Cover News reporter Yan Wenwen
Before 1929, just after the smoke of World War I, a bookbinder's son published a novel, a novel about the First World War that he had spent six weeks writing. His first submission was rejected by the publisher, who felt that the end of the story was unsatisfactory and hoped that the author would revise the ending, but was rejected. The second submission, the publisher reluctantly accepted. Unexpectedly, the book sold 600,000 copies in just three months and was translated into many languages.
A year later, the film adaptation of the film was released, which won the Oscar for Best Director and Best Picture, the novel "No War on the Western Front", the author Erich Maria Remarque served in the German army for only 49 days. It was these 49 days of experience that inspired Remarque, not only "No War on the Western Front" became an important anti-war novel in the history of world literature, but his subsequent works "Arc de Triomphe" and "Black Obelisk" are classics of anti-war novels.
Remarque on the battlefield
In 2022, "No War on the Western Front" has been flopped again and has landed on Netflix. This is the first time in the 93 years since the novel's birth that a German has made its own film and has been selected to compete for the Oscar for best international film. Viewers who have seen it have scored high scores, with a 94% praise rate on Rotten Tomatoes and 8.8 points on the domestic rating website Douban.
Not only that, the fate of the author of the novel, Remarque, is also ups and downs, and his story with actresses such as Marlene Dietrich, Hedy Lamarr, Greta Garbo and other actresses of the Hollywood Golden Age is also wonderful, especially the part with Marlene Dietrich, and even developed to compete with Hemingway...
At the age of 18, he participated in the First World War and wrote the masterpiece "No War on the Western Front" in six weeks.
Erich Maria Remarque spent her life searching for self-reconciliation. He was born in 1898 to a modest family in Lower Saxony, Germany, to a bookbinder father Pieter Franz Remarque and a housewife to his mother, Anna Maria. Remarque was not close to his father since he was a child, but liked to stay with his mother, so much so that after he became famous, he changed his middle name to his mother's name Maria in honor of his mother.
But the influence of his father is still reflected in Remarque, and in his masterpiece "No War on the Western Front", the male protagonist's name is Paul, which is also Erich's middle name before changing his name.
During World War I, at the age of 18, Remarque joined the army, and not long after, on June 12, 1917, he arrived on the Western Front. There, he saw the madness and struggle of the German army in the final years of the war, and also saw many boys as young as him die on the battlefield. Just 49 days later, he was wounded by a grenade in his left leg, right hand and neck while rescuing his comrades, was taken to a field hospital, never returned to the battlefield, and survived the war after recovering and becoming a reserve.
After 49 days on the battlefield, Remarque became even disgusted with his homeland, and he changed his last name from Remark to Remarque, which is apparently a French word. His great-great-grandfather, John Adam, did indeed move to Germany from Aachen, France, in the 19th century. Of course, there is also a theory - Remarque's surname should be Kramer, which is spelled by REMARK in reverse, because Remarque is actually Jewish. This statement is indeed consistent with Remarque's later exile in Germany, but this claim has no basis at all.
After returning to Germany, Remarque tried his hand at many jobs, such as librarian, businessman, journalist and editor.
In the second half of 1927, Remarque began to write "No War on the Western Front". He spent every evening writing, finishing the novel in just 6 weeks. When he sent the manuscript to the publisher, he was asked to change the ending of the story, but Remarque himself refused. Later, he found another publisher, who promised to serialize it in the newspaper before publishing. Unexpectedly, "No War on the Western Front" drove newspaper sales when it was serialized, and after the serialization ended, the novel was soon published. In 1929, No War on the Western Front sold 1.2 million copies and millions of copies in other countries.
But the success of the novel led Remarque to be targeted by the Nazi Party, and in 1931 Remarque used the money for No War on the Western Front to buy a villa on Lake Maggiore on the border between Switzerland and Italy. At that time, he had already decided to live in Switzerland and France in the future. After Hitler came to power in 1933, Remarque's works were publicly burned, along with those of Thomas Mann, Heinrich Mann, Brecht and others, and then stripped of his German citizenship in 1938 because he steadfastly refused to return to China.
Remarque's sister Elfred, who remained in Germany, suffered. Elfried was arrested by the Nazis in 1943 and soon beheaded, legend has it that he was implicated by Remarque, but after World War II, Remarque learned of his sister's fate and pieced together the reasons for Elfred's murder. He believed that Elfred had been arrested for his membership in an anti-Nazi group in Berlin, so he dedicated it to Elfred on the title page of his 1952 work Spark of Life.
Once in love with top actresses known as the Playboy of Hollywood
While Remarque became famous for his work, he was a notorious playboy as a Hollywood tabloid reporter. His wife and girlfriends are the goddesses of Hollywood's golden age, and the gossip girlfriends even include the actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr, who is known as Hollywood's beauty and wisdom.
