Nobody deserves that kind of slaughter

A year after Joan Crawford's death, Christina Crawford —the eldest of Joan's four adopted children— published her memoir Mommie Dearest (1978), in which she accused her mother of emotional and physical abuse towards her and her siblings. The book became a huge success and in 1981 was made into a film of the same name (starring Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford). Several people corroborated Christina's story, stating they had personally witnessed some of the abuse (among them Helen Hayes, read more here), while others said that the allegations were pure lies. Among the latter group were Joan's twin daughters Cathy and Cindy, Joan's ex-husband Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Barbara Stanwyck and Myrna Loy. 

Joan Crawford and daughter Christina

Marlene Dietrich and Katharine Hepburn also belonged to the group of people who didn't believe Christina's stories about her mother. In the letters below, the two actresses give their opinion on the subject. First up is Dietrich's letter to Paramount executive Peter Bankers (i.e. only the part that deals with Mommie Dearest), followed by Hepburn's note to a friend. 

Source:  The Best of Everything: A Joan Crawford Encyclopedia (click on the link if you want to read Dietrich's full letter)

Joan Crawford and Marlene Dietrich in the 1930s

Source: The Best of Everything: A Joan Crawford Encyclopedia

Kate Hepburn

My deepest love & respect, Bowie

David Hemmings' Just a Gigolo (1978) was Marlene Dietrich's last picture. Dietrich had a small role as Baroness von Semering, a madam who runs a brothel for gigolos in post-WWI Berlin. The then 77-year-old actress, who had not made a film since Judgement At Nuremberg (1961), worked on Gigolo for just two days and was reportedly paid $250,000. 

The film's main character, an army officer-turned-gigolo, was played by popstar David Bowie who later said that he had accepted the part, mainly because "Marlene Dietrich was dangled in front of [him]." Bowie and Dietrich shared two scenes in the film —the only scenes Dietrich was in— but in the end they never met. Gigolo was shot in Berlin, where Bowie lived at the time. As Dietrich refused to leave her city of residence Paris, the scenes were filmed with Marlene alone in a Paris studio while Bowie was in Berlin acting to a wooden chair. The separate parts were eventually edited together, the results to be watched here (with Marlene also performing the song Just a Gigolo).

Although Dietrich and Bowie never met, they did talk to each other on the phone and also wrote each other letters. One of these letters, from Bowie to Dietrich, is seen below. It was written on 8 April 1978, while Bowie was doing his Isolar II world tour. In the end, Just a Gigolo (which also co-starred Kim Novak) became a huge flop, lambasted by both the critics and audiences. Bowie later referred to the film as "my 32 Elvis Presley movies rolled into one."

 Source: David Bowie Autograph

Transcript:

April 8th 78

Chicago

Dear Miss Dietrich,

Please, please forgive this disgusting lapse of time to answer your delightful note.

I have no excuse.

If, for any reason, you should wish to reach me, here is the address and no: (tel) of my lawyer and friend in L.A. 

Stanley Diamond 

10850 Wilshire Blvd.

L.A 90024 (Tel) (213) 879 3444.

I hear from David H [Hemmings] that, putting apart the bad areas, the film is looking SPLENDID. Hurrah!

I will be in Paris for 2 or 3 concerts in April or May and will certainly telephone or write before I arrive (staying at Plaza of course).

I do hope we can meet this time. 

I will sing for you at the concert.

My deepest love & respect 

Bowie

78

Above: On the set of Just a Gigolo with (l to r) director David Hemmings, Kim Novak, Maria Schell and David Bowie. Below: Marlene Dieterich as Baroness von Semering in a publicity still for Just a Gigolo.

I thought we were considered GUESTS, not thieves!

The luxurious Savoy Hotel in London was home to many classic Hollywood stars, including Marlene Dietrich. Dietrich loved the Savoy and lived at the hotel on and off throughout her career for extended periods of time. Her good relationship with the hotel abruptly ended in 1975, however, after she had been accused of stealing the hotel's cutlery. While the actress was indignant at being accused (see the letter below), according to a 2011 article in the Daily Mail she did have a habit of stealing cutlery from the Savoy as well as silver salt and pepper pots delivered to her suite via room service. In her book Marlene Dietrich: The Life (1992), Maria Riva confirmed that her mother had kleptomaniac habits. Dietrich used to nick the clothes which she wore for her various film roles, said Riva, and she also took gloves, scarves, handbags and hats.

