“Darling, the legs aren’t so beautiful, I just know what to do with them.”

Marlene Dietrich was born Marie Magdalene Dietrich in 1901 in Berlin, Germany. When her father died in 1907, her mother remarried a good friend of Marlene’s father. As a child, Marlene studied the violin and became interested in theater and poetry as a teenager. Marlene’s ambitions of becoming a concert violinist were dashed when she injured her wrist.

In 1921, Marlene unsuccesfully auditioned for theater director Max Reinhardt’s drama academy but soon found herself working in his theaters as a chorus girl and in small extra roles in dramas, although without attracting any special attention at first. Dietrich made her film debut in a small role in the 1922 film, “So sind die Männer“. Marlene met her future husband, Rudolf Sieber, on the set of another film she made that year,“Tragödie der Liebe“. Throughout the 1920’s, Dietrich continued to act on stage in film both in Berlin and Vienna. Her stage roles varied in importance from roles in William Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew ” and George Bernard Shaw’s “Back to Methuselah“. However, it was Marlene’s appearances in musicals and revues such as “Broadway” and “Es Liegt in der Luft” where she garnered the most attention. In 1929, Marlene Dietrich landed the role of Lola-Lola in “The Blue Angel”, directed by Josef von Sternberg, who took credit for having “discovered” Dietrich as the film propelled her to stardom. On the strength of the film’s success and the fact that von Sternberg was already established in Hollywood, Dietrich then moved to the United States on contract to Paramount Pictures who sought to market her as a German answer to MGM’s Swedish actress, Greta Garbo. Dietrich’s appearance in her first American film, “Morocco”, also directed by von Sternberg earned her her only Oscar nomination. Dietrich starred in a further five films directed by von Sternberg between 1930 and 1935 including “Shanghai Express” and “The Devil is a Woman” which remain her most lasting contribution to film history. Dietrich and von Sternberg worked tirelessly and effectively in Hollywood to cultivate the image of Dietrich as a glamorous femme fatale.

After Paramount Pictures fired von Sternberg in 1936, Dietrich’s career took a turn for the worse and her 1937 film “Knight Without Armour” proved to be a very expensive flop. However, Dietrich made a comeback in 1939 when she starred in the western “Destry Rides Again” opposite James Stewart and in 1942, she played a similar role in “The Spoilers” opposite John Wayne. Although Dietrich never returned to her full former glory, she continued to appear in films working with distinguished directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles, in successful films that included “Touch of Evil” and “Judgment at Nuremberg”.

Dietrich stated in interviews that she had been approached by representatives of the Nazi Party to return to Germany which she vehemently refused and in 1939, Dietrich became an American citizen. When the U.S. entered World War II in 1941, Dietrich was one of the first celebrities to raise war bonds and entertained troops on the front line. Like many German entertainers of her era, Dietrich was known to be a staunch anti-Nazi who despised anti-semitism. Dietrich recorded several anti-Nazi records in German for the OSS, including the hit “Lili Marlene”, sang for the front lines in Algeria and France and despite the danger to herself, went into Germany with Generals James M. Gavin and George S. Patton. The U.S. Government later awarded Dietrich the Medal of Freedom for her war work which she said was the honor of which she was most proud in her life. She was also made a chevalier (later commandeur) of the Légion d’Honneur by the French government.

Dietrich had a smoky singing voice which she used to great effect in many of her films, records and later during her world-wide concert tours in a recording career which spanned over half a century. In 1930, Marlene recorded “Falling in Love Again (Can’t Help It)” for the first time which would become her theme song and forever identified with her, even though she hated the song. In the 1950’s, Dietrich signed with Columbia Records and produced the 1950 LP “Marlene Dietrich Overseas” where she sang German translations of American songs of the World War II era which was a huge hit. Marlene Dietrich and Rosemary Clooney, the singer, also recorded several duets together which appealed to a younger market.

From the early 1950’s until the mid-1970’s, Dietrich worked almost exclusively as a highly-paid cabaret artist, performing live in large theaters in major cities worldwide. In 1953, Dietrich was offered the then-substantial sum of $30,000 per week to appear live at the Sahara Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip in a short show which consisted solely of a few songs associated with her but her daring costumes attracted a lot of publicity and attention and the following year, her Las Vegas contracts were renewed and she was signed to appear at the “Cafe de Paris” in London the following year which was to be the start of a new phase in her career. In the mid 1950’s, Marlene signed Burt Bacharach to be her musical arranger and he transformed her show from a mere nightclub act to an ambitious one-woman show with an array of new material, including songs from her films and popular songs of the day.

In 1960, Marlene Dietrich returned to Germany for a concert tour where she received a mixed welcome. Many Germans felt that she had betrayed her homeland by her actions during World War II but she received a warm welcome from other Germans, including Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt. The tour was an artistic success but a financial failure. At the same time, Marlene also performed a tour in Israel where she was well-received anbroke the last unofficial taboo against the use of German in Israel by singing some songs in German including a German version of Pete Seeger’s anti-war anthem “Where Have All the Flowers Gone“. In 1967 and 1968, Dietrich appeared on Broadway, winning a Tony Award for her performance.

Unlike Dietrich’s professional life, she kept her personal life out of the public eye, even though it was known that she had been married and divorced once and had a daughter, Maria Sieber. Despite this, it was common knowledge that Dietrich had had many affairs with actors including Yul Brynner and Maurice Chevalier. Despite becoming an American citizen, Dietrich never integrated into the Hollywood entertainment industry,always remaining an outsider, although was considered a fashion icon to the top designers.

Marlene Dietrich’s show business career largely ended in September, 1975 when she btoke her leg while appearing on stage in Australia. She made a brief appearance in the film “Just a Gigolo” in 1979 and wrote several books during the 1980’s. Deitrich spent the majority of her last decade, bedridden in her apartment in Paris, where she was rarely seen in public but gained the reputation for being a prolific letter-writer and phone-caller. Contrary to common belief, Dietrich was still able to walk but preferred not to. Dietrich died of renal failure in May 1992 in Paris at the age of 90. Her body, covered with an American flag, was rerturned to Berlin where she was buried at the Städtischer Friedhof III, in Friedenau Cemetery, near her mother’s grave, not far from the house she was born in.

In 1992, a plaque was unveiled at Leberstraße 65 in Berlin-Schöneberg, Deitrich’s birthplace although after some controversy, it was decided not to name a street after her there, but in 1997, the Marlene Dietrich Platz was unveiled in Berlin to honor Dietrich and she was made an honorary citizen of Berlin in May, 2002.

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