Marlene et moi

Non, je ne regrette rien...

Piaf / Dietrich is playing at London’s Grand Theatre and it’s fabulous, The play centres around Piaf in 1963, less than a year before Dietrich propositioned me after her concert in Vancouver. She, turning 64 to my 20. She invited me to her hotel suite for a game of Euchre after the party. Since I didn’t know the game, she was going to teach me… how naive I was! But I had a dorm curfew of midnight as an exchange student at UBC and so didn’t dare. Just think... and of course, a poem ensued:

An Exchange Student Late to The Blue Angel
September 1964

Somehow I don’t remember how
I was backstage at the festival hall
after Dietrich’s concert of a lifetime
when two thousand rose an encore.

Marlene shimmered across reception,
slithering snake skin so tight her dress
shimmied, dangling sparkly, as she slid
across to me, skimming past suits, cross

the Red Sea, as if I, just turned twenty,
were alone at the end of her gaze, lured
into an ancient glamour clearing her way.

Her voice, that husk at the edge of song:
I wish I recalled her endearment before
she kissed my reddening cheek with
the reddest lips ever, the blondest tease—

the bluest everything, touched, spangled.
“Come to my room with me,” Whispered,
inflection carried glass, rasping cut crystal.

The icicles of her eyes melted to mine as if
a mermaid surrounded herself in a sea all
her own, inviting me in, the water warm.

But how could I break curfew? And what
would we do, play cards? I knew few games
beyond gin rummy. Besides, my roommate
was waiting by the door. I’d miss my ride.

She laughed and turned, offering me one more
chance with a shrug over bare white shoulder.
Adrift, unmoored, I retreated from that room,
headed back to dorm. Didn’t wash my cheek for
ever.

Penn

“The lives and music of French songbird Edith Piaf and Hollywood leading lady Marlene Dietrich are set to dazzle London audiences when Piaf/Dietrich A Legendary Affair takes the stage at the Grand Theatre from February 17 to March 7.”

Now:

Grand Theatre presents Piaf/Dietrich: A Legendary Affair, February 17 – March 7.

And then:

I still don't know how to play euchre:) "You cur?" Cheek-tingling! Figure skater Barbara Ann Scott also kissed me on the right cheek when I presented her flowers at London airport, age eight.

And a painting by Jim Kemp from the Forties: