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Der blaue Engel embracing la Môme Piaf
German-born actress and singer Marlene Dietrich first met French chanteuse Édith Piaf in the ladies' bathroom of a New York nightclub, in the 1940s.
The latter had just come off stage and was upset by the cool and somewhat bemused reaction of the audience. Dietrich - already a huge star in America - was quick to reassure the Little Sparrow and decided to take her under her angel's wing.
With Dietrich's encouragement, Piaf quickly established herself in the US (despite her reluctance to sing in
English) and although separated by a fourteen-year age gap and wildly contrasting personalities [1], it was the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship between the two women.
Indeed, there is textual evidence to suggest that, in the early years at least, it was perhaps rather more than simply a friendship in the platonic sense and that Dietrich regarded Piaf as an honorary member of what she termed the Sewing Circle [2].
I read somewhere that this claim often upsets or irritates some fans of Piaf. For whilst they are pleased that she has iconic status within the queer and lesbian community, they insist that Piaf warrants such purely on the basis of her unique talent as a performer and strength as a woman - and not because she (allegedly) had secret bisexual tendencies.
Fans of Dietrich, on the other hand, are delighted by the story of a romance between Marlene and Édith; it simply adds to her image as someone who wilfully defied sexual norms and gender roles; someone who, in the early 1930s, for example, had an affair with the notorious lesbian Mercedes de Acosta, who openly boasted of her sapphic power to seduce any woman away from any man (including Rudolf Sieber).
Notes
[1] Although sharing the same birth month of December, Dietrich and Piaf had different star signs: the latter, born on December 19th, was Sagittarius (emotional, impetuous, fearless, etc.); the former, born on December 27th, was Capricorn (haughty and erudite; the sort of woman able to elevate style to an art form, yet remain practical and down to earth).
[2] The Sewing Circle was a secret group of Hollywood
women from which Dietrich allegedly drew several of her lesbian lovers. Members included Tallulah Bankhead, Claudette Colbert, Joan Crawford, Lili Damita, Greta Garbo, Myrna Loy, Agnes Moorehead, and Dolores del Río (the latter considered by Dietrich to be the most beautiful woman in Hollywood).
See Axel Madsen, The Sewing Circle: Hollywood's Greatest Secret - Female Stars Who Loved Other Women, (Citadel Press, 1996).
For a sister post to this one - Marlene meets ... Marilyn Monroe - click here.
