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| Birth Name(s) : Marie Magdelene Dietrich von Losch |
Date of Birth: December 27, 1901 |
| Status:
Married
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Partner:
Rudolf Sieber |
| Profession:
Actor |
Official Site
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Full Marlene Dietrich Biography
She entranced moviegoers for more than three decades, and was every bit as enigmatic offscreen as the leggy femmes fatales she essayed on-screen. She had a carefully developed skill for anticipating how her every move would photograph, and she took great pains not only with her makeup and costuming, but also with her lighting and the staging of her scenes. Her numerous affairs with both men and women were ill-kept secrets, yet she managed to avoid scandal with more success than most, and was content to have her private persona shaped by her public one. A gifted child whose talent with the violin was rendered useless by a wrist injury, she studied acting with the distinguished stage impresario Max Reinhardt. In 1923 she landed her first screen role, as a maid, in The Little Napoleon (aka Men Are Like This She next played the monocled mistress of Emil Jannings in Tragedy of Love (also 1923), striking a defiant note already. Over the next few years she worked in both plays and films; among the latter were The Joyless Street, Manon Lescaut (both 1926), A Modern Du Barry, The Imaginary Baron (both 1927), Cafe Electric and I Kiss Your Hand, Madame (both 1928), and The Ship of Lost Souls (1929). Then Jannings, who had returned to Germany from a sojourn in Hollywood, convinced director Josef von Sternberg (himself a Hollywood emigre) to make another film with him. The director saw Dietrich on-stage and was entranced; he subsequently cast her as Lola-Lola, the seductive singer who brings ruin to an aging teacher (Jannings) in The Blue Angel (1930)-which, filmed in both German- and English-language versions, was an international smash. Her husky-voiced rendition of the song "Falling in Love Again" became a Dietrich trademark.
When von Sternberg returned to Paramount later that year he brought Dietrich with him; they collaborated on six more films that virtually defined exotic romanticism on-screen: Morocco (1930) Dishonored (1931), Shanghai Express, Blonde Venus (both 1932), The Scarlet Empress (1934), and The Devil Is a Woman (1935). Mysterious and alluring, Dietrich mesmerized audiences even as she shocked them by wearing men's clothing, doing nude swimming scenes, performing in a gorilla suit (in the "Hot Voodoo" number in Blonde Venus a Dietrich classic), and suggesting various and sundry sexual excesses. (During this time she also appeared in 1933's Song of Songs directed by Rouben Mamoulian, which featured a rather detailed nude statue of the actress.) Eventually the von Sternberg-Dietrich relationship ran its course, both personally and professionally, but she continued to play exotic roles in Desire, The Garden of Allah (both 1936), Angel and Knight Without Armour (both 1937), albeit to diminishing returns. She made a "comeback" of sorts in a comedic Western, Destry Rides Again (1939), in which, playing the saloon girl Frenchy, she successfully kidded her own image (and made a hit out of the song "See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have").
Dietrich made several costume and action films over the next few years, occasionally opposite John Wayne, with whom she was once linked; among them were Seven Sinners (1940), The Flame of New Orleans, Manpower (both 1941), The Spoilers, Pittsburgh (both 1942, both costarring her with Wayne and Randolph Scott), and Kismet (1944, in the latter performing a seductive dance in harem garb and gold paint). When Hitler importuned her to come back to Germany and make pro-Nazi films, she not only refused but went back to Europe, entertaining American troops with the USO! Her postwar work was sporadic, but its high points included a gypsy in Golden Earrings (1947), an ex-Nazi entertainer in A Foreign Affair (1948), aging stars in Stage Fright (1950, in which she sang "La Vie en Rose") and No Highway in the Sky (1951), another saloon singer in Rancho Notorious (1952, the performance later spoofed by Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles the wife of a murder suspect in Witness for the Prosecution (1957), a gypsy fortune-teller in Touch of Evil (1958), and a German aristocrat in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). During this time, conscious about her advancing age, Dietrich was more prominent as a cabaret entertainer, often performing songs in an unusual spoken/singing style. Her final film appearances were cameos in Paris When It Sizzles (1964) and Just a Gigolo (1979).
In 1984 her old friend Maximilian Schell made a superb documentary of her life, Marlene she agreed to provide commentary but refused to appear on camera. She spent the last years of her life in Paris; when she died, her request to be buried in her native Germany was resisted by huffy bureaucrats who'd never forgiven her anti-Nazi stance, but they eventually relented. Even in death, Dietrich ruffled feathers as almost no other movie personality could. Almost immediately following her death several biographers prepared lengthy, revealing portraits of this fascinating woman; perhaps the definitive (and most shocking) was the one written by her daughter, Maria Riva. Her son, incidentally, is production designer J. Michael Riva. |
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Additional Marlene Dietrich Biography
Marlene Dietrich IPA: ; (December 27, 1901 – May 6, 1992) was a German-born American actress, singer, and entertainer. She is regarded as being the first German actress to become successful in Hollywood.
