Maria Riva (she was read questions, & responded to by her son Peter)
I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. Thanks for a great ride and a glimpse of the lost magic of Hollywood.
TG: First of all, what was the motivation to write this book after so many years?
Maria: She knew it would fall to me to chronicle the real history. I was trained for the job since childhood.
Peter: As Marlene wrote in 1990, “My daughter is the only one who knows the real history, she’s my official biographer. Read her book.”
TG: Please discuss the the writing process for this book and the sources that you accessed: Dietrich’s diary, personal memories, conversations with survivors?
From Peter: As Bill Paley (founder CBS) said of Maria: “She was my favorite actress, talented and never forgot a line in 500 live teleplays in the ‘50s.” After Marlene passed, in 1993, three truckloads of memorabilia was collated, some never opened since ’39. When the dialogue in the book was checked with letters from that era, all the dialogue matched the letters.
Maria: For six months I would write, longhand on yellow lined paper, and my wonderful husband would stay up and type my words at night. At breakfast we’d review what I had written and I would set to work again. I wrote from memory finishing in Nov. 1990.
TG: Discuss Dietrich’s relationship with von Sternberg and his contribution to the creation of la Dietrich?
Maria: The genius of von Sternberg is often misunderstood. For example, he was the first director to lead a scene change with sound, causing the ear to anticipate the next scene. For Marlene, he created back lighting to give her hair a glow, create shadows to enhance her cheekbones. What today’s audience does not realize is that he was creating for a twenty foot high projection, without special computer effects. He didn’t create Marlene’s character, she always controlled that. He brought out her best cinematic qualities, qualities she then learned, quickly, and never overlooked again.
TG: Do you find it ironic that for someone prone to anti-Semitic remarks –“Of course, Jo , being a Jew, never stops–they always want to do it, all the time! Especially if they are small and have a thing for blue-eyed Christians”– had her career nurtured by von Sternberg? She also had a very close relationship with Billy Wilder, so was her ant-Semitism anecdotal or just a natural expression of having been raised in Europe after WW I?
Maria: Anti-Semitic? Nonsense.
Peter: My mother is right. Her fight for Jews trapped in Nazi Germany? Her support of Israel later on? Billy Wilder knew her well and there was not an ounce of anti-Semitism in her. If you say someone has chutzpah, are you being anti- or pro-Semitic? Cultural idiosyncrasies used in everyday life or speech do not, often, display any real bias, merely become part of common speech patterns that, later in time, are misjudged as bias. Hindsight is not a good way to judge without historical context.
TG: Discuss your life in Hollywood at the height of the studios’ influence.
Maria: I was my mother’s possession, confidante, and aide. We lived in the houses provided by Paramount Studios, so I spent time with bodyguards, actors, talented men and women, admirers of hers, learned from some of the most wonderful of them. Time at the studio, every day she was filming, was my duty, with secret time off for the Commissary to see and admire some of my favorite actors and actresses. I did not have anything “normal” to compare it with.
TG: Dietrich’s relationship with your father was unconventional at best. How did that inform your attitude towards men?
Maria: Not at all. A child sees only what is normal. My childhood was limited, never going to school, never seeing “normal” lives. My father was, always, caring and strict. When I became an adult I learned perhaps what I had missed and adjusted accordingly.
TG: Of all Dietrich’s lovers you single out Brian Aherne and Jean Gabin as being the kindest to you. Were they also important to you as role models?
Maria: Brian, certainly. His love of literature I carry with me always. Gabin was of the land, solid values, right and wrong. Good rules and morals to learn for any child.
TG: And finally, after 25 years what has been the response to this new edition and how has t changed from the initial publication?
Maria: There are still lessons for people to learn, what to be in life of your own design, how to find the inner strength to maintain real values (for instance anti-Nazism). Exciting changes are the first Kindle version. I love my Kindle and hope people across the world will be able to have the Kindle version. I keep six or seven books going all the time… keeps the mind alert!
