Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1362: The Legacy of Marlene Dietrich
"Hey, Diane, is Roger asleep? How are things going over there? Everything is going well here, but New York may become the territory of the Donkey Party in the future..."

Ronald stayed on Staten Island on the night of the vote. His aunt was very happy because although most of the votes in New York City went to the Donkey Party candidates, Staten Island still leaned towards the Elephant Party.

Especially in Totville, where Ronald's factory was located, most of these voters voted for George Sr. under Ronald's revealed preference. The power of this unified action was so strong that George Sr. won Perot by 33 percentage points, % of the votes, on the entire Staten Island, and the Donkey Party candidate only ranked third.

But the numbers for New York State were completely reversed. In this state with the second largest population in the United States, the Donald Trump Party's running mates, two young and handsome governors from the South, received 33.9% of the votes, while George Sr. only received 15.7%, 0.1% lower than independent candidate Perot...

The situation across the country is only getting worse. Statistics on TV show that California has been reversed into a blue state for the first time. This hometown of former President Ronald Sr. not only supported the Democratic Party with 54 electoral votes, but also Barbara Bosser was elected as the Senator. California not only has two Democratic Party senators, but also two female senators, making it the first state in the United States to achieve this achievement.

"Hurry up, Old George called Greasy Bill..." Aunt Karen was watching the live broadcast on TV intently, urging Ronald to go and witness America's quadrennial ceremony with her.

Ronald put down the phone and watched with her the speech by the president-elect and his wife, who were celebrating in Arkansas.

"Well, he speaks quite sincerely, maybe not so greasy..." My aunt quickly forgave the cute young president, the youngest one since JFK.

"I think I'll give little George a call..."

Ronald knew that George Sr. would soon give a speech about his defeat, so he still needed to keep in touch with his family. However, it would not be a good idea to call him or Barbara directly, so it would be most appropriate to call George Jr.

"Oh, Ronald, it's a good thing you called. This place is like a cemetery now. No one in the circle wants to come here..." After receiving the call, George Jr. also started complaining. George Sr. was very sad. He had done so much for America, but in the end he was ruthlessly abandoned. After all the New England states voted for his opponent in the afternoon, he stayed there feeling sorry for himself. He was in a terrible state.

"I tried my best. Staten Island is the only district in New York City that supports your father, but I have to say that it is also the only district that did not receive a visit from the President himself..."

"I understand that Jeb has no idea about elections and is just messing around. I will tell my mother."

"Please pay tribute to the President on my behalf. We all love him... This is not his failure, this is a victory for democracy, just like when Prime Minister Churchill lost the election after World War II. The people will never forget a President who led them to victory in the Cold War..."

"We love George, we love George..."

On George Jr.'s side, in the Houston election center, George Sr.'s diehard fans began to shout non-stop, calling on the defeated president to come out and say a few words to them. Barbara also waved to George Jr. who was talking on the phone next to her. George Jr. said something to Ronald and hung up.

"At a time like this, you should be with your father..." Barbara felt a little uncomfortable looking at her son. Although Jeb did not help her husband George Sr. win re-election, he was contributing to the election.

"Yes, mother..." Little George put on a smiling expression and stood shoulder to shoulder with the supporters around him...

"Who's calling..." Barbara was dissatisfied with her son's nonchalant look.

"It was Ronald. The constituency he registered in was the only one in New York City that voted for us. He mobilized all the workers in his factory to vote. He also compared my father to Churchill, who won the Second World War..."

"He said that?" Old George also heard it, and this analogy made him feel much better.

"Yes, he invited our family to visit his aunt's house for two days at an appropriate time. It may be the only place in New England that supports the Elephant Party. He said that the voters are very disappointed and want to see their great leader again... There are many veterans there... Ronald's uncle is a sacrificed Marine..." Little George conveyed Ronald's invitation.

"Maybe I should go meet these supporters of mine. If I go earlier, maybe... Never mind, tell them I'll go after I leave office..." George Sr. said as he went on stage to give a speech after his defeat...

"Thank you to my supporters across the country. It is the greatest honor of my life to serve you as your leader..."

