Marlene Dietrich

Born:

December 27, 1901

Born as:

Marie Magdalene Dietrich

Died:

May 6, 1992

Biography:

In her youth she enjoyed music and attended concerts. She was adept at playing the violin and piano, hoping for a career in the concert halls, but a wrist injury ended that dream. Marlene decided to pursue an acting career and auditioned at the Deutsche Theaterschule, supporting herself by working in a glove factory.

Dietrich made her film debut with a brief role in 1923's Der Kleine Napoleon. After a series of tiny roles Marlene returned to the stage but she remained better known as a live performer, enjoying great success singing the songs of Mischa Spoliansky.

American film director Josef von Sternberg cast her in the leading female role of Der Blaue Engel / The Blue Angel, filmed in Berlin during 1929 and 1930, in both German and English versions. Even before the film was released, Dietrich was signed to a Paramount contract and in 1930 she went to Hollywood leaving her husband and child behind. In Hollywood von Sternberg worked very effectively with Dietrich to create the image of a glamorous femme fatale.

During World War 2 Joseph Goebbels offered to make her "The Queen" of German films if she made movies promoting Hitler, but she consistently refused. Marlene became a US citizen in 1939 and made extensive tours, often into combat zones, to entertain Allied troops. Dietrich recorded a number of anti-Nazi records in German for the OSS, including Lili Marleen.

Dietrich returned again to the vocal industry in the '50s with many live albums, preserving her wild cabaret act from various European capitals.

In the late '70s Marlene withdrew from public life, becoming a recluse in the sanctuary of her Paris apartment.

Academy awards:

Nominated Best Actress for: Morocco (1930)

Selected movies:

Touch of Evil (1958)
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
Der Blaue Engel(1930)
Destry Rides Again (1939)
The Scarlet Empress (1934)
Shanghai Express (1932)
A Foreign Affair (1948)
The Devil Is a Woman (1935)
Morocco (1930)

Bibliography » Books:

Bibliography » Web:

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The local - A German walk of fame
The local - Marlene Dietrich letters sold

Trivia

Marlene sucked lemon wedges between takes to keep her mouth muscles tight

Dietrich never worked without a mirror on the set so she could constantly check her makeup and hair.

She prided herself on the fact that she had slept with three men of the Kennedy clan - Joseph P. Kennedy, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. and John F. Kennedy.

Marlene was the first German actress to be Oscar-nominated.

Marlene told the press that her real name was: Maria Magdalena Dietrich von Losch. However, her father’s name was Dietrich and when he was killed, her mother remarried with Edouard von Losch.
--Source: Dietrich (Life and Times), Page 9

For Touch of evil (1957) Marlene wore Liz Taylor’s dark wig. “Orson does not like blonde women. He only likes dark women. And suddenly he saw me in this dark wig, he looked at me with new eyes. Was this Marlene?”
--Source: Film Makers Speak: Voices of Film Experience, Page 110

Gary Grant: “If women want to wear men’s clothes, let them do men’s work”
--Source: Cary Grant : A Biography, Page 112

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