Sniffly with a minor head cold, I was standing at the sink washing dishes the other day when a couple of synapses in my brain fired and a random memory was brought to mind. It was of a day in the sixth grade when I lay home, sick, unable to attend school (and quite woeful I was at that). Snuggled up under the covers, I flipped around on the channels of the tiny twelve-inch television and settled on TCM. Robert Osborne was just beginning to introduce the next movie and I was just in the right mood for some old black and white flick.
The movie was Golden Earrings, a film of its time that didn’t age very well, in my opinion. It seemed quite exploitative even to me then, and likely I would have forgotten it as soon as it was over if it weren’t for the fact that it was the first time I ever saw Marlene Dietrich perform. I was enchanted by her though I didn’t even really understand why.
As I did with all the women I felt drawn to at that tender age when I was still discovering who I was, I attributed the attraction to some sort of transference – that I wanted to be like that glamorous actress from so long ago. It wasn’t that I denied my sexuality, but rather it had just never occurred to me that it was even possible for me to be attracted to another woman.
Thinking back on it now, I realize that my fascination with Ms. Dietrich was more than just admiration for a highly talented actress. It was a celebrity crush, like the ones I had on Richard Dean Anderson and Patrick Stewart. (Don’t judge me. MacGyver and Star Trek: TNG were AWESOME.)
But maybe it was even more than that for me. Perhaps I saw something in Marlene Dietrich that I recognized in myself. Something that I wanted for myself. She was bisexual and wore a masculine grace and a sultry femininity
with seeming ease. She lived in an open marriage with a husband who adored her. Counted among her conquests were presidents and authors I was required to read in high school. Both brave and beautiful, she performed for Allied troops on the front lines in World War II. She was politically active throughout her life and received both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Légion d’honneur. Very few would deny that she lived a life of utmost glamor.
Until the end, of course. She spent the last eleven years of her life bedridden and alcoholic. When I’m in a maudlin mood, I think of that, of the incomparable Marlene Dietrich surrounded by whiskey bottles and pissing into a Limoges pitcher. Was it all inevitable?
And yet, her daughter claims that as Ms. Dietrich aged she became a recluse not out of vanity, as many thought, but because she had become weary of being Marlene Dietrich.
These are some of my demons now: That I am not always satisfied with the hand I have been dealt. That I that I quake in my boots at the thought of going out of this life enfeebled and decrepit almost as much as at the thought of going out of this life at all. That I’m afraid I’ve forgotten something very important about who I am.
I suppose you have to see your demons before you can begin to fight them, yes?
…
…reading over what I wrote last night and…HOLY SHIT. Where the fuck did this post go? I started out wanting to write about a beautiful actress in a terrible movie and maybe make some joke about a gypsy’s kiss. You see? This is what happens when I get sick and start taking Nyquil. Oi, sorry, dude. I’m actually not doing too bad, honest. I’ll be sure to come down before I write the next post, I promise.