……

"Oh, have so many Hollywood stars died recently?" Ronald returned to Manhattan the next day, and his personal lawyer Lindsay Doll introduced her real estate agent to him.

The agent was an older woman who had been a real estate agent in the Upper East Side for decades. She helped many stars in the golden age of Hollywood buy properties in New York. At that time, Los Angeles was just a rural area compared to New York, and wealthy stars would really come back to buy properties in the best places in New York.

Maybe it was time. In the past two years, many Hollywood stars who were famous all over the world passed away, and there were many vacant luxury houses here. But it is not so easy to sell luxury houses. There are many additional conditions. Now she still has five or six good houses.

These houses are much higher than the market price, and the sellers are all relatives and children of the former stars. They don't want to sell them at the market price like ordinary houses. However, New Yorkers are not as crazy about stars as they are, and they are not interested in paying more than 50% premium for the former residences of stars, so the sales speed is extremely slow.

"Wait a minute, Greta Garbo lived in Manhattan all her life?" Ronald didn't even know that.

"Oh, some tourists would go to Upper Manhattan to take street photos, hoping to run into her. She was a very private person and would sometimes cross the street to go to the hospital. But her house is now owned by her niece, and her tens of millions of inheritance was given to her, so now there is only a summer home in New Jersey for sale..."

"If it's this apartment at 52 East 450nd Street, I'm still interested..." Ronald gave up Garbo's former residence with regret. This is a seven-room apartment, located on the edge of the East River in Manhattan, which is considered a noble area, not far from the United Nations headquarters, but not as noisy as near Central Park. In addition, it is the house where Garbo once lived, so Helen will definitely like it.

But when Garbo was young, she was an art collector with good taste, and she had paintings by many Impressionist painters, including Renoir. Now, each of her paintings is worth at least a million dollars, and all of these inheritances were given to her niece, so there is no rush to sell the house where Garbo lived for 38 years.

"Why don't you consider it? If the offer is over one million, I can convince her niece to come and talk to you..." The real estate agent is very familiar with these clients. If a house that originally cost more than 600,000 yuan is sold for more than one million yuan, her own commission can be doubled.

"If some of Garbo's collections and belongings are included, I might consider it." Ronald thought that it would be fine if the house was sold intact, but now that Garbo's things have been moved out, what's the difference between the house and the neighbor's house?

"You are more like a businessman than an artist..." The real estate agent thought for a moment, "I have another house here, a house owned by a female star who is as famous as Garbo. Everything in it can be sold as is, and I can also give you some other things as a gift. Are you interested?"

"who is it?"

……

"This is Marlene Dietrich's apartment. It's smaller than Garbo's, but the location is much better..."

The next day, Ronald arrived at 993 Park Avenue, which is located on the Upper East Side, a more upscale residential area than Garbo's apartment. It is considered one of the oldest and most expensive properties in Manhattan.

It's just that Manhattan later experienced more luxury housing development along Central Park, and the houses here have lost some of their original luster because of their age.

After retiring from Hollywood, Marlene Dietrich lived mainly in the United States. She was also a big star with a similar status to Greta Garbo.

But she valued privacy more than Garbo, liked solitude, and had a much wider range of friends. She was a Hollywood lover who was popular with both men and women. She had captured Hollywood male stars spanning decades, including Jimmy Stewart, John Gilbert, Errol Flynn, John Wayne, Kirk Douglas and Frank Sinatra... She was active in the love field until she was over 70 years old...

Her most impressive achievements were two: one was that she snatched the husband of Joan Crawford, a famous bitch who loved to snatch boyfriends in Hollywood at that time; the other was that she captured the famous bald actor Yul Brynner in her fifties and lived with him for ten years...

The apartment only cost a little over $500,000, and Marlene Dietrich's relatives were willing to sell it at the original price. For an additional $100,000, they would also include her letters over the years, souvenirs from her acting career, and some items she had used.

Ronald was not very interested in Marlene Dietrich's personal belongings, but she was once a top star in Hollywood, and those souvenirs might be props from some old movies, so Ronald still liked them very much.

After making an appointment to see the house, Ronald and Helen came here together. In fact, Marlene Dietrich's main children and relatives were all in Europe, so some things in America were handled by the real estate agent.

