56 Fun Facts About Marlene Dietrich

Dietrich was born in 1901 in which town, now the Berlin district where JFK gave his 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech?

Schöneberg was still a separate town outside Berlin in 1901. Though she moved to America in 1930 and died in Paris, she was buried back in Berlin, close to her mother's grave.

How did Dietrich arrive at the name Marlene?

She blended her two first names, Marie and Magdalene, at about the age of eleven. It is her later fame that made Marlene a popular name.

What was the profession of Dietrich's father?

Police lieutenant Louis Dietrich died while she was still a child; the jewellers and clockmakers were her mother's family, the Felsings. Her mother later married an army officer, who died of wounds from the First World War.

Which instrument did the young Dietrich study for a concert career until an inflamed tendon ended her training?

Violin studies in Weimar and Berlin stopped when the tendon trouble set in. She turned to the stage instead, starting out singing and dancing with a touring troupe of chorus girls.

Which theatre impresario's drama academy rejected Dietrich in 1922?

She began as a chorus girl and took small roles in his productions.

Whom did Dietrich marry in the 1920s and never divorce, though they lived apart for most of their lives?

Rudolf Sieber was the production assistant who cast her in a small part in Tragedy of Love in 1923; he ended up a chicken farmer in California's San Fernando Valley.

What was the name of Dietrich's cabaret-singer character in The Blue Angel (1930)?

Lola Lola made Dietrich a sensation almost overnight: straight after the film's Berlin premiere in the spring of 1930 she left Germany for America.

The novel behind The Blue Angel was written by the elder brother of which Nobel Prize-winning German novelist?

Thomas Mann's elder brother Heinrich wrote Professor Unrat in 1905 as a merciless caricature of a tyrannical schoolmaster; the film softens him into a tragic figure ruined by his love for a cabaret singer.

Which make of car, painted green, was waiting as a welcome gift when Dietrich reached Hollywood in 1930?

Rolls-Royce: Josef von Sternberg met her train with flowers and the green car, and it soon turned up on screen in the first film they made together in Hollywood.

What was Dietrich's signature song, introduced in The Blue Angel?

Falling in Love Again exists because the film was shot twice, in German and in English: in the German original she sings that she is made for love 'from head to toe'.

Which Hollywood studio signed Dietrich after The Blue Angel, hoping for a German answer to Greta Garbo?

Paramount promoted her so hard that she was a star in America before audiences there had seen The Blue Angel: the studio released her first Hollywood film ahead of the German one.

Which film earned Dietrich her only Academy Award nomination?

Morocco (1930), her first American film, earned four Oscar nominations and won none; its closing shot has her walk off into the dunes after Gary Cooper's legionnaire.

Morocco is famous for a scene in which Dietrich, in a man's tailcoat, does what?

She kisses another woman on the lips in exchange for a flower from the woman's hair, then tosses the flower to Gary Cooper's watching legionnaire.

Which actress, honoured on a US quarter in 2022, played Hui Fei alongside Dietrich in Shanghai Express?

Anna May Wong's Hui Fei, not Dietrich's heroine, is the one who kills the warlord holding the train's passengers hostage.

A production still from Dietrich's 1932 train film inspired the cover of which rock band's second album?

Queen almost vetoed the Queen II cover as too pretentious; photographer Mick Rock had modelled the shot on a still of Dietrich that a friend had given him.

Which Russian ruler did Dietrich play in The Scarlet Empress (1934)?

Catherine the Great arrives in Russia as a wide-eyed German princess and ends the film riding at the head of her troops up the palace stairs to seize her husband's throne.

In Blonde Venus, Dietrich sings 'Hot Voodoo' after emerging from what costume?

A gorilla suit is led on stage in chains by the chorus; then Dietrich peels herself out of the fur and starts to sing, catching the eye of Cary Grant's character in the audience.

Which Spanish-set film did Dietrich say showed her at her most beautiful?

The Devil Is a Woman so angered Spain's government that her studio withdrew the film and destroyed its master print.

Which producer made Dietrich's first colour film, The Garden of Allah (1936)?

David O. Selznick cast her as a wealthy woman who marries a stranger in the desert, only to learn that he is a monk who has run away from his monastery.

What label did American exhibitors pin on Dietrich in May 1938?

