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marlene dietrich (dict)
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Marlene DietrichMarie Magdalene "Marlene" Dietrich (December 27, 1901 – May 6, 1992) was a German actress and singer. Born in Schneberg, Berlin, Dietrich played the violin before joining an acting school in 1921, making her film debut the following year. After playing in only German movies at first, she got her first role in the 1st European talking picture, The Blue Angel (1930; directed by Joseph von Sternberg) and then moved to Hollywood to make Morocco (for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress). Her most lasting contribution to film history was as the star in several films directed by Josef von Sternberg in the early 1930s, such as The Scarlet Empress and Shanghai Express, in which she played "femme fatales". She gradually broadened her repertoire in roles such as Destry Rides Again, A Foreign Affair, Witness for the Prosecution, Touch of Evil, and Judgment at Nuremberg. Dietrich sang in several of her films (most famously in von Sternberg's The Blue Angel, in which she sings "Falling In Love Again"), having made records in Germany in the 1920s. Following a slowdown in her film career, she made a number of records first for Decca, Elektrola, EMI, and for Columbia. From the 1950s to the mid-1970s Dietrich toured internationally as a successful cabaret performer. Her repertoire included songs from her films as well as popular songs of the day. Until the mid-1960s her musical director was pop composer Burt Bacharach. His arrangements helped to disguise Dietrich's limited vocal range and allowed her to perform her songs to maximum dramatic effect. Spectacular costumes (by Jean Louis), body-sculpting rubber undergarments, careful stage lighting, and, reportedly, gruesome mini-facelifts (achieved by weaving her hair into tight braids, pinning them tightly to her scalp with surgical needles, and then topping it all with sexy wigs) helped to preserve Dietrich's glamorous image well into old age. Her show business career largely ended, however, in 1974, when she broke her leg during a stage performance. She spent the last twelve years bed-ridden, in seclusion in her apartment in Paris. Her distinctive voice was later satirized, by Lotte Lenya, in the song Lieder by cult British trio Fascinating Ada. Madeline Kahn did the same in the Mel Brooks film "Blazing Saddles". Dietrich was known to have a strong set of political convictions and a mind to speak them. She was a staunch anti-Nazi who despised Germany's anti-semitic policies of the time. She sang for the Allied troops on the front lines in Algiers, France and into Germany with Generals Gavin and Patton. Her singing helped here too, as she recorded a number of anti-Nazi records in German for the OSS. Dietrich became an American citizen in 1937, raised a record number of War Bonds and entertained American troops during the Second World War. She is also famous for having recorded Lili Marleen during World War II, a curious example of a song transcending the hatreds of war. Dietrich was a fashion icon to the top designers as well as a screen icon whom later stars would follow. Her public image and some of her movies included strong sexual undertones, including bisexuality. Accordingly, it is no surprise that she had affairs with women (Mercedes de Acosta was among her lesbian lovers) as well as men. Unlike her professional celebrity, which was carefully crafted and maintained, Dietrich's personal life was kept out of public view. She married once, to director's assistant Rudolf Sieber, a director's assistant who later became a director at Paramount Pictures in France. Her only child, Maria Sieber, was born on Dec. 13, 1924. When Maria gave birth to a son in 1948, Dietrich was dubbed "the world's most glamorous grandmother." The great love of the actress's life, however, was the French actor and military hero Jean Gabin. As for her husband, he had a tragically unstable longterm mistress who looked a bit like and eventually believed herself to be Dietrich. Despite all of this, she was reportedly offered a king's ransom to return to Germany, due to her immense popularity as well as Hitler's ardour, which she declined. It is true that she quipped that she would return only when one of her Jewish friends (possibly Max Reinhardt) could accompany her. Dietrich died peacefully at the age of 90 in Paris, of general old-age. A service was conducted at La Madeline in Paris before 3,500 mourners and a crowd of well-wishers outside. Her body, covered with an American flag, was then returned to Berlin where she was interred in the Stdtischen Friedhof III, Berlin-Schneberg, Stubenrauchstrae 43-45. Cemetery. In 1994 her memoralilia were sold to the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek (after US insitutions showed no interest) where it became the core of the FilmMuseum Berlin in the Sony Center on Potsdamer Platz, Berlin. Filmography External links Dietrich, Marlene Dietrich, Marlene Dietrich, Marlene Dietrich, Marlene Dietrich, Marlene Dietrich, Marlene Dietrich, Marlene Dietrich, Marlene Dietrich, Marlene Dietrich, Marlene
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