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Authors: Burt Bacharach
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Drifters. You also can hear it at the start of “Any Day Now,” a song Bob Hilliard and I wrote and Chuck Jackson recorded.
Whenever Marlene and I flew into a city in South America, there would be a big press conference and Marlene always insisted I be there with her. Sooner or later, the question would come up about whether we were together. Marlene, who could speak French and Spanish as well as English and German and I think Italian, would always say, “Oh, no, there is nothing between us because he is so busy and such a ladies’ man, he has women all the time.”
In places like Chile and Argentina, it was always very difficult for me to get a girl past the front desk of our hotel. Since no one thought anything about two women going upstairs together, Marlene would sometimes do me the great favor of bringing the girl to her room so I could pick her up and take her to mine. The funny thing is that most of them were dogs.
The real romance between Marlene and me took place when we were onstage together. There would be a scrim in front of me to help with the lighting effects, but for the last three numbers, they would open the scrim, and lo and behold—a Jewish piano player would be sitting there. Even though it always scared the shit out of me, Marlene would introduce me to the audience every night by saying the exact same thing: “I would like you to meet the man, he’s my arranger, he’s my accompanist, he’s my conductor, and I wish I could say he’s my composer, but that isn’t true. He’s everybody’s composer . . . Burt Bacharach!”
The most amazing tour I ever did with Marlene was in the spring of 1960, when she went back to Germany for the first time since the end of World War II. As soon as the tour was announced, the German newspapers were filled with letters from people denouncing Marlene as a traitor for having fought with the enemy in the war. What Marlene had really done was put on a U.S. Army uniform while entertaining the troops. She had hated Hitler and the Nazis and gotten as many of her Jewish artist friends out of there as she could before the war began.
The outcry against her returning to Germany was so loud that Norman Granz, the promoter, had to cancel our concert in Essen. In Berlin, we went from doing five nights to three and what began as a seventeen-city tour became twelve. Before we opened in Berlin, Marlene held a press conference and told a reporter that since all her former friends in Germany had either left the country or died in the concentration camps, there was no one left there for her to see except for Hildegard Knef, the actress and singer.
On May 3, 1960, we opened at the Titania Palast in Berlin. Because the ticket prices were so expensive, there were five hundred empty seats in the house. Marlene started the show by singing “Falling in Love Again” in German and then she did “The Boys in the Back Room” and “One for My Baby.” She sang in English, German, and French and dedicated one of her songs to Richard Tauber, the great operatic tenor, and Friedrich Hollaender, who had composed the music for The Blue Angel . Both of them had been forced to leave Germany because they were Jews.
Her last number was “I Still Have a Valise in Berlin,” which she sang in a white tuxedo. When she was done, Mayor Willy Brandt led the standing ovation and Marlene took eighteen curtain calls. The reviews were all very positive, and the audience loved her so much in Munich that she had to take thirty-six curtain calls. They liked her a lot less in the Ruhr, and as we were walking through the lobby of the Park Hotel in Dusseldorf, a hysterical young girl who hadn’t even been born during the war ran up to Marlene and spat right in her face while screaming how much she hated Marlene for betraying Germany. Marlene’s response was to tell a press conference that she would never perform in Germany again.
When we got to Wiesbaden we were greeted by bomb threats. The French
Whenever Marlene and I flew into a city in South America, there would be a big press conference and Marlene always insisted I be there with her. Sooner or later, the question would come up about whether we were together. Marlene, who could speak French and Spanish as well as English and German and I think Italian, would always say, “Oh, no, there is nothing between us because he is so busy and such a ladies’ man, he has women all the time.”
In places like Chile and Argentina, it was always very difficult for me to get a girl past the front desk of our hotel. Since no one thought anything about two women going upstairs together, Marlene would sometimes do me the great favor of bringing the girl to her room so I could pick her up and take her to mine. The funny thing is that most of them were dogs.
The real romance between Marlene and me took place when we were onstage together. There would be a scrim in front of me to help with the lighting effects, but for the last three numbers, they would open the scrim, and lo and behold—a Jewish piano player would be sitting there. Even though it always scared the shit out of me, Marlene would introduce me to the audience every night by saying the exact same thing: “I would like you to meet the man, he’s my arranger, he’s my accompanist, he’s my conductor, and I wish I could say he’s my composer, but that isn’t true. He’s everybody’s composer . . . Burt Bacharach!”
The most amazing tour I ever did with Marlene was in the spring of 1960, when she went back to Germany for the first time since the end of World War II. As soon as the tour was announced, the German newspapers were filled with letters from people denouncing Marlene as a traitor for having fought with the enemy in the war. What Marlene had really done was put on a U.S. Army uniform while entertaining the troops. She had hated Hitler and the Nazis and gotten as many of her Jewish artist friends out of there as she could before the war began.
The outcry against her returning to Germany was so loud that Norman Granz, the promoter, had to cancel our concert in Essen. In Berlin, we went from doing five nights to three and what began as a seventeen-city tour became twelve. Before we opened in Berlin, Marlene held a press conference and told a reporter that since all her former friends in Germany had either left the country or died in the concentration camps, there was no one left there for her to see except for Hildegard Knef, the actress and singer.
On May 3, 1960, we opened at the Titania Palast in Berlin. Because the ticket prices were so expensive, there were five hundred empty seats in the house. Marlene started the show by singing “Falling in Love Again” in German and then she did “The Boys in the Back Room” and “One for My Baby.” She sang in English, German, and French and dedicated one of her songs to Richard Tauber, the great operatic tenor, and Friedrich Hollaender, who had composed the music for The Blue Angel . Both of them had been forced to leave Germany because they were Jews.
Her last number was “I Still Have a Valise in Berlin,” which she sang in a white tuxedo. When she was done, Mayor Willy Brandt led the standing ovation and Marlene took eighteen curtain calls. The reviews were all very positive, and the audience loved her so much in Munich that she had to take thirty-six curtain calls. They liked her a lot less in the Ruhr, and as we were walking through the lobby of the Park Hotel in Dusseldorf, a hysterical young girl who hadn’t even been born during the war ran up to Marlene and spat right in her face while screaming how much she hated Marlene for betraying Germany. Marlene’s response was to tell a press conference that she would never perform in Germany again.
When we got to Wiesbaden we were greeted by bomb threats. The French
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