She died this summer, and her funeral was a legend. As a German-American actress active during World War II and naturalized as an American, she was the first Hollywood star to help sell war bonds. She also appeared on the front lines for a long time during World War II. At that time, the US military described her as being much closer to the front lines than Eisenhower.

As a person who had been awarded the Legion of Honor for her service on the German front, her coffin was covered with the German tricolor flag after her death. In accordance with her will, the coffin was moved to Berlin on the plane. She was also awarded the American Medal of Freedom for her service to the troops, which was covered with the Stars and Stripes. Finally, when she was buried next to her parents' grave in Berlin, it was covered with the German flag.

Important items of her legacy, such as more than a thousand sets of clothing, were sold in Europe to collectors and German film museums. Only a small part of the thousands of items of her legacy remained in New York.

Helen went to look at the furniture and decorations in each room, while Ronald looked at the inheritance sorted into dozens of cartons in a study. Although it was only a small part, it was still a lot.

“Holy Shxt!”

Ten minutes later, Helen's voice came from the bedroom next door, and Ronald was so scared that he rushed to see what happened.

"Look, her closet is full of these..."

"Uh..." Ronald also felt that it was an eyesore. Marlene Dietrich really loved dressing up. There were more than a hundred pieces of clothing in her closet, and another closet was filled with all kinds of leather tights, eye masks, whips... and all kinds of props for both men and women...

Sure enough, the rumors are true...

"I feel a little nauseous..." Helen's morning sickness came back, and she quickly went to the window to breathe some fresh air. "I don't like this place very much, but the real estate agent said Miss Garbo's house is also for sale?"

Ronald glanced at the smug agent, who saw that Helen's nature was more like Greta Garbo, and that she had come out without makeup today, so she said a lot about Garbo's simple but elegant home, but also a dance studio where she could do yoga.

"One million, right?" Ronald was a little jealous of the agent's abilities. As a real estate agent who had served many Hollywood stars, he knew very well what the female stars wanted.

Hollywood actresses all want to be said to have taste like Garbo, but to be as successful in love as Marlene Dietrich.

"I'm just telling the truth..." The real estate agent smiled innocently.

"Is it too expensive?" Helen asked deliberately.

"Yes, it's expensive, but this is Garbo's former residence..." Ronald's words made Helen laugh.

"Here is your check, you are a good salesman..." Ronald immediately wrote a check to the real estate agent.

"This?" She took it and saw that it was 1.6 million.

"I've also bought this. Please help me send all these things that belonged to Ms. Marlene Dietrich to Fifth Avenue..."

"Why, are you sending someone off here too?" Helen looked inquiringly.

"No, many people here know that this is Marlene Dietrich's house. I want to renovate it and make it her personal memorial. I personally like the performances of these early female stars. There are too many memorials in Los Angeles, but not many in New York. I hope that more New York girls will fall in love with acting in the future..."

"Wow, you really like her, don't you?"

"In fact, I prefer Garbo. She can convey emotions to the audience and is a pioneer of method acting... But Garbo is more low-key and doesn't like to be disturbed by others. Now that you can inherit her house, I think it is very suitable..."

"Well..." Helen happily got in the car and went over there to see the house.

Ronald carried two paper boxes and moved some of the correspondence into the car. Anyway, the formalities for Marlene Dietrich's house were entrusted to the real estate agent, so it would be the same if he moved out earlier.

……

"Holy Shxt... Marlene Dietrich's personal letters are really explosive..."

Several collectors from America went to Paris to inspect Marlene Dietrich's personal belongings, but later lost interest and eventually sold them to the Berlin Film Museum.

No one would have expected that Marlene Dietrich, who lived in Paris for the next few decades, would leave some of her most important letters in an apartment in New York that she had not lived in for many years.

"It's really explosive... with the Kennedy brothers and their father... and being pregnant with Jimmy Stewart, not liking John Wayne's style, etc...

In addition to these celebrity gossips, there are also those older generation Jewish male stars who have great influence in Hollywood, company executives, and studio owners...

Marlene Dietrich was a very frank person. In her correspondence with her husband and lover, she did not hide her love history or some of the shameful things that those Jewish bigwigs had done.

(End of this chapter)