Box office poison stuck because of one line in a cinema owners' trade-paper advertisement, which called Dietrich poison at the box office; Garbo, Joan Crawford and Katharine Hepburn were on its list too.

Dietrich turned down lavish Nazi offers to return to German films and did what instead?

She applied for US citizenship and was sworn in in 1939; Goebbels had promised her top fees and a free choice of script, and after her refusal her films were banned in Germany.

Which 1939 Western comedy revived Dietrich's career as saloon singer Frenchy opposite James Stewart?

Destry Rides Again pitched her into a hair-pulling saloon brawl with Una Merkel, a long way from the remote, exotic women of her earlier films.

Which co-star appeared with Dietrich in both Seven Sinners (1940) and The Spoilers (1942)?

John Wayne ends The Spoilers in a furious saloon brawl with Randolph Scott, his rival for Dietrich's saloon owner.

In May 1992, the month Dietrich died, her face was on the official poster of which film festival?

Cannes had picked a still of her from Shanghai Express for its 1992 poster, so the festival opened the day after her death with her face already on billboards everywhere.

Which organisation sent Dietrich on two long tours to entertain Allied troops near the front in 1944 and 1945?

The USO tours took her from North Africa and Italy into Germany itself; asked why she risked her life so close to the fighting, she said 'aus Anstand', out of decency.

Which unusual instrument, mastered for the Berlin stage in the 1920s, did Dietrich play for troops in her wartime shows?

A carpenter's saw, played with a bow, was the comedy turn of shows she gave from the backs of trucks near the front, sleeping in dugouts and washing with snow like the soldiers.

Who taught Dietrich the 'mind-reading' act she used in her wartime revue?

Orson Welles taught it to her for his Mercury Wonder Show, a 1943 magic revue for servicemen; the two filmed part of their act for Follow the Boys, and she took the mind-reading routine to the front.

For which US agency did Dietrich record German songs, including 'Lili Marleen', in 1944?

The OSS, wartime forerunner of the CIA, beamed her recordings at German soldiers to sap their morale, and her 'Lili Marleen' became a favourite with them despite Nazi attempts to ban it.

Which US honour, awarded for entertaining troops in wartime, did Dietrich call her proudest accomplishment?

The Medal of Freedom was among the highest American awards open to civilians, and two generals had each put her name forward for it independently.

At which wartime club for servicemen, founded by Bette Davis and John Garfield, did Dietrich serve meals to soldiers?

The Hollywood Canteen fed and entertained servicemen for free with film stars as the staff; Dietrich was photographed there in 1942 dishing out food beside Rita Hayworth.

Which Alfred Hitchcock film of 1950 featured Dietrich?

Stage Fright cast her as a glamorous West End star who may have murdered her husband, while Jane Wyman's drama student goes undercover as her maid to find out.

Which crime writer's stage hit became Dietrich's 1957 courtroom film Witness for the Prosecution?

Agatha Christie had turned her own short story into the play; the film guards its twist so closely that a voice over the closing credits asks audiences not to give the ending away.

In which 1958 film noir, directed by a friend she considered a genius, did Dietrich appear?

Touch of Evil was a favour to a friend, who also plays its corrupt lawman: her fortune-teller reads his future and tells him it is all used up.

Which 1961 film gave Dietrich her last substantial screen role?

Judgment at Nuremberg cast the star who had spent the war entertaining Allied troops as the widow of an executed German general, defending her countrymen to Spencer Tracy's American judge.

Which composer became Dietrich's arranger and conductor in the mid-1950s and toured the world with her?

Burt Bacharach wrote songs between their tours and left in the 1960s to write full time; in her memoir she said that when he went she felt like giving everything up.

Which Pete Seeger song did Dietrich make a concert signature, singing it in English, French and German?

Where Have All the Flowers Gone? was among the songs she sang in German in Israel, breaking a post-war taboo on the language there; Israel later awarded her its Medallion of Valor.

What did Dietrich receive in 1968 after performing on Broadway?

She had performed on Broadway in 1967 and 1968.

Where did a fall on stage break Dietrich's thigh bone and effectively end her performing career?

Sydney, Australia saw her last live performance; after the fall she withdrew to her Paris flat and lived out her years as a recluse, refusing even to be filmed.

