Lilian Harvey and — Eighteen Trunks of New Clothes (1933) 🇺🇸
Hester Robison falls completely in love with her — and her wardrobe.
When Lilian Harvey, recently imported from Europe by Fox Films, was still in Germany, she met Clara Bow and her husband, then touring the country.
"I hear you're going to Hollywood," said big-hearted Clara. "Let me give you some advice. Act naturally. Don't put on the dog and don't try to ritz people. Be yourself in everything you do and you'll get along swell in my country. Look at me; when I began being myself again I staged a comeback.
"Another thing," advised Clara, looking very wise, "don't ride across the country from New York to California wearing a lot of jewelry. I see you have some gorgeous diamonds. Don't throw them in people's faces; it's a temptation. And don't forget what I said: don't ritz people and think you're being glamorous."
Tucking that bit of advice into her bonnet, Lilian Harvey set sail from Germany, leaving behind her the record of being the Greta Garbo of Europe and the highest paid star on the Continent, and arrived in New York. She was as anxious to see her old friend, Marlene Dietrich, who had been a star with her in Berlin, as she was to start her American career.
Back in Berlin she and Dietrich used to have grand times together and, because they were entirely different types, there was no opportunity for jealousy to creep in. Now she was in New York and looking forward to her American debut; and Dietrich was already established.
"I have so many messages, so many little gifts, to give Marlene when I see her," Lilian said when I met her. "I wonder," she added apprehensively, "if she ever gets homesick." Then she shook her head impatiently as if to scold herself: "How could anyone get lonesome or want to leave a place where beautiful Joan Crawford lives, or stunning Constance Bennett? I have never seen them in person. The only famous American movie star I have met to really know is your Clara Bow." She smiled reminiscently and I wondered what brought that puckish look to her face.
"Clara," she said, "is an amazing girl. In Germany I showed her the night life of my country. She was suffering from a terrible cold and should have been in bed. But she has such vitality! Such amazing verve! She seemed never to be tired. In that respect we are very much alike. We never need rest, we two."
To look at Lilian one would be inclined to disagree with her emphatic statement that she never needs rest. She, "the Greta Garbo of Europe," adored by a continent of emotional people, is as different from our Garbo as organdie from satin.
Lilian is small, compact, somewhat rounded in face and figure but not at all stout. She has tiny features and looks like an animated doll. Her voice is like a song, her movements so lithe and graceful as to be almost unreal. She is, in short, beautiful yet not beautiful, and all adorable.
In some respects she might be likened to Janet Gaynor, yet there is more vivacity.
We were dining at the Waldorf-Astoria in Lilian's suite and gossiping in the manner of two females who have just become friends and haven't time to talk about all the subjects that interest them.
"Do you know what I've been trying to do?" she asked. "Trying to see New York in eight days. Trying to see all the shows in eight days. Trying to understand why this country and its people seem like home to me. I don't feel at all strange. I'm tired — yet I can't stop for fear I'll miss something."
"But why try to do it all on this trip?" I asked. "New York will be here a hundred years from now. You'll probably get back for a visit before the year is out."
"I don't do things that way," she said firmly. "I'm used to working very hard."
Now, judging by what I know of Lilian Harvey and her cinema rank and salary in Europe, that sounded like a strange and careless remark. I offered her a cigarette, but she refused. She has been smoking only three months and is still amateurish at it. She doesn't drink at all. In fact, while I lunched substantially, she had only a glass of milk and later on in the day when we attended a reception in her honor everyone had cocktails but Lilian.
"About working very hard," I harked back to ancient history, "American stars work — but they do not slave, not like the average girl. What do you mean by the term — working hard?"
She laughed. It must have sounded like a silly question to her. "In the past two years," she said, "I've had only fourteen days without make-up. Fourteen days of freedom. I've worked on Sundays and holidays and far into the night.
