Actors - Marlene Dietrich

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	Actors - Marlene Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich (December 27, 1901 – May 6, 1992) was a German-American actress, entertainer and singer.

Early life

Born Marie Magdalene Dietrich or Maria Magdalena Dietrich in Berlin-Schöneberg, Germany to Louis Erich Otto Dietrich and Wilhelmina Elisabeth Josephine Felsing, Marlene played the violin before joining Max Reinhardt's acting school in 1921, making her official film debut two years later (although historians insist that Dietrich actually appeared as an extra in a 1919 German film).

After acting in only German movies at first (while also dancing as a chorus girl in cabarets and in stage plays), she got her first role in the first European talking picture, The Blue Angel
(1930), directed by Josef von Sternberg.

Hollywood

She then moved to Hollywood to make Morocco
, for which she received her only Oscar nomination. Her most lasting contribution to film history was as the star in several films directed by von Sternberg in the pre-Code early 1930s, such as The Scarlet Empress and Shanghai Express, in which she played "femmes fatale". She gradually broadened her repertoire in Destry Rides Again
, A Foreign Affair
, Witness for the Prosecution
, Touch of Evil
and Judgment at Nuremberg
.

The singer

Dietrich sang in several of her films (most famously in von Sternberg's The Blue Angel, in which she sings "Falling In Love Again"("Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuss auf Liebe eingestellt"), 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. Her distinctive voice was later satirized, by Lotte Lenya, in the song Lieder by cult British trio Fascinating Aïda. Madeline Kahn did the same in the Mel Brooks classic Blazing Saddles
.

World War II

In 1937, while her film career stalled, Dietrich became an American citizen. In 1941 the U.S. entered the Second World War 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. She was a staunch anti-Nazi who despised Germany's anti-Semitic policies of the time.

Her singing helped on the homefront of the U.S.A too, as she recorded a number of anti-Nazi records in German for the OSS, including Lili Marleen, a curious example of a song transcending the hatreds of war. She also played the musical saw to entertain troops. She sang for the Allied troops on the front lines in Algiers, France and into Germany with Generals James M. Gavin and George S. Patton. When asked why she had done this, in spite of the obvious danger of being within a few kilometers of German lines, she famously replied "aus Anstand" – "it was the decent thing to do".

Personal life

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 Roman Catholic who later became a director at Paramount Pictures in France.

Her only child, Maria Sieber (married name Maria Riva), was born on December 13, 1924. When Maria Riva 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.

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