Marlena Dietrich not only turned down Hitler when he begged her to come back to Germany to do German films but she denounced her German citizenship and she became a United States citizen in 1939. She detested Hitler and the Nazis. She gave up her career to follow the troops attached to actual units through the OSS to perform for them. Prior to that she donated her salary for one of her films,$450,000 in I think 1932 for the war effort against Hitler. We weren't even in the war yet. She often performed within a mile of the front line and slept in barns. After the liberation of Italy all of the entertainment troops were sent back stateside but she refused and continued performing 2 times a day for soldiers still stationed in Europe. She was ultimately awarded 4 metals for her war efforts and said that that was the part of her career that she was proudest of. She was an incredible American patriot.
Cary Grant donated his fee for a film $150,000, to the British war effort (before the U.S. entered the war). No way did Dietrich make as much as Grant, much less that much more. I don't trust that figure.
@@SandySaunders9142 I did more research after your reply and you're correct. Her 450,000 donation was a total of money donated, not the salary of one film. I appreciate you bringing this to my attention. Have a great day.
IIRC She also had photos taken with POWs under the excuse of publicity and then gave the pictures to people who would make forged documents so prisoners could escape. But I could be misremembering a Josephine Baker story. Maybe more than one celebrity did that. Either way, it was very clever.
Leslie Howard not only played the Scarlett Pimpernel on screen, but in real life! I believe the story goes was that he was targeted by the nazi's and his plane downed by them! Thank you for your service 1 & all!❤
For is forgotten is Leslie Howard, at a Open debate with the Nazi Ambassador in Lisbon , and Leslie made the Nazi look such a fool, that rumour has it, Nazi Ambassador asked for his assassination !
Thank you for showing amazing footage of the iconic Josephine Baker ! What a MegaStar ! And a Civil Rights icon ! Leaping about of a a bird cage into the arms of young men. (Jennifer Lopez owes that stunt to Josephine.) Standing behind MLK in Washington DC, I had no idea !
When I was young I went with a friend to a screening of Gran Hotel with a friend. The audience were mostly much older people who had seen the original release, they were there to see Garbo, whom they worshiped. They were sophisticated and cultured people. My friend and I wondered what they could possibly have seen in this woman! My mother was a great fan of Marlene Dietrich and talked of her and her beauty and her talent and always watched her films when they appeared on television. And I wondered: what could this intelligent woman have seen in this movie star! Later I became devoted to movies fell in love with the films of both of them. I think when something is from a previous era it takes, at least it did for me, a level of maturity to understand the appeal. And I think it takes a certain knowledge of history and American civilization to understand how much we owe to these immigrants who became Americans, just as most of our ancestors dead. They were often more fervent and hard-working for democracy the native born people. They had reason to appreciate it more than we do ourselves. How wonderful to see the involvement of people who are marvelous and screen in acts of courage and defiance of tyranny. They were great on and off screen. And the three featured here must Garbo, Dietrich, and Cary Grant, were so modest later about what they had done. One thing that mentioned in this documentary is the fact that all three were bisexual! That as well as being foreign in America certainly gave them perspective on leading a double life.
Whole show was incredibly excellent but I was particularly impressed by Josephine Baker. She deserved every Medal of recognition but none were mentioned.
The Oscar ceremony is over but you can always get ready for the next year friends, spies stories are still the most wanted on cinema screens, such tips worth a golden mine
Why did this documentary include film footage of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher? Debbie and Eddie were popular in the fifties... Not the thirties or forties.
Neils Bohr came to the US in 1933, 7 years before the invasion of Denmark. He in turn helped other Jewish physicists including Edward Teller / The Father of the Hydrogen Bomb - escape
Flynn was always a waste of space and he knew it. These stars deserve our gratitude what courage even though they were playing parts, it was dangerous they did not need to do it. Shame on Hoover once again. THANK YOU
You forgot one of the most famous of the lot, Louis Armstrong, he did quite a lot during the war and he wasn't the only one, I forgot which one it was right now I don't remember who it was but I think it was a woman and she was either a singer and actress and she got the Germans to let her in to some of the concentration camps and POW camps.
