Marlene Dietrich Biography Quotes 33 Report mistakes

Early Life
Marlene Dietrich was born Marie Magdalene Dietrich on December 27, 1901, in Schoneberg, then a suburb of Berlin. Her father, Louis Erich Otto Dietrich, was a police officer; her mother, Wilhelmine Elisabeth Josephine Felsing, came from a family of jewelers. After her father died, her mother married Eduard von Losch, whose surname appeared on some early documents but did not change the path she would take. A gifted violin student, she initially envisioned a musical career, but a wrist injury and the pull of the stage led her toward acting. She studied and performed in Berlin, including work associated with Max Reinhardt's circle, and took small roles in theater and silent films throughout the 1920s.

Breakthrough and Hollywood
Dietrich's international breakthrough came with Der blaue Engel (The Blue Angel, 1930), directed by Josef von Sternberg and co-starring Emil Jannings. As Lola-Lola, singing "Falling in Love Again" (by composer Friedrich Hollaender), she crystallized an enigmatic, alluring persona. Von Sternberg brought her to Hollywood, where their collaboration continued at Paramount: Morocco (1930) with Gary Cooper, Shanghai Express (1932) alongside Anna May Wong, Blonde Venus (1932), The Scarlet Empress (1934), and The Devil Is a Woman (1935). Von Sternberg's lighting and framing, and Dietrich's precise control of gesture and voice, forged one of cinema's defining star-director partnerships, crafting an image both glamorous and subversively modern.

Screen Image and Style
Dietrich's cool, knowing gaze; sculpted cheekbones; and sensual contralto became signatures. She wore tuxedos and men's tailoring on and off screen, as in Morocco, challenging gender codes and expanding Hollywood's vocabulary of desire. Her wit and detachment kept sentimentality at bay, while her musical numbers, delivered with disciplined restraint, created an atmosphere of intimacy. The combination made her a style icon and a touchstone for later performers who explored androgyny and cabaret aesthetics.

Career Challenges and Reinvention
By the mid-1930s her films faltered at the box office, and exhibitors labeled her "poison". She reinvented herself with Destry Rides Again (1939), opposite James Stewart and under director George Marshall, adding comic toughness to her mystique. The song "See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have" renewed her status as a musical star. She also made Seven Sinners (1940) with John Wayne, showing her knack for mixing insolence and vulnerability in popular genres.

War Years and Political Stance
Dietrich decisively rejected Nazism. Despite overtures from Joseph Goebbels to return to Germany, she became an American citizen in 1939 and supported the Allied cause. During World War II she sold war bonds, recorded anti-Nazi messages, and, crucially, toured with the USO and the U.S. military close to front lines in North Africa and Europe, often performing "Lili Marleen" in both English and German. Her appearances carried moral and symbolic weight, and after the war she received the U.S. Medal of Freedom. France also honored her with the Legion d'honneur for her contributions.

Postwar Film Work
After 1945 Dietrich worked with a new generation of directors. With Billy Wilder she starred in A Foreign Affair (1948), navigating postwar Berlin's ruins with sardonic elegance, and later in Witness for the Prosecution (1957) opposite Tyrone Power and Charles Laughton. Alfred Hitchcock cast her in Stage Fright (1950), where her performance played with the boundary between stage illusion and truth. She made Rancho Notorious (1952) with Fritz Lang and delivered a haunting cameo for Orson Welles in Touch of Evil (1958). In Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), directed by Stanley Kramer and featuring Spencer Tracy, she provided a quiet, grave counterpoint as a German widow reckoning with guilt.

Concert and Recording Career
From the mid-1950s she transformed into a global concert headliner. With Burt Bacharach as arranger and musical director for key years, she refined a minimalist act: top hat and white tie or a shimmering gown, a single microphone, and songs rendered with crystalline phrasing. She reinterpreted standards, cabaret pieces, and wartime repertoire, making restraint a dramatic instrument. The act toured Europe, the Americas, and beyond, captured on best-selling live recordings and television specials, and influenced later cabaret artists.

Personal Life
Dietrich married Rudolf Sieber in 1923. Though they often lived apart, the marriage endured legally, and they had one daughter, Maria Riva, who later became an actress and writer and offered detailed recollections of her mother's working methods and private discipline. Dietrich's circle included filmmakers and writers such as Josef von Sternberg, Billy Wilder, and Ernest Hemingway, as well as the French actor Jean Gabin, with whom she had a significant wartime relationship. Colleagues often remarked on her professionalism, logistical savvy on tour, and careful cultivation of her image.

Later Years and Final Works
Dietrich appeared sparingly on screen after the 1960s. She had a brief role in Just a Gigolo (1978) with David Bowie, a fitting meeting of icons across eras. A fall and accumulating injuries curtailed her stage appearances. From the early 1980s she lived largely reclusively in her Paris apartment, maintaining friendships by telephone. She collaborated with actor-director Maximilian Schell on the documentary Marlene (1984), participating only by voice, which preserved her mystique while letting her challenge and shape her legend.

Death and Legacy
Marlene Dietrich died in Paris on May 6, 1992, and was buried in Berlin near her mother. Berlin later commemorated her with a central square bearing her name, a civic acknowledgment of a complex relationship with her birthplace. Her legacy rests on a handful of indelible films with Josef von Sternberg and a concert career that distilled presence to its essentials. As an artist who rejected tyranny, reinvented herself across mediums, and reimagined femininity and performance, she influenced filmmakers, musicians, and fashion designers for generations, remaining a fixed point in the constellation of 20th-century culture.

Our collection contains 33 quotes who is written by Marlene, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Wisdom - Truth - Friendship - Love.

Other people realated to Marlene: Coco Chanel (Designer), Cesar Romero (Actor)