Marlene Dietrich

Marie Magdalene “Marlene” Dietrich was a German and American actress and singer whose career stretched across nearly seven decades. She was born on 27 December 1901 in Schöneberg, now a district of Berlin, and grew up in a family marked by both comfort and war. Her mother came from an affluent Berlin family connected to a jewelry and clock-making firm, while her father was a police lieutenant who died in June 1916 during the First World War. As a girl, Dietrich was known as “Lena,” “Lene,” or “Leni,” and at about 11 she combined her first two names into “Marlene.”

Dietrich’s early interests were music, theater, and poetry. She studied the violin and once hoped to become a concert violinist, but a wrist injury ended that plan. By 1922 she had found work playing violin in a pit orchestra for silent films at a Berlin cinema, though the job lasted only four weeks. Soon she was appearing as a chorus girl in vaudeville-style entertainments and revues, and, after an unsuccessful audition for Max Reinhardt’s drama academy, she worked in his theaters in small roles and chorus parts.

During the 1920s, Dietrich built her career on Berlin and Vienna stages and in silent films. She appeared in plays by Frank Wedekind, William Shakespeare, and George Bernard Shaw, while musicals and revues brought her more attention. Her film debut was a small part in The Little Napoleon in 1923. That same year she met Rudolf Sieber on the set of Tragedy of Love, and they married in Berlin on 17 May 1923. Their daughter, Maria Elisabeth Sieber, was born on 13 December 1924.

Her breakthrough came as Lola Lola, the cabaret singer in Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel, released in 1930. The role brought her international acclaim, introduced her signature song “Falling in Love Again,” and led to a contract with Paramount Pictures in the United States. With von Sternberg, Dietrich shaped the screen image that made her famous: glamorous, mysterious, and self-possessed. Their Hollywood films included Morocco in 1930, which brought her only Academy Award nomination, followed by Dishonored, Shanghai Express, Blonde Venus, The Scarlet Empress, and The Devil Is a Woman.

Dietrich remained a high-profile entertainer in the United States during the Second World War. She also gave practical help to German and French exiles, housing them, offering financial support, and advocating for their American citizenship. For her work improving morale on the front lines, she received honors from the United States, France, Belgium, and Israel. After the war, she gave notable performances in films such as Billy Wilder’s A Foreign Affair and Witness for the Prosecution, Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright, Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil, and Stanley Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg.

From the 1950s into the 1970s, Dietrich spent much of her time touring the world as a marquee live-show performer. In 1999, the American Film Institute named her the ninth greatest female screen legend of classic Hollywood cinema. Her words still carry the poise and caution of someone who had lived in public, crossed countries and languages, and seen fame from close range. “Think twice before burdening a friend with a secret” sounds simple, but in Dietrich’s voice it feels practical, worldly, and kind.