Womanizer, Womanizer

Inspirational anecdotes from one of my little books 'o research, "Bertolt Brecht" by John Fuegi...and your first taste of my interest in the playwright, drama theorist, director, and provocateur that it concerns.

- Of the numerous women he impregnated in his early 20's, the great man said, "let them grow these little Brechts!"

- To the two impregnated women demanding to know which one he would marry: "Both!"

- While carrying a riding crop and quoting Nietzsche: "When you deal with women, don't forget the whip."

- His thoughts on man: "The way he takes things into his body, goes around in wind and rain, makes little young humans out of other humans, by gluing himself to them and filling them with fluids, to the accompaniment of groans of pleasure."

- And finally, my favorite rumor, finally confirmed here in Fuegi's words: "Those having an affair with Brecht were required to wear a close-fitting woolen coat that reached almost to the ankles. The coat was never to be buttoned, but was to be held closed with one's elbows across the stomach. Thus all of Brecht's mistresses were highly visible to one another and to everyone else in Berlin."

I take this time to assure you that had I lived in his city, I would never have let myself fall to his suspect, unwashed charms, no matter the strength of my draw to his theatrical philosophy and work. No. I'd be bitterly icy and cool, resisting the fates of theatrical mistresses Marieluise Fleisser and Helene Weigel...


UP NEXT: How to make a Wedding Gown from toilet paper and toothpaste.