The Vengeance of Rome

I was, I knew, a real asset to the studio. Children in particular loved me, and I still received many fan letters from the public. I was therefore astonished when, in March 1934, only a few days after we had completed the sound work on Apache Territory, I received a letter at my apartment telling me that my contract as Cochise, the Apache Prince, would not be renewed and that a German national had been picked to play the role in my place! There was no mention of the airship part. Telephone calls to Mrs Cornelius and Desmond Reid informed me that they had not been replaced by German nationals. Reid seemed cool, and I wondered if he had been involved in my replacement. But Mrs Cornelius was outraged. She would talk to Huggy Bear at the first opportunity. The only other member of the regular cast to receive a similar letter had been Myra Friedmann, who had played my romantic lead. And she, of course, was a German!

I was baffled.

When I contacted the studio I was met with embarrassment and obfuscation. It had something to do with the new Nazi laws, I was told. Doctor Hugenberg had been forced to comply. Everyone felt I had made a wonderful Cochise and nobody could ever really replace me. But the reason for my dismissal remained mysterious. Clearly Mrs Cornelius and Reid, being English, were acceptable. Comic darkies were still in fashion, but Spaniards, Americans, Italians and other riff-raff were no longer needed! Myra called me in tears. She had been dismissed, she told me, because she was Jewish. She wanted to come to my flat and commiserate. I said she was welcome as soon as it was convenient. But really, I did not need her weeping on my shoulder. We had never been close friends.

Happily, I had not spent all my money and was not destitute. On the afternoon of the day I received my letter, I was already leaving messages for Schirach. I needed to meet Göring at once and impress him with what I could do for the new Germany. I was afraid I might be deported. I had no wish to return to Italy or, indeed, to France. Neither could I easily go back to America. I realised that I had been leading a dream life. In some ways I had been lured by the temptations of Satan down the wrong path. I think I knew instinctively that this was God’s benign interference as He strove to put me back on my destined road.

I talked this over with Kitty. She was sure the public would soon demand my return. Meanwhile, Prince Freddy had expressed a longing to see me again. I arranged to visit him the following week.

Mrs Cornelius had dinner with me that evening. She was extremely upset. She had not yet discovered the real reason for my dismissal. It was not, she said, as if the part required a Henry Irving. None of the Nazis thought I was Jewish. Many Aryans looked a damned sight more Jewish than I did. The trouble was that she had very little access to Doctor Hugenberg at the moment. “E feels the Nazis ‘ave cheated ‘im, gorn back on their promises an’ that. Well, I coulda told ‘im abart politicians, Ivan. Eh?’ She chuckled reminiscently. I think she still carried a torch for Trotsky.

I now know she had a presentiment. She became serious for a moment. ‘Too much death, Ive. It’s beginnin’ ter get a bit niffy ‘rahnd ‘ere. Maybe this is ther writin’ on ther wall. Time ter be movin’ on . . .’

I trusted her instinct better than I trusted the voice of my own soul. I remembered how she had tried to warn me of the danger I was in when we got to Egypt, how I had ignored her, how she had stayed as long as she could, but eventually had been forced to get away quickly. Happily, Major Nye had made himself of use to her then. In Cairo I had been deceived into a life of total nightmare, the slave of a sadistic trickster who was on the point of killing me when I was miraculously delivered by fate. I still wondered if my friend Kolya had by now charmed his way into the leadership of some hard-riding tribe. Sometimes I regretted our enforced parting and imagined how we might have lived, heroes of a Karl May novel, princes of a vast Saharan nation, away from all the ills and dirty realities of European and American life. At these times my mind wandered romantically back to those wonderful desert nights.

I occupied my time with writing letters to Doctor Goebbels and Ministerpräsident Göring, outlining my plans for a new Germany in which clean white towers would spring up and curving motorways with graceful lines would merge into a gently undulating horizon below a sky in which my gigantic ships plied their peaceful trade. My great flying cities would rise into the sky, free at last from all earthly follies, free to explore the solar system and beyond. My city is called The New Dawn; she cries out like a woman in pleasure. She ascends into a golden sky. She expands in my womb. A star begins to pulse and grow. It is my city. I am free of pain. I am free of despair. I am free of sorrow. Out of Chaos springs Law. My ship is called The Mother, and she will bring joy and curiosity to the universe.