"Every morning I used to leave my home near Berlin at seven-thirty and not finish work at the studios until ten at night. That was an average work day. But on my last three pictures I worked day and night because we were in a hurry to finish before I left for America. Isn't it a coincidence that in my last picture there was a dream sequence in which I was supposed to dream about going to Hollywood? At first the director wanted to leave it out but I insisted on having it in. I was superstitious about that scene. And when it was finished, it was the loveliest part of the picture."
I handed her a newspaper clipping. "This story came from Europe and tells about your marriage."
She frowned, puzzled. "But I am not married," she said angrily. "I have never been married. It is such an important thing, such an all-engrossing thing, marriage, that I haven't had time for it. Maybe, someday, but not now." She hesitated as if afraid to hurt my feelings, then plunged on: "Clara Bow said I would be asked about marriage and love and my opinions on a number of private subjects. It seems so strange to be asked such questions. I do not understand.
"Who," she asked frankly, "is interested in such personal matters about a player? In Germany we are never asked such questions. The public does not care about us that way. I leave it to you; does anyone really want to know about me, or shall I talk of my work?"
"Suppose we start by talking about you?" I suggested.
"First of all, then," she started, "I must be born. Very well, I was born in London on January 19. My father was a handsome man, a London business man. My mother was a — well, just the grandest mother in the world. There were no actors in my family. In fact, mother and father rather looked down on the stage in those days."
There followed the honest story of a father who, having the means, took his family on a tour of Europe. Lilian was three years old and the youngest of three children. The family toured Italy and France and landed in Germany three weeks before the war broke out. They were enjoying life in Berlin with the abandonment of gypsies when the war broke out, the frontiers were closed, and they could not get back to England.
Money was scarce. Lilian's father knew that the war would last a long time, maybe even years, and that he must take care of his family. So he resumed his profession of stock and bond broker in Germany. Soon the family was established in Germany with Lilian's father believing it to be permanent and her mother hoping it would be temporary. She was eager to take her children back to London. She admired the Germans, but she wanted her children to be brought up in their native country.
Each day that passed was a source of new worry to the mother. Her children had to go to school, to German schools, and when they came home with their German improving and their English slipping, she was heartbroken. She passed a rule that only English was to be spoken at home. To this day Lilian's mother speaks beautiful English and terrible German. She is proud of that broken German because it testifies to her patriotism.
When Lilian was thirteen tragedy broke up the family home. Her father and mother were divorced. Even in tolerant Europe a divorce was nothing to boast about in those days. The years have not lessened, in Lilian's eyes, the tragedy of that divorce. She speaks of it slowly and with downcast eyes, still a little ashamed of it.
Left alone with her three children in a strange land Lilian's mother took up deftly the building of a new life for herself and them. She put Lilian into dancing school and encouraged the talent she showed. The teacher, Mary Zimmerman, declared that the youthful Lilian was a genius and prophesied great things for her future career as a dancer.
When Lilian was fifteen Mary Zimmerman took her with a troupe of pupils to Vienna for a concert tour. Outside of the theater where the troupe danced the teacher had huge posters bearing Lilian's likeness displayed. People came as much to see the beauty of the little dancer as to watch the dancing itself. The face on the posters became the subject of Viennese tea-table chatter. People passed the theater to stare at the posters.
Among those who went to look was a famous German movie director. He went, incredulous, and after he stared at the posters he went into the theater and watched Lilian dance. She was more attractive than her pictures.
When he approached Lilian's mother with an offer of a motion picture career for her daughter, the mother was bewildered. She wanted to give her daughter all the best advantages but she was not sure that the movies were among the best. She debated with herself until the director wore down the barriers of her disapproval.
At fifteen, therefore, Lilian was in the movies with a contract and a great director backing her career. It was not long after her first picture that she became a star. Before her advent into pictures German movie stars had been more buxom and their acting much heavier. She introduced to German screen audiences a new lightness.
