By Cesar Chelala
February 26, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - This story has three protagonists: Marlene Dietrich, the famous German artist and protagonist of the movie The Blue Angel, the ex-American President John F. Kennedy (“Jack”), and Kenneth Tynan, one of the most notable English theater critics of the second half of the 20th century. The details of it are described in the book “Kenneth Tynan’s diaries”.
Marlene Dietrich had become friends with Kenneth Tynan after he described his bisexual nature by saying, in a comment about her: “Her sex has no preferences.” To which Dietrich replied: “There are so many people trying to guess me and only he understood me”. On one occasion, Dietrich told Tynan about her relationship with President Kennedy.
In the decade of the 30s, Dietrich was a friend of Joseph P. Kennedy, the father of the president. Dietrich’s daughter used to be a swimming partner of the sons of Joseph Kennedy, including John F. Kennedy, who would later become President of the United States. In the fall of 1962, Dietrich was acting in a Washington, D.C. night club.
Bob and Ted Kennedy, Joseph’s children, went to see her perform. The president, of course, did not usually go to night clubs. His absence saddened Marlene Dietrich until she received an invitation to the White House to have a drink with the President the following Saturday at 6 o’clock in the afternoon.
That same day, at 7 pm, Dietrich had to be at the Hotel Statler in Washington, D.C., now called Capitol Hilton, to receive a tribute from the Jewish Veterans of World War II for her help to the Jewish refugees during that war. Despite the scheduling conflict that this represented, Dietrich decided to accept Kennedy’s invitation and arrived at the White House at 6 o’clock in the afternoon.
As soon as she arrived, Dietrich was led by the president’s aide-de-camp to her room where a bottle of German white wine awaited her. “The President recalled that when he dined with you in New York, you told him that this was your favorite wine,” the aide-de-camp told her. Then he poured her a glass of wine and discreetly retired.
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