Dietrich and Sieber were married in May 1923. Her only child, daughter Maria Elisabeth Sieber, was born in 1924.
Dietrich's most lasting contribution to film history was as the star of a series of six films directed by von Sternberg at Paramount between 1930 and 1935: Morocco, Dishonored, Shanghai Express, Blonde Venus, The Scarlet Empress, and The Devil is a Woman. Von Sternberg had seen potential in Dietrich that other German directors had missed (and which, even in retrospect, is not necessarily obvious even in The Blue Angel). In Hollywood he worked very effectively with Dietrich to create the image of a glamorous femme fatale. He encouraged her to lose weight and coached her intensively as an actress – she, in turn, was willing to trust him and follow his sometimes imperious direction in a way that a number of other performers resisted. A crucial part of the overall effect was created by von Sternberg's exceptional skill in lighting and photographing Dietrich to optimum effect — the use of light and shadow, including the impact of light passed through a veil or slatted blinds (as for example in Shanghai Express) — which, when combined with scrupulous attention to all aspects of set design and costumes, make this series of films among the most visually stylish in cinema history. Critics still debate vigorously how much of the credit belonged to von Sternberg and how much to Dietrich, but most would agree that neither consistently reached such heights again after Paramount fired von Sternberg and the two ceased to work together.
In 1941, the U.S. entered the World War II and Dietrich became one of the first celebrities to raise war bonds. She entertained troops on the front lines in a USO revue that included future TV pioneer Danny Thomas as her opening act. Dietrich was known to have strong political convictions and the mind to speak them. Like many Weimar era German entertainers, she was a staunch anti-Nazi who despised anti-Semitism.
Dietrich was awarded the Medal of Freedom by the U.S. Government for her war work. She was also made a chevalier (later commandeur) of the Légion d'Honneur by the French government.
Dietrich’s recording career spanned over half a century. Prior to international stardom, she recorded a duet, "Wenn die Beste Freundin", with Margo Lion. This song, with its lesbian overtones, was a hit in Berlin in 1928.
In 1953, Dietrich was offered a then-staggering $ 30 000 per week to appear live at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas. The show was short, consisting only of a few songs associated with her. Her daring sheer costumes, designed by Jean Louis, attracted a lot of publicity and attention. This engagement was so successful that she was signed to appear at the Cafė de Paris in London the following year, and her Las Vegas contracts were also renewed.
Bacharach left as Dietrich's conductor in 1964. She appeared on Broadway twice (1967 and 1968), winning a special Tony Award for her performance. Her costumes (body-hugging dresses covered with thousands of crystals as well as a swansdown coat), body-sculpting undergarments, careful stage lighting (by Joe Davis) and temporary mini-facelifts helped to preserve Dietrich's glamorous image well into old age.
Her only child, Maria Elisabeth Sieber, was born in Berlin on December 13, 1924. She would later become an actress, primarily working in television, known as Maria Riva. When Maria gave birth to a son in 1948, Dietrich was dubbed "the world's most glamorous grandmother". After Dietrich's death, Riva published a relatively critical memoir of her mother.
Marlene's picture also appears on the cover of The Beatles' iconic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover. She is just behind George Harrison.
Notable appearances include:
- Lux Radio Theater: The Legionnaire and the Lady opposite Clark Gable (1 August 1936)
- Lux Radio Theater: Desire opposite Herbert Marshall (22 July 1937)
- Lux Radio Theater: song of Songs opposite Douglas Fairbanks, Jr (20 December 1937)
- The Chase and Sanborn Program with Edgar Bergen and Don Ameche (2 June 1938)
- Lux Radio Theater: Manpower opposite Edward G Robinson and George Raft (15 March 1942)
- The Gulf Screen Guild Theater: Pittsburgh opposite John Wayne (12 April 1943)
- Theatre Guild on the Air: Grand Hotel opposite Ray Milland (24 March 1948)
- Studio One: Arabesque (29 June 1948)
- Theatre Guild on the Air: The Letter opposite Walter Pidgeon (3 October 1948)
- Ford Radio Theater: Madame Bovary opposite Claude Rains (8 October 1948)
- Screen Director's Playhouse: A Foreign Affair opposite Rosalind Russell and John Lund (5 March 1949)
- MGM Theatre of the Air: Anna Karenina (9 December 1949)
- MGM Theatre of the Air: Camille (6 June 1950)
- Lux Radio Theater: No Highway in the Sky opposite James stewart (21 April 1952)
- Screen Director's Playhouse: A Foreign Affair opposite Lucille Ball and John Lund (1 March 1951)
- The Big Show starring Tallullah Bankhead (2 October 1951)
- The Child, with Godfrey Kenton, radio play produced by Richard Imison for BBC on 18 August 1965 |
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Marlene Dietrich Quote(s)
| I had no desire to be a film actress, to always play somebody else, to be beautiful with somebody constantly straightening out your every eyelash. It was always a big bother to me. |
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