Remarque's first wife was German dancer and actress Jutta Zambona, whom they married in 1925. Although the relationship was passionate at first, both parties soon became unfaithful to their marriage and each had a lover, so they chose to divorce in 1930. After the divorce, Remarque and Zhuta were still disconnected, and even when Remarque moved to Switzerland in 1933, Zhuta followed him to Switzerland. Even in 1938, the two remarried in Switzerland, although by that time Remarque and actress Marlene Dietrich were already in love.
Of course, Remarque's explanation for this is that Zhuta does not have Swiss nationality, and if the two do not remarry, Zhuta will be expelled from Switzerland, which is also a helpless choice. After the outbreak of World War II, Remarque also took Zhuta to the United States with him, and later divorced again in 1957.
As early as Switzerland, Remarque met Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr, and the two secretly fell in love for a year, but eventually parted ways. After going to the United States, Remarque had an affair with Mexican actress Dorothy de Leo and Ingrid Bowman.
In 1941, at a party celebrating the New Year, Remarque met superstar Greta Garbo. Remarque once wrote of the two of them together: "She went into the bedroom, and the light in the dressing room hit her back and sprinkled gently on her shoulder..."
After the Second World War, Remarque returned to Switzerland, where he lived until his death in 1970.
Remarque with Marlene
Fighting with Hemingway left 300 letters to Marlene Dietrich
Among Remarque's love stories, the most talked about is the story with German actress Marlene Dietrich.
In 1937, shortly after separating from Hedy Lamarr, Remarque was invited to Venice for the Film Festival. On the island of Lido, he met Marlene Dietrich, who had just broken up with her lover. At the time, Marlene was having dinner with director Joseph von Sternberg when she saw Remarque coming over.
His personable appearance and temperament immediately made Marlene feel like a spring breeze. Marlene's daughter later talked about it in her own book, when Marlene told Remarque: "You seem too young for a writer who has written such great works." ”
"Maybe I wrote it to hear your magical voice say this."
Joseph von Sternberg immediately understood that he was a "light bulb" and found a reason to leave. Remarque and Marlene talked from day to evening, and even when Remarque sent Marlene to the door of the hotel, Marlene felt that it was an extremely cruel thing to separate. Remarque's side was also reluctant: "I must admit, there is nothing I can do." ”
Calm and self-sufficient, Marlene never had a time when she couldn't speak, and could only reply, "Oh, great." ”
The two exiles from their home country soon fall in love, but when Remarque asks Marlene to divorce her husband, playwright Rudi Sieber, Marlene refuses. Not only that, Marlene also walked closely with another famous writer, Hemingway, and even Remarque once ate Hemingway's vinegar and complained to Marlene about Hemingway many times.
The relationship lasted for three years, but Marlene had a great impact on Remarque, and there were hundreds of letters between the two. In 1945, Remarque published the novel Arc de Triomphe, his second novel after No War on the Western Front, which sold more than 5 million. The heroine of the novel, Jon, although Remarque never admitted it, everyone speculated that this was Marlene Dietrich. At the beginning of the novel, there are several portraits of Jon: "I saw her pale face, high cheekbones, and wide distance between her eyes; Stiff face, like a false mask"; Her pale face was almost expressionless. The mouth is very full, that is, there is no blood, and it looks blurry in outline; Only hair can grow beautiful—a shiny, natural golden hair. "Living is the image of Marlene.
However, Marlene was not very interested in the novel "Arc de Triomphe" and did not recover her relationship with Remarque. However, she kept more than 300 love letters written to her by Remarque, which were later published as a collection of letters, Tell Me You Love Me, and adapted into the Broadway musical Puma in 2011. However, Marlene's letters to Remarque were destroyed by his second wife, leaving only 20 left.
The second wife was Chaplin's ex-wife and almost starred in "Gone with the Wind"
Remarque's second wife is Hollywood actress Pauline Gaudette.
Remarque and Pauline at home in Switzerland
Pauline Goldet came from a poor family on Long Island, New York, and joined Siegfried Cabaret at the age of 14 before retiring from the stage because she married wealthy businessman Edgar James. In 1931, after the divorce, he entered Hollywood Hal Roach Productions. There she met Chaplin. Chaplin, attracted by her beautiful appearance and extraordinary conversation, began to train her to act. In 1936, she secretly married Chaplin after starring in "Modern Times", and also played "The Great Dictator" in the middle. However, the two chose to divorce after 6 years.
Pauline Gaudé once hoped to play the role of Hao Sijia in "Gone with the Wind", and she even encouraged her husband Chaplin to help her unblock the relationship, hoping to get the role, but in the end, Vivien Leigh became the actor of Hao Sijia.
In 1951, Remarque met Pauline Gaudette in New York, when Pauline almost died after a failed performance. The two remained in a relationship for many years until 1958, when Remarque married him.
Pauline had always been mindful of the relationship between Remarque and Marlene Dietrich, so she burned almost all of Marlene's letters to Remarque. After Remarque's death, Pauline inherited most of Remarque's legacy and returned to New York, but became a laughing stock in New York high society, but the famous artist Andy Warhol maintained an excellent relationship with Pauline.
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