Foreign News: Fuhrer and Flexes

One of Adolf Hitler’s favorite stage entertainments is Franz Lehar’s light opera, The Merry Widow. Last week in Munich the Fuhrer decided that he would like The Merry Widow a little merrier. A telegram was sent to Cannes where lissome, long-limbed Marion Daniels was doing an acrobatic tap dance turn at the Casino. A special plane followed, rushed the blonde 19-year-old Californian to Munich’s Gärtnerplatz Theatre where she gave a few new twists and taps to The Merry Widow’s, Viennese waltzes.

Führer Hitler had caught her acrobatic act two weeks before in Munich, liked it so well that he sent her a bouquet of lilacs and carnations. Last week her Merry Widow so pleased the Führer & party that their prolonged applause almost stopped the show. After the performance, the cast and Dancer Daniels put on a special act for Herren Hitler, Göring, Goebbels and guests at a Munich night club.

Back in Cannes, Dancer Daniels blurbed: “Herr Hitler spoke to me in German, and I don’t know what the word for it is but a translator said he said I had marvelous movements of the body and legs, and I guess that meant flexes. He said, ‘You are the best dancer I have ever seen.'”

Ribbing reporters asked whether the Führer had paid off in stage money, the Nazis’ frozen marks. “Not on your life,” came back Miss Daniels. “I danced for real money—$1,000 with all expenses. And that plane trip was expensive too, particularly since I never go anywhere without Mother.”