July 1949, Marlene Dietrich at the Savoy in London, waving to fans outside. Dietrich was in London for the shooting of Hitchcock's Stage Fright (1950).

This is Marlene Dietrich's letter to the manager of the Savoy Hotel, written on 16 April 1975. I don't know what the hotel's reaction was, but apparently a reply was sent to Dietrich a month later.

Source: Gotta Have Rock and Roll

Transcript:

16 April 1975

Dear Mr. Griffin,

What a shame that after all these years the haggling over hotel hardware should be the termination of my relationship with the Savoy Hotel. For no matter how much I have loved this hotel in the past, being accused of "stealing" certainly makes it impossible for me to ever reside there again.

Actually the situation is so ludicrous that it has taken me some time to realize that you really meant such an insult.

Assuming that I would wish to travel around the world with my luggage full of cutlery — I assure you that it would be of stirling and not your tawdry stuff! What happens, once the tables have been pushed into corridors in a frenzy to get rid of them after waiting for hours for the atrociously bad room service pick-up, should have nothing to do with your guests.

So we have come to the operative word, "Guest". I thought I, and the many friends I encourage to stay at the Savoy, were considered GUESTS, not thieves!

I shall certainly now inform them of their new status should they ever decide to stay at the Savoy Hotel, which, of course, I shall never do again!

Ms Marlene Dietrich

Dietrich talking to the press at the Savoy in July 1949

Now the bitch has all the riches

German novelist Erich Maria Remarque, who is best known for his 1929 bestselling novel All Quiet on the Western Front, had an affair with Marlene Dietrich which started in 1937 and lasted at least three years. Dietrich was married to Rudolf ("Rudi") Sieber —their marriage lasted from 1923 until Sieber's death in 1976— and at the time Remarque was married to his first wife Ilse Jutta Zambona, whom he eventually divorced in 1957. After their affair had ended, Remarque and Dietrich remained close friends, sharing a special bond for the rest of their lives. (They kept up a correspondence and a selection of their letters was published in the 2003 Sag Mir Dass Du Mich Liebst (Tell Me That You Love Me).)

Dietrich and Remarque at a film premiere in 1939

When Dietrich first learned about Remarque being romantically involved with Paulette Goddard, she was shocked and appalled. Dietrich had felt contempt for Goddard ever since the actress had given her advice about men (which happened on a train ride to Hollywood sometime in the 1930s): "The only thing you have to always remember: Never, ever sleep with a man until he gives you a pure white stone of at least ten carats." Goddard not only loved diamonds but she also loved art and antiques, and Dietrich was convinced that when Goddard eventually married Remarque it was because of his money and his massive collection of impressionist paintings. It should be noted, incidentally, that Remarque had first proposed to Dietrich but when she refused he asked Goddard.

Remarque and Goddard tied the knot in 1958. Twelve years her senior, Remarque adored Goddard, loving her carefree attitude to life and her mind. (Writer Anita Loos, a longtime friend of the actress, said that Goddard was one of the most intelligent and most well-read people she knew.) In a marriage that lasted twelve years until Remarque's death in 1970, Goddard brought her husband emotional stability and made him feel the joy of life again. Remarque, in turn, gave his wife what she wanted, her needs mostly materialistic. "I think it was a happy marriage", said actress friend Luise Rainer who saw the couple often. "He could give her a lot of jewellery and that's what she loved. George Gershwin had once told me years before that Paulette was a little gold-digger, and I'm sure she was perfectly aware of Erich's money, his art collection, his beautiful house when she married him ... She was not very enthusiastic about his virility, but she certainly loved him."

