he gets with him.

Presenter13:42

I'm sure he does work for you.

Marlene Dietrich13:43

Well, I have told you what it forms is.

Marlene Dietrich13:47

On a record, but I've only done it in German.

Marlene Dietrich13:50

But there's a worker out of it. It's called Message to Master.

Marlene Dietrich13:54

And Adam's Face made it and it's a wonderful song.

Presenter14:03

Message to Martha Zung by Adam Faith. In how many countries have you given your one woman entertainment Martha?

Marlene Dietrich14:10

Oh, in almost every country except I haven't been in Japan yet, nor in Australia.

Presenter14:17

That must have been an emotional moment when the curtain went up for you again on a Berlin audience after all those years.

Presenter14:23

I know that you were an equal success there with Aries Moscow.

Presenter14:28

And then pick what else?

Marlene Dietrich14:29

No, it wasn't a particularly emotional moment, no.

Marlene Dietrich14:33

You said you had no ambition.

Presenter14:36

Yeah.

Presenter14:37

But isn't there anything that you want, anywhere you want to play, that you want to direct?

Presenter14:43

Do you want to create in any way?

Presenter14:47

You're just happy with the pattern that it is.

Marlene Dietrich14:50

Well, I'm very happy here.

Marlene Dietrich14:52

In London at the Queen's and I wish it could last forever, but it doesn't. And I loved Edinburgh too. I want to say this again and again and again. I loved Edinburgh.

Marlene Dietrich15:02

Uh

Presenter15:03

Let's have record number six now.

Marlene Dietrich15:05

Reach out for me by Deion Warwick.

Marlene Dietrich15:08

Uh

Presenter15:08

Uh

Marlene Dietrich15:08

When you go

Presenter15:11

Reach Out for Me by Dion White

Presenter15:14

Now, you have renown, Miss Dietri, as a symbol of glamour. How about the practical side of life? Are you a good cook? No, I am.

Presenter15:23

Have you ever camped out?

Marlene Dietrich15:26

Well, no, I wasn't forced to.

Marlene Dietrich15:29

I don't see any reason to camp out if you don't have to. But if I would have to, I probably would be able to.

Presenter15:35

You could, you think, on a desert island, live off the land.

Marlene Dietrich15:39

Yeah, so I need very little.

Presenter15:41

And have you ever seen

Marlene Dietrich15:43

Oh, I love fishing. Don't stop me on that. We have no time.

Presenter15:47

Could you cultivate? Do you like gardening?

Marlene Dietrich15:51

Yes, uh I like anything you do with your hands.

Presenter15:53

Yeah.

Presenter15:54

If you acquired some form of craft,

Presenter15:57

say a raft. Would you try to escape or would you set it out on this island?

Presenter16:02

Yeah.

Marlene Dietrich16:02

Well I think of

Presenter16:02

What?

Marlene Dietrich16:02

What's the design?

Presenter16:04

Yeah.

Marlene Dietrich16:04

Patience, you see.

Presenter16:06

More patience than navigational skills.

Marlene Dietrich16:08

That is right, because I don't do anything I know nothing about. That makes me very happy, you see.

Marlene Dietrich16:14

I'm not frustrated.

Presenter16:17

That's hard record number seven.

Marlene Dietrich16:19

Well record number seven would be Valve.

Marlene Dietrich16:24

A very

Presenter16:29

Part of Rabel's La Vas, played once again by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Presenter16:36

Watch number eight.

Marlene Dietrich16:38

Now number eight I think should be La Fonde Circulation.

Presenter16:42

You're not going to take one of your own records with you.

Marlene Dietrich16:45

Yeah.

Presenter16:46

Oh no no no no no no I know this

Marlene Dietrich16:47

No, I never listen I never listen to my own record.

Marlene Dietrich16:52

No, yeah, I don't think anybody who has ever done anything or created anything likes to look at it. I I've never seen a painter who likes to look at his own painting. I think it's for the other people to listen to if they like it.

Presenter17:05

Which part of L'Anfoyer's artilleries would you like to hear?

Presenter17:09

Well, you choose it, all right? How about the cat do it?

Presenter17:16

The cat duets from Rabel's L'Enfoy Sautilège, conducted by Lauren Marcel.

Presenter17:23

If you could only have one of those eight records, which would it be?

Marlene Dietrich17:28

Secreted Ponto.

Presenter17:30

And you're allowed to take one luxury with you to this island.

Presenter17:34

What are you choosing?

Marlene Dietrich17:34

Well, it depends what you mean of luxury.

Presenter17:36

True

Marlene Dietrich17:36

So yeah, I mean something that uh means absolutely nothing to anybody else is sounded.

Presenter17:41

It's something that means something to you but isn't going to help you materially to live on the island.

Marlene Dietrich17:46

I tell you what I will take. Uh I take it with me where I go.

Marlene Dietrich17:51

It's a little bunch of white heather that

Marlene Dietrich17:54

I received in Edinburgh.

Marlene Dietrich17:56

But the people of Scotland brought me, and I take it with me wherever I go.

Marlene Dietrich18:02

And then I repeat all the shoes.

Marlene Dietrich18:05

that I received in Moscow.

Marlene Dietrich18:09

The children from the Borshau Ballet School gave it to me.

Marlene Dietrich18:13

And I have those with me all the time and I probably will grab them and take them, all right. We put those in the box.

Presenter18:15

Yeah,

Marlene Dietrich18:20

And then what?

Presenter18:21

Uh

Presenter18:22

What else? Well, what else?

Presenter18:24

Do you want anything else in the box? Your your demands have been very modest.

Presenter18:28

Please may I have the wish to backwards. What all of them?

Presenter18:32

Uh

Marlene Dietrich18:32

All of them, yes.

Marlene Dietrich18:34

Yeah.

Presenter18:34

Well

Marlene Dietrich18:34

Difficult to make a choice.

Presenter18:36

I said you would have something else in the box, though.

Presenter18:39

You will have the extra records and one book to take with you.

Marlene Dietrich18:42

Man look, that's Konstantin Postovsky, the story of

Marlene Dietrich18:46

Alive?

Marlene Dietrich18:47

And a short story, I wish I could have that too. Can I? Couldn't you make an exception for me, please? There is a short story that he wrote which is called A Telegram.

Presenter18:59

We'll slip that into the cache of the

Marlene Dietrich19:00

Flip that in because it's the most beautiful short story ever written. It's the most beautiful love

Marlene Dietrich19:06

The way to a mother ever written and

Presenter19:08

He's a modern Russian writer, I think.

Marlene Dietrich19:10

Well, he's not that modern.

Marlene Dietrich19:12

He is probably by now, I should say, 65.

Presenter19:17

But he's still with us.

Marlene Dietrich19:18

Oh yeah. It was here in London.

Presenter19:22

Well, thank you, Marlena Dietrich, for letting us hear your choice of Gazard Island discs. Thank you.

Marlene Dietrich19:27

They mat Uh

Presenter19:27

Uh

Marlene Dietrich19:27

Yeah.

Presenter19:27

Uh Goodbye everyone.

Speaker 219:33

You've been listening to a download from the Desert Island Discs archive.

Speaker 219:37

For more downloads, please visit the Radio 4 website.

Presenter19:40

The guest in today's recorded program was Malena Dietrich.

Presenter19:45

The interguer was Roy Plumley and the producer Monica Chapman.