Call them the Gold Dust Twins.<\/p>\n
Going through papers\u2014I\u2019m always going through papers\u2014I found a letter from Dean Goodman, written in 2005, a year before he died.<\/p>\n
Goodman was an actor, writer, director. \u00a0He was also married to Dietrich\u2019s daughter Maria Riva.<\/p>\n
In my bio of Bankhead, I cited a story told me by actor Glenn Anders and, if not exactly confirmed, alluded to by assistant director Artie Jacobson:<\/p>\n
Tallulah, determined to fan rumors that she and Dietrich were having an affair, raised her dress on the Paramount set to show her privates dusted with gold\u2014ostensibly the same glitter with which Dietrich was known to powder her coiffure for the camera.<\/p>\n
Dietrich and Bankhead were not having an affair, but were boon companions and bisexual playgirls\u2014Sandy Campbell in his privately published memoir of Bankhead recalls how while both Tallulah and Marlene were at Paramount in the early ’30s used to boast of lesbian conquests in as loud and (so they hoped) shocking a voice as they could.<\/p>\n
Anyway, Goodman in his long letter\u2014there\u2019s more I want to disclose from it—volunteers that while they were married Rivas confirmed the gold dust incident.<\/p>\n
Now I’ve got to pick up his memoir, Maria, Marlene & Me, published by Shadbolt Press in 1993.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Call them the Gold Dust Twins. Going through papers\u2014I\u2019m always going through papers\u2014I found a letter from Dean Goodman, written in 2005, a year before he died. Goodman was an actor, writer, director. \u00a0He was also married to Dietrich\u2019s daughter … Continue reading