Marlene Dietrich

"Marie Dietrich" redirects here. For the German soprano, see Marie Dietrich (soprano). For the Black Midi song, see Cavalcade (Black Midi album).

Marlene Dietrich
Dietrich in 1951
Born
Marie Magdalene Dietrich

(1901-12-27)27 December 1901
Berlin, Germany
Died6 May 1992(1992-05-06) (aged 90)
Paris, France
Resting placeStädtischer Friedhof III, Berlin, Germany
Citizenship
Occupations
  • Actress
  • singer
Years active1919–1984
Spouse
Rudolf Sieber
​
​
(m. 1923; died 1976)​
ChildrenMaria Riva
Relatives
Signature

Marie Magdalene "Marlene" Dietrich[4] (/mɑːrˈleɪnə ˈdiːtrɪx/, German: [maʁˈleːnə ˈdiːtʁɪç] ⓘ; 27 December 1901 – 6 May 1992)[5] was a German-born American actress and singer whose career spanned nearly 7 decades.[6]

In 1920s Berlin, Dietrich performed on the stage and in silent films. Her performance as Lola Lola in Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (1930) brought her international acclaim and a contract with Paramount Pictures. She starred in many Hollywood films, including six iconic roles directed by Sternberg: Morocco (1930) (her only Academy Award nomination), Dishonored (1931), Shanghai Express and Blonde Venus (both 1932), The Scarlet Empress (1934), The Devil Is a Woman (1935). She successfully traded on her glamorous persona and exotic looks, and became one of the era's highest-paid actresses. Throughout World War II, she was a high-profile entertainer in the United States. Although she delivered notable performances in several post-war films, including Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair (1948), Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright (1950), Billy Wilder's Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Orson Welles's Touch of Evil (1958), and Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), she spent most of the 1950s to the 1970s touring the world as a marquee live-show performer.

Dietrich was known for her humanitarian efforts during World War II, housing German and French exiles, providing financial support and even advocating their American citizenship. For her work on improving morale on the front lines during the war, she received several honors from the United States, France, Belgium, and Israel. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Dietrich the ninth greatest female screen legend of classic Hollywood cinema.[7]

  1. ^ "Marlene Dietrich to be US Citizen". Painesville Telegraph. 6 March 1937.
  2. ^ "Citizen Soon". Telegraph Herald. 10 March 1939.
  3. ^ "Seize Luggage of Marlene Dietrich". Lawrence Journal-World. 14 June 1939.
  4. ^ Born as Maria Magdalena, not Marie Magdalene, according to Dietrich's biography by her daughter, Maria Riva (Riva 1993); however, Dietrich's biography by Charlotte Chandler cites "Marie Magdalene" as her birth name (Chandler 2011, p. 12).
  5. ^ Flint, Peter B. (7 May 1992). "Marlene Dietrich, 90, Symbol of Glamour, Dies". The New York Times.
  6. ^ "Marlene Dietrich – The Ultimate Gay Icon » The Cinema Museum, London". The Cinema Museum, London. Archived from the original on 6 January 2018. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
  7. ^ "AFI's 50 Greatest American Screen Legends". American Film Institute. Retrieved 30 August 2014.