William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2020
Copyright © Paula Byrne 2020
Cover design by Heike Schüssler
Cover photographs © Sunset Boulevard/Getty Images, Shutterstock
Paula Byrne asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Information on previously published material appears here
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008307097
Ebook Edition © January 2020 ISBN: 9780008270568
Version: 2020-11-28
For Christine Marie
A sister is both your mirror – and your opposite
Elizabeth Fishel
Mirrors from Lohr were so elaborately worked that they were accorded the reputation of always speaking the truth and became a favourite gift at European crown and aristocratic courts. Uniquely, the mirrors also talked, in aphorisms like one that reads in the upper corner of a frame: Elle brille à la lumière (She is such a beauty).
Karlheinz Bartels, Schneewittchen: zur Fabulologie des Spessarts (Lohr am Main, 2012)
I don’t remember who started the rumor that Mars was scheduled to collide with the Earth that summer of 1938 … the next summer, not Mars, but a little man in Berlin changed the course of human history.
Maria Riva, Marlene Dietrich by her Daughter (New York, 1993)
Contents
1 Cover
2 Title Page
3 Copyright
4 Dedication
5 Epigraphs
6 Contents
7 Prologue
8 The Devil is a Woman
9 Someday I’ll Find You
10 The Scarlet Empress
11 I Like America
12 The Garden of Allah
13 Sigh No More
14 Stage Fright
15 This Time Tomorrow
16 The Lady is Willing
17 Bonne Nuit, Merci
18 The Little Napoleon
19 The Party’s Going with a Swing
20 The Woman One Longs For
21 Farewell Song
22 Manpower
23 Dream Girl
24 Song of Songs
25 I’m Old Fashioned
26 Follow the Boys
27 Poor Lady in the Throes of Love
28 A Modern Dubarry
29 There are Bad Times Just Around the Corner
30 Desire
31 You’re the Top
32 I Loved a Soldier
33 World Weary
34 A Foreign Affair
35 The Stately Homes of England
36 The Ship of Lost Souls
37 I Wonder What Happened to Him?
38 The Spoilers
39 Down with the Whole Damn Lot
40 I Kiss your Hand, Madam
41 Love a Little
42 Angel
43 Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans
44 I Am a Camera
45 Cowardy Custard
46 Around the World in 80 Days
47 This is a Changing World
48 No Highway in the Sky
49 Top of the Morning
50 Leap into Life
51 Twentieth Century Blues
52 The Big Bluff
53 Wait a Bit, Joe
54 Man by the Roadside
55 When My Ship Comes Home
56 The Imaginary Baron
57 When We Were Girls Together
58 Heads Up, Charley
59 Ace of Clubs
60 Touch of Evil
61 Let’s Do It
62 Madame Doesn’t Want Children
63 Bitter Sweet
64 Knight without Armour
65 Sail Away
66 Why Cry at Parting?
67