Dietrich was certain, however, that Goddard had never loved Remarque. Four days after Remarque's death  —after many strokes he died of heart failure on 25 September 1970, aged 72— she wrote the following letter to her friend Scotty, among others talking about "that bitch Goddard". 

Source: Nate D. Sanders Auctions

transcript handwritten part:

I have not heard from him but he must have picked up his ticket!! 

love kisses Marlene

Remarque and Goddard photographed in October 1958

The only picture I could find of Paulette Goddard and Marlene Dietrich together. I don't know when it was taken or what the occasion was but here they are pictured with Mischa Auer (left) and Broderick Crawford.

Following Remarque's death, Goddard gradually sold her husband's collection of impressionist paintings, feeling that "the public should have access to such great paintings" and "tired of having them stored away in crates." A large part of the collection sold for $3 million at auction at Sotheby's in 1979. Remarque's original manuscripts of his work as well as his diaries and personal library were donated by Goddard to the New York University. While the actress may have been a "gold-digger" accumulating a lot of wealth during her lifetime, she also gave back. When she passed away in 1990, Goddard left more than $20 million to the same N.Y.U. for the establishment of scholarships and the development of educational and research programmes. In accordance with Goddard's wishes, in 1995 the N.Y.U. founded The Remarque Institute, in honour of the actress' late husband. 

The art of faking letters

The practice of faking letters and documents has existed ever since men started putting pen to paper. While the earliest forgery dates back to the 8th Century and was about gaining political power, now the forger's aim usually is profit. I only recently read about Lee Israel who was a master literary forger in the 1990s. A biographer and editor, Israel had a hard time finding work in the early 1990s and for more than a year, while broke and addicted to alcohol, she made a living manufacturing and selling numerous letters that she said had been written by famous (dead) people. Israel meticulously researched her subjects, bought several period typewriters and stole vintage paper from the library to make her letters appear authentic. (Two of Noël Coward's letters that she forged even ended up in The Letters of Noël Coward, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2007.) Later Israel even stole original letters from libraries which she would replace with her forgeries, and the originals she then sold. In June 1993, after having been arrested by the FBI, Israel pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six months house arrest and five years probation. Israel's memoir Can You Ever Forgive Me?: Memoirs of a Literary Forger was published in 2008.

The only names of Hollywood actors I found in connection with Israel are Humphrey Bogart and Louise Brooks. Of Bogart Israel did a one-off letter, but Brooks was a subject she used more often. The following Brooks letter is one of Israel's forgeries.

source: vice

Here are three more letters which are not by Israel but which I believe are fake as well. 

Allegedly written by Barbara Stanwyck, the first letter has Barbara call Vivien Leigh a "whore". Seeing that Barbara was such a professional and was even shocked by Joan Crawford's language in this letter, I believe she would never have called Vivien that. But more importantly (as others have pointed out before me), the letter seems to have been written on a computer instead of a typewriter. (Incidentally, I saw the letter being offered on several auction sites, so someone did try to sell it as an authentic Barbara Stanwyck letter.)

via: via margutta 51

The second letter is a letter Bette Davis allegedly wrote to Joan Crawford on the occasion of her birthday and was reportedly found in Bette's desk drawer. I have serious doubts about the stationery used here, it's very unlike the type of stationery I've seen of Bette. And would she really have written this to Joan, calling her "sluttiest MGM star" and "most psychotic" (not to mention the rest of the letter)? But then again, Bette was reported to have said some nasty things about Joan, like when Joan died: "You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good... Joan Crawford is dead. Good." Ouch. 

At any rate, I very much doubt this letter is authentic. Makes for fun reading, though.

via: the frisky

And then there's the following note. It was supposedly written by Marlene Dietrich to Elizabeth Taylor, two women who also hated each other. I don't believe this note is genuine either. It looks like someone was trying hard to copy Marlene's handwriting. (For comparison, see this letter where Marlene writes both in small letters and capitals.) As for the content —even though she hated Elizabeth, would Marlene really have written this?

via: opera queen

During a visit to the set of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966), Marlene Dietrich reportedly said to Elizabeth Taylor: “Darling, everyone is so fantastic! You have a lot of guts to perform with real actors."