It's a very interesting documentary . Of course Cary Grant and Leslie Howard worked for British intelligence as did a number of other indigenous British technicians and stars. It is most probably overselling. Howard's role as a messenger to Spain's pro-Axis foreign minister to maintain that Howard kept Spain out of the war. The British skilfully played their diplomatic and economic assets to this end. Of course Howard was on a British commercial flight from Lisbon to Britain which was mysteriously shot down by a German fighter. So he did lose his life as part of his wider wartime activities. This documentary's emphasis is on the Thirties and WWII. The lady from the CIA mentions. that foreign intelligence services were up to scratch. long before the American ones were. One in particular was the Soviet one that. actively infiltrated the American government machine in the Thirties and also parts of British intelligence . The latter was on a quite a big scale. The Anti-Nazis activities in the States were often more than supported by Soviet intelligence and especially as they could gain inside personal information, which would be useful to them later. Soviet involvement could be seen as an ideological stance and it was posed that way to sympathisers . The. de facto alliance of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939 demonstrated that Stalin was primarily interested in Soviet /Russian interests rather world peace. The extent of Nazi influence in the States is illustrated, but it's. erstwhile ally Communist Russia is not mentioned . This would come into the spot light in the late 40s' with the Cold War and Senator Macarthy .
Leslie Howard, Ashley, in Gone With the Wind, was on a plane shot down by the Germans on the premise that Winston Churchill was on the plane. This in turn was a blind set up by British Intelligence, to conceal Winston's scheme to leave North Africa, on a British bomber, which to get the range to make it back to London, had to remove its guns.
Leslie Howard wasn't the only spy on that plane in fact I don't know who at the brilliant person was who put all their eggs in that basket but there was a reason that he should not have been on that plane but on a different plane but he was in a hurry to get back a big hurry to get back especially to his family among other things. It's always been interesting to note the people who were on the plane with him and the fact that it was a setup never set up to not make it back to England and when you look at the details you find out just how they were set up if Leslie Howard and from what you say he did have papers that he managed to give over then in a way he got to accomplish what the others did not the others were carrying sensitive documents back to that they were supposed to get it back to England the only one person missed the flight and only by seconds and that person lived to pretty much tell the tale,and in a way it was lucky that the person in question did because it was assumed for some time that he had died in the plane crash and then it was found out that the person in question wasn't on board and that he made it back in a different way so yes that plane being down was a setup and he was lucky he wasn't there I keep forgetting if it was a he or she I think it was a she she missed the flight I think it was but I could be wrong I just remember coming across the information and question when I was looking at other things including the story about Leslie Howard and his spy career.
I don’t think Josephine Baker adopted her Rainbow Tribe until after the war. She supposedly had to have a hysterectomy in 1941 and reacted badly to losing the opportunity to have biological children. After the war there were a lot of children needing homes.
You're also forgetting that while she gave that to the US government so that they could you use it the US government sat on Hedy lamarr's gift to them and did not use it and eventually when she found out in the 19th I think it was 90s that she was not only not getting credit but her patent was being pretty much used by whomever wanted to use it because the government had decided to give it away for free she sued and won.
What traitors are you talking about? The stars mentioned were patriots fighting against the German Nazis, Italian Fascists, Japanese Militarists and Soviet Communists(during the war and after). Perhaps you meant the Hollywood studio heads who delayed coming out against those Axis and Soviet governments in order to maintain their business with those governments just as many other businesses did. There were also actors. actresses, directors, producers, writers and techical support people who were public or secret communists who assisted the Soviet Union and so also the Nazis after the Nazi-Soviet Non-Agression Pact was signed in August 1939 until Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. So once again, what traitors were you talking about?
My mother was a small child visiting her cousins in Germany and witnessed the night of broken glass, she was in their equivalent of a mercantile store as they would have called them in the west you know the one you know pioneers time what other people would call market in a little market store and it was kind of close but they were at the time her and the other cousin were in the store in the back near the barrels of pickles cuz my mother used to love sour things and she was very little when they started literally breaking the glass window she and that cousin hid behind the big barrels of pickles I believe it was in the back.
