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MARLENE DIETRICH

Name: MARLENE DIETRICH
Author: Maria Riva
ISBN: 0-394-58692-1

by Maria Riva ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 31, 1993

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It seemed unlikely that Steven Bach's masterful Marlene Dietrich (1992) could be bettered, but for sheer intimacy and readability (though not scholarship), Dietrich's daughter has done it here. You can't get closer to the horse's mouth than this. Riva quotes from a treasure trove of first-rate materials, including her mother's many diaries, begun when Dietrich was a child, and a lifelong cache of letters from famous lovers and buddies. How many diaries Riva has is not clear, although she quotes from nearly 80 years' worth (Dietrich, born in 1901, died in Paris in 1992). Riva isn't restrained about her mother's love life or bisexuality—nor was Dietrich closemouthed about her affairs, which were numberless and carried on with the high and mighty: Once, Dietrich returned from a visit with JFK at the White House and waved her panties in the nose of Riva's husband, saying, ``Smell! It is him! The President of the United States! He—was- -wonderful!'' Riva also tells of Dietrich's addiction to suppositories, especially a potent hypnotic she called her ``Fernando Lamas'' (after ``the most boring man in Hollywood''). To go from the belle of Berlin in the 1920's to her final days as a legend crystallized in mystery was no short trip, and Riva pulls no punches about Marlene's alcoholic self-imprisonment in bed: ``Her legs withered. Her hair, chopped short haphazardly in drunken frenzies with cuticle scissors, painted with dyes—iodized pink between dirty white blotches....The teeth...have blackened and cracked. Her left eye, dulled by a cataract she refuses to have treated. Her once translucent skin is parchment. She exudes an odor of booze and human decay.'' Rich period backgrounds and Dietrich's voice throughout support the impassioned honesty of Riva's re-creation. No Mommie Dearest—though reviewers may point their fingers—but grand stuff. (Photographs—217—not seen.)

Pub Date: Jan. 31, 1993

ISBN: 0-394-58692-1

Page Count: 848

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1993

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.