Marlene Dietrich is having a nightly success in London at the Café de Paris restaurant singing ‘Knocked ‘em in the Old Kent Road.’ She delivered this old favourite at the Palladium for a charity performance with equal success. I went with our photographer to see her rehearse for this appearance.
She was dressed in a simple cream-coloured suit, with a small velvet hat of bright crimson, diamond ear-studs and a single strand of pearls. Stretching her fingers in what looked like short white cotton gloves, playfully like a child wearing them for the first time, she was not at all like a film star. She looked stunning, and her voice was, as ever, most attractive.
She had to sing her number three times at the rehearsal (in aid of minor stage adjustments), and not only showed professional patience. She also slightly varied the way she sang it each time - making it each time convincing, and, one felt, a unique, quite individual performance.
Her fabulous glamour appeared to be merely a by-product of her artistic personality, like the warmth that a shaft of sunlight spreads, quite incidentally. She also made a most intelligent impression. One could quite understand why she is a personal friend of Cocteau, Remarque, Hemingway.
Pendennis diary item published in the Observer on 26 June 1955
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