Falling Star

The Curse of Lída Baarová

By: A. G. Mogan

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Aged and increasingly ailing European film icon Lída Baarová is taken care of by her stepmother Marcela, a woman five years her junior. As Lida becomes distraught by the effects of the Parkinson disease ravaging her body, and riddled with the fear of dying, her stepmother thinks up a way to distract her—she should recount her life, and leave a lasting legacy to her fans. For the next several months, Marcela records on paper as the actress tells her story.

In 1936, at the height of her career, the film star has it all—recognition, a man she loves, worshiping fans all over the continent. But when the all-powerful Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels lays eyes on her, everything changes. He pursues her relentlessly, and pressed both by fear and desire, she finally slips. It soon becomes clear this was the greatest mistake of her life.

The affair, though fairly brief, does not pass unnoticed by the terrifying, ever-watching conspirators. Immediately placed under surveillance by the infamous Gestapo, Lída Baarová is banned from acting, appearing in public, and forbidden from leaving the German Empire. With the help of a friend, she manages to flee Germany to her native Czechoslovakia. But her country no longer welcomes her. In fact, she now is regarded as an enemy of the state, a spy, a double agent. She is arrested, accused of high treason, and sent to the infamous Pankrác Prison. And it is from then on that the real tragedy of her truly begins.

From a childhood of both family little dramas and unconditional love to making her way to stardom in the 1930s to her fatal decision to accept Goebbels as her lover to the unrelenting tragedies ensuing afterward, Lída unspools a tale of startling naïveté, a doomed forbidden love affair, and the swiftness with which a worshipping world can turn against you.