You forgot how that marriage took place that marriage of Hedy lamarr took place because Hedy lamarr appeared in a movie where she is seen to be streaking before the word even was invented naked and there was a pretty interesting love scene in that it was quite heavy stuff for the time in 1930s and her and her family were so shocked by it when they realized that he was supposed to be filming this from across the lake how on Earth did he filmed as if he were right in front of her and the answer was he was what was then considered experimental and it was a long telescopic lens, so to get away from her celebrity because she become a celebrity by that time she married the first guy who offered her was very charming and offered her what appeared to her to be his genuine love but the truth is he didn't really love her he liked the idea of her and she was extremely popular in Germany she married him and then realized he basically wasn't just a simple industrialist he was pronunciate you have to smile and act a good you know socialite Etc and she couldn't stand it,she escaped her husband and it was not that easy to escape him because he was connected to Hitler and to his regime to such a degree that she was kept in constant watch she did Escape him and she did get to Hollywood and believe me she absolutely hated Germany but there was not a whole lot she could do about it by the way her son she had to leave behind.
I think it might have been Miss Baker who was the one who got into the concentration camps and other places and was able to take pictures and whatnot discreetly without anyone being aware of it I'm not sure.
You know, I am always surprised by the fact that back then and I sit back then even now many people think that just because an actors and actor or in this many cases and actresses an actress that she must be dumb. A lot of those actresses were brilliant Marlena, Dietrich, and Greta Garbo were brilliant and people really don’t realize that Hedy Lamar was in in fact, the genius one of her inventions is besides the you know the telephone, jumping I guess you would call it you know what we call. The words are not coming Tablet to be used to help with dehydration and vitamin deficiency. It is still used today in parts of the world it’s a small little tablet comes in a long tube much like you can imagine some candies come in and you take the little orange tablet and you drop it in water stir it until it fizz in it fuses up and you drink it and it will give you both vitamin C, and any electrolytes you’re missing and she invented that but it’s one of the few things that people among the many things she created They don’t know about HEDY Lamar I’m sorry I’m having problems with voice to text. It’s driving me nuts my point is that they often thought that these actresses were dumb and as May west would be the first to tell you they aren’t dumb. Many of them were brilliant. and they came up with some pretty great things, but nobody would even listen to them. How sad is that by the way, you didn’t mention how HEDY Lamar had to literally sue to get her patterned back because people were already using it for what we consider today modern technology with our phones and other gadgets. She sued back in the 1990s before she died and she won.
The Gestapo didn't care one bit about stardom! They were killers and the Reich main security office was always watching! And people never knew who they were talking to! Even children would turn their parents over to the Gestapo! So to say that movie stars could do what they wanted to is just plain crap!
Ian Fleming was also an ardent anti-semite and for all that he was given some work in intelligence he was not the main guy he was merely a supporting character. You are giving him way too much credit looking into citizens mail is what low people on the intelligence sorry intelligence totem pole it's still done to this day and the fact is it's still done at as the bottom rung on the intelligence military intelligence specifically totem pole. But that's not something you'd be aware of.
