60 Fun Facts About Marlene Dietrich

In which Berlin district was Marlene Dietrich born in 1901?

She was buried near her mother in the same district in 1992.

How did Dietrich arrive at the name Marlene?

She did it aged about 11; the family called her Lena or Leni.

What was the profession of Dietrich's father?

Her mother's family owned a Berlin jewellery and clock-making firm.

Which instrument did the young Dietrich study, hoping for a concert career until a wrist injury intervened?

By 1922 she was playing it in a cinema pit orchestra for silent films, and was fired after four weeks.

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 Berlin in May 1923, remaining married to him until his death in 1976?

They met on the set of Tragedy of Love; their daughter Maria was born in December 1924.

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

She brings about the ruin of a respectable schoolmaster played by Emil Jannings.

The Blue Angel was based on Professor Unrat, a 1905 novel by which German author?

The novel's title means 'Professor Filth'.

Which director of The Blue Angel and six Dietrich Hollywood films claimed to have 'discovered' her?

He welcomed her to Hollywood with a green Rolls-Royce Phantom II that appeared in their first US film.

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

Friedrich Hollaender wrote it as 'Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt'.

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

It was the US distributor of The Blue Angel.

Which film earned Dietrich her only Academy Award nomination?

She played a cabaret singer opposite Gary Cooper.

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

Both the costume and the kiss were considered scandalous in 1930.

What was Dietrich's character name in her 1932 film set aboard a train from Peiping?

'It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily,' she tells her old flame.

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

The Queen II pose was reused in the 'Bohemian Rhapsody' video.

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

It was one of the last, and least profitable, of her collaborations with von Sternberg.

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

Cary Grant played the wealthy politician who notices her.

Which film did Dietrich say showed her at her most beautiful?

It was the most stylised of the von Sternberg films and one of the lowest-grossing.

Which producer paid Dietrich $200,000 for her first colour film, The Garden of Allah (1936)?

Korda then paid her $450,000 for Knight Without Armour, making her one of the best-paid stars in the world.

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

She shared the tag with Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, Mae West and Fred Astaire.

What was Dietrich's response when Nazi officials offered her lucrative contracts to return to Germany?

She became an American citizen in 1939 and renounced her German citizenship.

Which 1939 Western comedy revived Dietrich's career as saloon girl Frenchie opposite James Stewart?

Her song 'See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have' became a hit.

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

She played bawdy types similar to Frenchie in both.

What did Dietrich do with her entire $450,000 salary from Knight Without Armour in 1937?

With Billy Wilder and other exiles she had set up a fund to help Jews and dissidents escape.

What was Dietrich's two-word German answer when asked why she performed so close to the front lines?

Billy Wilder said she was at the front more than Eisenhower.

Which unusual instrument, learned from Igo Sym in 1920s Berlin, did Dietrich play in her wartime shows?

She also did a comic mind-reading routine in the same shows.

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

It came from his Mercury Wonder Show; she would tell a soldier, 'Oh, think of something else. I can't possibly talk about that!'

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

The Musak project aimed to demoralise enemy soldiers; she was the only performer told what the recordings were for.

Which US honour, received in 1947 for entertaining troops, did Dietrich call her proudest accomplishment?

She also received the Légion d'honneur for the same work.

Which two generals did Dietrich accompany into Germany at the end of her 1944–45 USO tours?

She had already performed in Algeria, Italy, the UK and the Netherlands.

Which Alfred Hitchcock film of 1950 featured Dietrich?

She and Jane Wyman were the only non-British members of the cast.

Which Christie courtroom drama did Billy Wilder film in 1957 with Dietrich, Power and Laughton?

It is set in London's Old Bailey.

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

She appeared for union scale without screen credit.

What was Dietrich's last substantial film role, in 1961?

Stanley Kramer directed an all-star cast including Spencer Tracy and Judy Garland.

How much per week was Dietrich offered in 1953 to appear live at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas?

Her sheer 'nude dress' by Jean Louis drew as much attention as the songs.

