Excellent work. I come up with the same conclusion. Blue Angel came out April 1, 1930. Marlene is wearing her "Pirate Jenny" outfit from "Blue Angel". Riefenstahl indicates same about Marlene just done filming. Riefenstahl is like a coconspirator turning state's evidence-all her statements must be backed up with physical evidence to be believed. It's early 1930.
I had heard her outfit was from The Blue Angel but haven't had a chance to watch the film myself yet. Thanks for confirming. And yes, must take every one of Riefenstahl's claims with a healthy dose of salt! Though it is interesting to see how Marlene and Leni both lied about various things. In Marlene's case it was usually to cover up, i.e. "I never had anything to do with von Sternberg's private affairs," whereas Leni invented things that never happened.
Leni says von Sternberg relentlessly pursued her at the same time Dietrich was certainly successful in pursuing _him_. She indicates that she did many this with von Sternberg, and that she rebuffed-but had many dinners, trips to the country with his car, etc. I don’t want to take your focus off our Goddess, but there is just a morsel of the three of them in the very enlightening “The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl”, which is available in full on YouTube. The rumor mill says Leni had an affair with Anna May.
It also says she had one with Toto Koopman. If she did [and I really don’t know or care about the implication] I hope it was Toto. She was scandalous, but truly heroic.
Leni was deeply gifted, but more deeply flawed.
“Olympia” is brilliant in every way. I won’t get into the other stuff.
I think that pursuing evidence of romance between AMW and Riefenstahl is not worth the effort. If such letters existed, Leni would have destroyed hers, and access to any of the letters to AMW are destroyed just unavailable.
There’s a lot of very bad research out there about our Goddess. And there are outright frauds and lies, which multiply if they get accepted in a respected source.
Enjoy your hunt. You’ll do better, because you are sticking with what is, not what you want it to be. If you want to get a good idea of LA in the 30s and 40s, Lisa See’s Shanghai Girls is good. Her grandfather Eddy See owned The Dragon’s Den restaurant. See had a special table set aside for AMW all the time.
“More than anything, looking at this photograph is like reading a novel where everyone knows how the story will end except for the characters themselves.” YES!
Excellent work. I come up with the same conclusion. Blue Angel came out April 1, 1930. Marlene is wearing her "Pirate Jenny" outfit from "Blue Angel". Riefenstahl indicates same about Marlene just done filming. Riefenstahl is like a coconspirator turning state's evidence-all her statements must be backed up with physical evidence to be believed. It's early 1930.
I had heard her outfit was from The Blue Angel but haven't had a chance to watch the film myself yet. Thanks for confirming. And yes, must take every one of Riefenstahl's claims with a healthy dose of salt! Though it is interesting to see how Marlene and Leni both lied about various things. In Marlene's case it was usually to cover up, i.e. "I never had anything to do with von Sternberg's private affairs," whereas Leni invented things that never happened.
Leni says von Sternberg relentlessly pursued her at the same time Dietrich was certainly successful in pursuing _him_. She indicates that she did many this with von Sternberg, and that she rebuffed-but had many dinners, trips to the country with his car, etc. I don’t want to take your focus off our Goddess, but there is just a morsel of the three of them in the very enlightening “The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl”, which is available in full on YouTube. The rumor mill says Leni had an affair with Anna May.
It also says she had one with Toto Koopman. If she did [and I really don’t know or care about the implication] I hope it was Toto. She was scandalous, but truly heroic.
Leni was deeply gifted, but more deeply flawed.
“Olympia” is brilliant in every way. I won’t get into the other stuff.
I think that pursuing evidence of romance between AMW and Riefenstahl is not worth the effort. If such letters existed, Leni would have destroyed hers, and access to any of the letters to AMW are destroyed just unavailable.
There’s a lot of very bad research out there about our Goddess. And there are outright frauds and lies, which multiply if they get accepted in a respected source.
Enjoy your hunt. You’ll do better, because you are sticking with what is, not what you want it to be. If you want to get a good idea of LA in the 30s and 40s, Lisa See’s Shanghai Girls is good. Her grandfather Eddy See owned The Dragon’s Den restaurant. See had a special table set aside for AMW all the time.
“More than anything, looking at this photograph is like reading a novel where everyone knows how the story will end except for the characters themselves.” YES!