The World of Cinema — Marlene Dietrich's Daughter Tells of Her Struggle for Fame and Independence

Marlene Dietrich's legs eclipse her daughter

The writer Selma Robinson has given a charming account of Marlene Dietrich's daughter, who took up acting like her mother and became one of the stars of television. The account is long, describing in particular the psychology of the children of 'stars' and their jealousy of their mothers' glories — glories that take up the actresses' time and sometimes their hearts, so that the children live in gilded cages lacking a mother's tenderness.

Among what the writer says:

On every mirror in the house of Maria Riva, Marlene Dietrich's daughter, is pasted a picture showing Marlene with her sad, imploring gaze and that smile no description can capture. Thus Maria never looks into a mirror to fix her dress, or to comb her hair, or to pass the lipstick over her lips, without seeing her mother's face beside her own. One day, as we sat drinking coffee in a Hollywood restaurant, she said to me:

— I shall never be able to compete with my mother... A painful sense of the power of that beauty took hold of me, and I knew that I am not beautiful.

She said these words as though she had not noticed the café's patrons gazing in admiration at her slender body, her waxen face, and her broad forehead, like her mother's. She was wearing a black velvet tailleur that had been Marlene's, and her green eyes shone with a strange light beneath the waves of her red hair.

Jealous of her mother?!

— My mother grows younger and more beautiful year by year, and she possesses everything that sets beautiful women apart. That is why I never once thought I could be measured against her, and the sense of my own ugliness never left me. All my life I suffered from my excess weight, and I supposed my mother was ashamed of me. When I gave birth to my son in May 1950 I weighed 68 kilos; today my weight is 51 kilos — exactly my mother's weight — which is why she gives me all her old dresses. Many people ask me whether I follow a diet to take off weight. No special regimen is needed for working women like me: I work sixteen hours a day, during which I take three vitamin pills, and in the evening I eat a 'hearty' supper.

At fifteen I was a fat girl, melancholy by temperament, not knowing where my future lay — in the world of medicine? of letters? of the art of acting? In the end I chose the stage with the stubbornness of one who trains in the shock troops... because I knew in advance what effect my bulky body would have on audiences. In my student days, and even after I became a teacher, I would pick out the parts of old women and homely women with warts and enormous noses. I saw no harm in this, for had I been slender of figure then, all the kinds of experience I acquired would never have come my way.

When I left the acting institute, generous offers were within my reach in any films I wanted. And of course this happened because I am Marlene Dietrich's daughter... When people tell me there is great luck in this, I feel like laughing — or crying!! Wherever I turned, people measured me against my mother.

They pursue the daughter for the mother's sake!...

And the young men who ran after me would ask me, after a long or a short acquaintance, 'When can I meet your mother?' Nor did I ever come across a single person who cared to find out whether I was talented, or had a personality.

The magic of the leg...

One day I went to the office of a director who was thinking of

for the mother, whereas it is something natural to the doctor, who uses this treatment only with nervous persons. The doctors who employ hypnotism say that a person does not lose consciousness, for his subconscious mind remains alert, aware of what is happening; the method is easy with the young, while it is harder with adults. Even so, several experiments in this regard have so far succeeded.

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giving me a part in one of his plays. I recited before him passages from 'Romeo and Juliet' and played scenes from 'Macbeth.' Do you know what he said to me at the end? He said: 'Lift your dress a little, my little one — I want to see whether you have your mother's legs!'

But she wants to arrive by her own efforts

And the newspaper reporters descended on me, and I never knew whether their visits were because I was a fine actress, or the daughter of a fine actress. At last I changed my name... and I worked in radio and acted on Broadway. Then I taught the art of acting. I was ready to scrub floor tiles for the sake of my independence. And my mother let me work as I pleased, despite her wish to secure me a comfortable, easy life.