Which composer became Dietrich's arranger in the mid-1950s and, she said, her 'inspiration'?

His arrangements disguised her limited contralto range; when he left she felt like giving everything up.

What did protesters chant during Dietrich's 1960 concerts at Berlin's Titania Palast?

Mayor Willy Brandt, another anti-Nazi exile, welcomed her warmly, but she left resolving never to return.

Which Pete Seeger song did Dietrich sing in German in Israel from 1962, breaking an unofficial taboo?

In 1965 she became the first woman and first German to receive the Israeli Medallion of Valor.

What did Dietrich receive in 1968 after performing on Broadway?

She had performed on Broadway in 1967 and 1968.

Where did Dietrich fall on stage and break a thigh bone in September 1975, effectively ending her career?

She had already survived cervical cancer and a 1973 stage fall in Maryland.

Which rock star headlined Just a Gigolo (1978), Dietrich's final on-camera film appearance?

She sang the title song; David Hemmings directed.

Which former co-star directed the 1984 documentary Marlene, for which she gave only her voice?

It earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary.

At what Paris address did Dietrich spend her final, mostly bedridden 13 years?

She kept up with world leaders by phone, running up bills of over $3,000 a month.

Which three world leaders did her family say Dietrich phoned in her last years?

In 1990 she also lobbied on radio to save the Babelsberg Studios.

Dietrich died in Paris on 6 May 1992 at what age?

Kidney failure was the cause; her funeral at La Madeleine drew 1,500 mourners inside and thousands outside.

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

For the burial in her home city the coffin was re-draped in the American flag, befitting her citizenship.

For how much did Dietrich's heirs sell her estate to the city of Berlin in 1993?

The Marlene Dietrich Collection became the core of the Filmmuseum Berlin's exhibition.

Where did the American Film Institute rank Dietrich among female screen legends in 1999?

Her career spanned nearly seven decades.

Which two writers, in 1938 and 1941, did Dietrich begin relationships with?

She had earlier had an affair with Mercedes de Acosta, who claimed also to be Garbo's lover.

What phrase did Dietrich coin for Hollywood's closeted lesbian and bisexual actresses?

She herself was openly bisexual and enjoyed Berlin's drag balls in the 1920s.

Berlin made Dietrich an honorary citizen in which year, a decade after her death?

Marlene-Dietrich-Platz had been unveiled in the city in 1997.

Who wrote the poem 'Lili Marleen', which Dietrich made famous, in 1915?

Norbert Schultze set it to music in 1938 and Lale Andersen first recorded it in 1939.

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

It was his first sound film; he grew jealous of the closeness between Sternberg and Dietrich and threatened to quit.

Who composed 'Falling in Love Again' and the other songs Dietrich sings in The Blue Angel?

The German title is 'Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt'; the film was shot simultaneously in German and English versions.

Which singer did producer Erich Pommer want for Lola before Sternberg vetoed her?

Sternberg also rejected Heinrich Mann's actress girlfriend Trude Hesterberg, and Brigitte Helm was unavailable.

Which UFA owner tried to block The Blue Angel's premiere over the novelist's politics?

Heinrich Mann issued a statement distancing his anti-bourgeois critique from Sternberg's more sympathetic professor; the film cost a hefty $500,000.

Why did Dietrich reportedly miss an Oscar nomination for Witness for the Prosecution?

Wilder kept the last ten script pages from the cast until shooting, and United Artists would not publicise that the Cockney woman was Dietrich.

What is the nightclub in Witness for the Prosecution called, nodding to her 1930 hit?

The flashback brawl scene, in which a customer rips her trademark trousers, needed 145 extras and 38 stuntmen and cost $90,000.

Which actress was considered for Dietrich's role of Christine Vole in Witness for the Prosecution?

Charles Laughton based his monocle-twirling barrister on his own lawyer, Florance Guedella.

Who won a Golden Globe for Witness for the Prosecution, the film's only win from five nominations?

She played Nurse Plimsoll; the film also earned six Oscar nominations including Best Picture, and Agatha Christie called it the finest film from any of her stories.