Dietrich - Marlene Dietrichs ABC: wit, wisdom, and recipes

I AM WRITING THIS introduction to tell you about the reasons for this new edition.

The main reason, naturally, is Demand and Supply, the motto that guided my professional life, both on the screen and on the stage.

To this I might add my favorite saying:

The Possible we do immediately

The Impossible may take a little longer.

My basic opinions remain the same; therefore there are no changes in this bookbut some additions to the text and photographs the original edition did not have.

The many letters from most countries of our world asking for the ABC book prompted me to write this new version of my beliefs and my emotional experiences.

MARLENE DIETRICH

ABSENCE

Makes the heart grow fonder.

A pretty and poetic thought, but quite misleading. If the person is not around to annoy you, the heart might feel fonder for a short time, but any prolonged absence weakens the bond of love.

The French go a step further: Absence is to love what the wind is to fire. It blows out the small one and lights the big one.

I cannot argue with this idea too much except to say that there are so few big ones that the saying falls into the category of Wishful Thinking and there it has its uses.

ACACIA

A beautiful and umbelliferous tree. The perfume one would like to have in a bottlebut all attempts have been unsuccessful.

See

ACADEMY AWARD

Sure-fire roles: Top-brass Biblical characters, priests, and victims of the following sad or tragic afflictions:

Drunkenness

Blindness*

Deafness*

Dumbness*

Insanity

Schizophrenia

Mental disturbance

* single or combined

played in successful pictures. The more tragic the affliction, the more certain the Academy Award. The portrayal of these afflicted creatures is considered to be particularly difficult. This is not true. It is more dramatic, therefore more effective.

As the voting for the Award is done exclusively by people belonging to the profession, it is un-understandable that those people should confuse the actor with the task. The public does it constantly, and understandably so. (Some critics do it too, which is unpardonable.)

If the Academy Awards were to be taken seriously, like the New York Drama Critics Circle awards, there would be at least once in a while an award given to an actor who played a mediocre, bad or ineffective part brilliantly in an unsuccessful picture. Another reason for the Academy Award representing a delusion is the fact that the voting co-workers are heavily influenced by either friendship or envy.

A new kind of award has been addedthe deathbed award. It is not an award of any kind. Either the receiver has not acted at all, or was not nominated, or did not win the award the last few times around. It is intended to relieve the guilty conscience of the Academy members and save face in front of the public. The Academy has the horrible taste to have a star, choking with emotion, present this deathbed award so that there can be no doubt in anybodys mind why the award is so hurriedly given. Lucky is the actor who is too sick to watch the proceedings on television.

A CAPRICCIO

In the language of music, the designation of freedom in choice.

We should adopt it.

ACCENT

I believe it to be disrespectful to speak anothers language with a strong accent. I also believe that an accent-laden speech undermines the authority of the speaker.

There are exceptions, of course. The Latins have a whip hand in this field. Their vowels, their rs, their accentuations are so sweet to all ears that they can hypnotize us into believing there is definitely something wrong with ones own correct inflection.

The Latins only rival is the Russian who uses wrong grammar, wrong pronunciation, wrong inflection with ultimate authority.

See

ACCORDION

A sound I love. Probably because my ear connects it with France.

ACCUSATIVE

The accusative case, frequently (particularly in America) mistaken for the nominative case, even by well-educated people. Between you and me, it still hurts my ear.

ACHILLES HEEL

Who hasnt got one! The important thing is to be aware of ones Achilles Heel and live with itnot fight it.

ACROBAT (Mental)

Beware of him. Its interesting but can wear you out, particularly if he is a man and you are a woman.

ACROBAT (Physical)

The guy youd like to be, who makes you feel earthbound, with feet of clay.

ACTOR

An extroverts profession. A race apart from normal peoplethose who actors call civilians.

AFFECTION

The most necessary food for the soul. More important than humans realize, or want to realize.

See

AGE

Whatever aging people say to the contrary, we all regret our youth once we have lost it. The famous wisdom that is supposed to be ours in age doesnt help us a bit.

AIMLESS

You can just as well bury yourself if this adjective applies to you.

ALCOOL BLANC

The traditional after-dinner drink of the French. Made exclusively out of fruit.

See

ALIMONY

When love is gone it invades the void.

See

ALLOPATHY

A system of medical practice that aims to combat disease by use of remedies producing effects different from those produced by the special disease treated.

Im quoting Websters only because I have rarely met anybody who knows that the method by which the general public is treated and which is the method practiced by the American Medical Association is called allopathy.

See

ALLOWANCE

In America, all out of proportion, making habitual shoppers out of children and youngsters.

See

ALONE

He travels fastest who travels alone.

For some people this holds true; for some professions this holds true.

For most of us to be alone is misery.

For women not occupied in a profession that requires solitude, to be alone is absolutely unnatural. A lot of effort and energy is being wasted because women often seem to feel they should conquer the dislike of being alone. That is also unnatural. I readily admit that I hate to be alone. Things to be done in the house or for children or for the man of the house can be done happily alone. But once all those chores are done no woman in her right mind would choose to be alone.

ALTENBERG, PETER

Through him I acquired the courage to fight for my convictions.

Before I had read his works I was and felt like a lone sheep in my reactions to emotional matters.

I quote an example: While choosing a wastepaper basket they came to a parting of the ways. The man said, How lucky this happened before our marriage.

ALWAYS

My favorite song when I first became conscious of American songs while I was still in Europe.

A word used much by the young.

Closely connected with love because of the natural optimism of lovers and wishful thinking.

AMBITION

Americans are ambitious by nature.

AMERICAN SOLDIER

Lonely men fighting on foreign soil.

In the European theatre of war they did not even have an idea to uphold their mortal hearts.

They fought because they had been told to and had their eyes shot out and their brains, their bodies torn, their flesh burnt. They accepted pain and mutilation as if they fought and fell defending their own soil.