The story of Dietrich in Joburg is complex and inspiring, one of the many ghostly, fragile strands of our half-remembered city. It is also the story of the sheer guts and determination of a very young man searching for something greater than what his limited world seemed to offer.
Sometime in the 1990s, I was discussing the growingly fragile future of our beloved city with a friend of mine who was an opera singer, when he said: “Marlene Dietrich loved Joburg.”
I didn’t know much about her. As a drama and film student at Wits I watched her as showgirl Lola Lola in Josef von Sternberg’s magnificent 1930 black and white classic movie The Blue Angel. She dominated the film with her languid presence, imperturbably powerful and self-contained amid the growing madness that surrounded her. She was indeed one of the goddesses of cinema.
Joburg is the city of my soul. I have lived here most of my life and seen its better days and their fading. Like so many, I love the fragile strands of our half-remembered city. Dietrich performing at the Civic Theatre in both 1965 and again in 1966 is one of these strands I have carried with me for years, and recently I found the time to look for memories of her ghostly, silvered presence in our city.
It’s hard to believe now that Marlene Dietrich was here – that mysterious, glamorous star who beguiled men and women alike, on the screen, on the stage and in her private life. The star of so many movies. The shimmering presence who radiated sexuality to a world that hungered constantly for more of her.
She was not only beautiful and alluring, there was a core of moral steel in her deepest being. A star in Germany in the 1930s, she left the country as the Nazis rose to power. She moved to America and during the war she toured Europe, entertaining Allied troops and holding up their morale as they suffered and died in the brutal years of World War 2. When she returned for a tour in post-war Germany, some regarded her as a traitor. Some even spat at her, but she never lost her cool. Most Germans loved her for her moral bravery.
Why did she come here then? In 1965, Joburg was a faraway, racist outpost of apartheid – more liberal, indeed, than many towns and cities in our country, but a place where theatre audiences were segregated and no black person could watch a show in the new Civic Theatre. Completed in 1962, its looming concrete bulk was a strong source of pride for white Joburgers. It was a theatre they knew was world class and good enough to host the famously demanding Dietrich.
But if she could turn her back on her homeland because of the Nazis, why did she come here to perform during apartheid? Her first performance in Joburg was in April 1965, less than a year after Nelson Mandela had been sentenced to life imprisonment at the Rivonia Trial.
It’s not a question that has a clear answer. The cultural boycott was just beginning, but the world knew about apartheid. A number of prominent international theatre people were already boycotting the country. Her career, though, was fading, and Joburg must have offered her new horizons for her image and her art.
Ruth Jacobs-Spector, from a family of racially mixed heritage, describes her feelings about the visit. In the 1960s she felt that the Civic Theatre was an “entertainment monument to apartheid”.
“It was the start of my career. I thought, she’s going to be the one that will project me into the big time!”
hamilton wende
Hamilton Wende is an author, journalist and TV producer. He has worked all over the world, covering historical events and some 17 different wars and conflicts. He is based in Johannesburg and travels from there. He has worked for a number of international networks including BBC, CNN, and Al Jazeera. He has also reported on events in South Africa for the last three decades. He has published many articles in newspapers, magazines and websites around the world. He is the author of 9 books. House of War, Only the Dead and The King’s Shilling are thrillers based on his travels around the world as a journalist. His latest book Red Air is based on his experiences filming with the US Marines in Afghanistan. He has a master’s degree in Creative Writing from Wits University.
He is also the author of the popular children’s books: Arabella, the Moon and the Magic Mongongo Nut and Arabella the Secret King and the Amulet from Timbuktu which are set in Johannesburg and Knysna. He is working on the third volume in the series.