"I think," she said simply, "that I was successful in the movies. Please do not think me boastful if I tell you things, the truth. If I tell you that I have a villa near Berlin where I live with my mother I use the word villa advisedly; a villa describes a very large house of the type I have. My mother and I have never been separated until now — and I expect to send for her as soon as I am settled."
"Is it a very big house?" I asked.
"Somewhat," she answered naively; "fifteen rooms. I have another house, too," she sighed, "in the south of France, a short distance from Chevalier's home at Cap d'Antibes. I had it two years and lived in it ten days. You see, in Germany I worked so hard. Everybody says, 'Oh, you cannot see Lilian Harvey; she is always too busy.' When old players rested I was making French and English versions of my German pictures.
"I speak English and German without an accent and French with a slight accent. I had to study three scripts every night. That is hard work, you know. But I loved it. I hope I have to work as hard in Hollywood."
Who was I to disillusion her? Besides, we had become friends and I didn't want to spoil her dreams by saying that sometimes foreign actresses are on the lot for months, even for a year, before working in a picture. It is unlikely, however, that this will happen to Lilian. She will probably tear a producer's eyes out to make him see the light and put her to work.
"Working in the movies keeps me fit, mentally and physically," she said. "I'm always learning new things for my parts. I had to learn to walk a tight rope for my last picture. It took me four weeks but I can still do it — and I practice it often when I am alone just for the fun of it. It was a little hard to do at first, because the week before I had fallen from a ten-foot ladder and hurt myself."
May the cinema gods give Lilian strength; she'll need it. "I'm going to study Spanish in Hollywood," she said. "Do you know that I made twenty-seven pictures in three years?"
Twenty-seven pictures for one star sounded impossible for even a hard-working girl in Germany. She explained, "Nine original plots but in three versions."
In the room when we were talking was a mild mannered little man introduced to me as Joe Strassner, designer from Germany, who is to make new fashions for Fox stars. He asked Lilian if she would display the wardrobe he had gathered for her before she left Germany. This is what I saw, with most of the eighteen trunks still unopened and containing new things:
Two long ermine coats. One short ermine coat. One half ermine half black velvet coat. One leopard coat. Another black velvet and ermine coat. One black velvet coat with six white foxes and a double white fox cape. One squirrel-lined sport coat. One mink coat. One real chinchilla coat. One afternoon coat of black cloth with four silver foxes. One beige cloth coat with beaver collar and sleeves. One Russian caracul jacket. One long black Russian caracul coat. One black cloth coat with blue fox collar and cuffs. One white cloth coat with red fox collar and cuffs... A total of fifteen coats!
Eighteen evening dresses, all originals! One white with mink trimming and mink cape. One black crepe with brilliants. One velvet with black fox border. A white satin. A white pebble crepe with huge boa of white. A white crepe with brilliants. A white angel skin with beaded bolero and belt. A black velvet and lace dress. A blue velvet with cape and slit in front.
Among her informal and street clothes were: one Russian cossack dress with coat and cap to match. One brown and gold dress. A sport coat of cravinet to be used for motoring.
Contained in her trunks were fifty dresses for informal and street wear! One white negligee of angel skin, fifty hats, forty-five pairs of shoes. A dozen pairs of suits made up of tailored jacket and pants to match.
Lilian opened up two trunks and displayed the greatest assortment of lingerie these eyes have ever seen.
She opened up another trunk and showed almost thirty bottles of perfume— all sizes and odors.
I take my hat off to Joe Strassner. I take my hat off to Lilian, and I wish that the third time I take the darned old thing off I won't ever see it again after seeing Lilian's fifty new ones.
"I had to learn to walk a tight rope for my last picture in Berlin. It took me four weeks, but I can still do it — and I practice it often when I'm alone just for the fun of it."
Photograph from Miss Harvey's Album
Photographed exclusively for New Movie Magazine by Wide World
Collection: The New Movie Magazine, April 1933