My grandfather was a member of the French underground and he said photographs in a he had a third person with him okay he was taking pictures he would develop them and then into micro film a micro dots and he would then put it in a special locket my dad was not even aware of this it's interesting I found most of what my grandfather did by accident, including in the little I call it a locket it's not really like a tie clip or a pen that you would put on a tie I found it out because the last time it must have been used the compartment was not put back correctly and the photograph of my grandfather was slightly indented which didn't make much sense I'm a metalsmith among my many traits and I was able to open it up very carefully and that's how I found the compartment and you can see that chemicals it had come in contact on the inside with chemicals in fact it was even you can even see a picture that must have been Ben still wet because the corrosive chemicals has have etched a little picture on the inside I'm not very well discernible without the right tools to see itbut he was one of the first people to ever take a selfie and I mean it is a selfie but you would not have known it unless you were looking at and he basically had a film studio with his partner my guess is that his partner betrayed him because he wanted the studio and be more than likely he'd been approached by the SS and they put pressure on him to talk. And the only reason his partners one of his Partners was not arrested was because she was so popular in the town that have they arrested her the whole town would have gone against the Frenchman who were set up to do the arresting and that would not have sat well that would have created a huge she was well known in several times she was beloved enough that they waited until she had left she was the one who had the PIN. My grandfather was very good at hiding stuff in film disguising things for other things it was his thing and I found this out like I said by accident and it fascinates me and I would have loved to learn more about him but I'm having a hard time finding those things out and I'm getting old myself so and the child of my parents old age and I'm getting old myself should tell you everything including the fact that I'm using voice to text because my hands don't work and I cannot fix anything on here and I'll put punctuation in.
And you're not giving her enough credit she actually had more than the idea she needed help in constructing what she had picked up on from those dinner table in her ex-husband's house and trust me she came up with it it is her invention but you're not giving her the credit she invented a lot of other things including a tablet for rehydrating people it's a orange flavored and it's still used today but most people don't realize that she came up with that she was brilliant but most people look at her face and her physique and obviously think oh she's just pretty.
As I said my grandfather was a man who took those photographs that were then sent to the allies and they were sent through a either microfilm that he made and like I said he was in the forefront of when it came to photography it was his specialty even though it was not his profession the last time he went out to take his specialized photos he unfortunately got caught and because he revealed nothing he was then sent to one of the death camps. They never knew about the pendant or its special compartment or how he passed on his photos they didn't have a clue and he certainly didn't tell his partner in his photography business anything because he obviously didn't trust the man his only person that he really did trust was in fact his partner and she was beloved by the town too much for them to arrest without any kind of proof and they didn't know about the pin that she wore and I don't think she knew either but she knew there was something important about the pendant because it was always having to be fixed andalso she kept this pin for my father but he didn't know why it was in the photograph in it was indented and he didn't have a clue as to the fact it was a compartment at all he didn't know that whoever the last person was to get what was in that compartment whether micro or microfilm well they have been in a hurry and they didn't put it back correctly. I have always wondered if there was more to the story of my grandfather then even I can figure out because I figured it out cuz of modern technology and the photographs that I have a chance to look at by scanning them and then blowing them them up to correct any flaws it for there and finding out that some of those were not flaws, use various techniques to hide certain things and to put in other things when the job required it and he was good at what he did but the thing I find most fascinating is the fact that I can't find any I can't seem to find enough information.
You're forgetting that a lot of these Stars and back then it wasn't like what it would become in the 70s 80s and onward there was a lot looser as far as getting on a plane you didn't necessarily need a whole bunch of papers like you do now and it was easier to do if you had the money also you're forgetting that a lot of these stars like Garbo like Marlena Dietrich like Louis Armstrong could get in and out of these places because they were mostly seen as being movie people they weren't seen as anything else in Marlena Dietrich case she was in fact wanted by the Germans so she could not get close to the front line or anywhere near it but Louis Armstrong could get around he had no problem going to Europe to going to France whatever... Easy Hitler had put a price on Marlena Dietrich said much as he had done on Clark Gable as well but Clark Gable hated Hitler so much after the death of his wife that he went a little cuckoo and some people said he had a death wish because he went up inin Planes not just supposedly like he was supposed to do and just filming what they were doing but he went up there to also do some shooting and when I say shooting I mean with a gun he literally would sneak on board on his off hours to do this in fact it became you know the guys really liked him but it eventually became to the higher ups.
You can only use the homosexual Factor if they didn't have a spouse or children or a girlfriend who would come to their rescue the fact is unless you have them actually photographed in that compromising position there was no way you'd be able to turn them.
This is so _repetitive!_ I very nearly stopped watching less than halfway through bc of this, bc I must have heard how admired the stars were, how _nobody_ would stop them at borders, with very few substantive details. Things picked up a little toward the end, but this could have been wrapped up in about 5 minutes.