Which rock star headlined Just a Gigolo, Dietrich's final on-camera film appearance?

David Bowie played a Prussian war veteran reduced to working as a gigolo for Dietrich's baroness in 1920s Berlin; she sang the title song, and the reviews were dismal.

Which former co-star directed the documentary Marlene, for which Dietrich agreed to be heard but not seen?

Maximilian Schell was left with hours of tape in which she brushed off his questions, so he made the film from her voice alone, laid over clips from her career.

In 1933 the Paris police chief warned Dietrich she would be arrested if she arrived in the city wearing what?

Trousers: she stepped off the train in her most mannish suit anyway, with a beret and sunglasses, and no arrest followed.

For her dance in the Arabian Nights fantasy Kismet (1944), what were Dietrich's famous legs covered in?

Gold paint was the emergency fix: the costume of fine gold chains made for the dance kept snapping when she moved, so her legs were given four coats of paint instead.

Which Madonna hit of 1990 names Dietrich in its spoken roll call of golden-age Hollywood stars?

Vogue pairs her with Joe DiMaggio in a list of the golden-age stars Madonna admires; Madonna has also taken her cue from Dietrich's habit of performing in a man's suit.

Which country's colours draped Dietrich's coffin at her funeral at La Madeleine?

France's tricolour covered the coffin of a German-born American; the priest told the mourners she had lived like a soldier and would have liked to be buried like one.

Which French singer chose Dietrich as matron of honour at her 1952 wedding?

Édith Piaf married the singer Jacques Pills with Dietrich at her side; the two women were so close that the Smithsonian's Dietrich exhibition counts Piaf among her lovers.

In Dishonored (1931), Dietrich plays a First World War spy modelled loosely on which real woman?

Mata Hari's fate is her character's too: condemned as agent X-27, she calmly touches up her lipstick in front of the firing squad. Greta Garbo played the real spy for MGM later the same year.

Which exiled German writer began an affair with Dietrich in the late 1930s?

Erich Maria Remarque later put her face into his novel Arch of Triumph, calling it 'a beautiful empty house waiting for carpets and pictures'; his love letters to her were later published.

What phrase did Dietrich use for Hollywood's discreet network of lesbian and bisexual actresses?

Sewing circle was discreet Hollywood code for women who loved women; it is often credited to the silent star Alla Nazimova, but Dietrich made it the name of her own set.

Which band shared the bill with Dietrich at London's Royal Variety Performance in 1963?

The Beatles stole the night when John Lennon asked the expensive seats to rattle their jewellery; Ringo Starr's memory of meeting Dietrich that night was of staring at her famous legs.

Which Oscar-winning actor played the doomed Professor Rath opposite Dietrich in The Blue Angel?

Emil Jannings was the film's star and had asked for its director himself, but he grew so jealous of the attention paid to Dietrich that he threatened to walk out.

Which singer-songwriter's 1985 single 'Marlene on the Wall' was inspired by a poster of Dietrich on her wall?

Suzanne Vega really did have the poster: for her first single she imagined it had eyes that could see, and wondered what advice Dietrich would give her.

In which all-star 1956 blockbuster does Dietrich turn up for a brief cameo?

Around the World in 80 Days stops at a Barbary Coast saloon where Dietrich is the hostess, George Raft the bouncer and Frank Sinatra the piano player.

Who wrote the candid biography of Dietrich published a few months after her death in 1992?

Her daughter, Maria Riva, had managed her mother's stage tours for years; of the unsparing book she said, 'I consider myself a biographer, not the daughter.'

Why did Dietrich reportedly miss an Oscar nomination for her 1957 courtroom thriller?

The studio hid her disguised second role, a Cockney woman who sells the defence a bundle of letters, to protect the twist ending; rumours that another actress had played the part did the rest.

After the war Dietrich wrote which relative, who had run a business serving Belsen's camp staff, out of her life story?

Her sister Elisabeth was found at Belsen in 1945; Dietrich at first defended her against charges of collaboration, then cut her from every account of her life and claimed to be an only child.

Which RuPaul's Drag Race winner, who calls Dietrich a major influence, drew the Google Doodle for her birthday in 2017?

Sasha Velour drew her mid-performance in top hat and tails, praising a star who 'followed her own course, especially in terms of politics and gender'.