The Kaiserreich Wiki
Advertisement

Marlene Dietrich is an internationally famous German actress and singer. She is Germany's biggest female movie star.

Biography[]

Dietrich was born on 27 December 1901 at Leberstraße 65 in the neighborhood of Rote Insel in Schöneberg, Berlin. Her mother, Wilhelmina Elisabeth Josefine, was from an affluent Berlin family who owned a jewelry and clock-making firm. Her father, Louis Erich Otto Dietrich, was a police lieutenant. Dietrich had one sibling, Elisabeth, who was one year older. Dietrich's father died in 1907. His best friend, Eduard von Losch, an aristocratic first lieutenant in the Grenadiers, courted Wilhelmina and married her in 1914, but he died in July 1916 from injuries sustained during the Weltkrieg. Von Losch never officially adopted the Dietrich sisters, so Dietrich's surname was never von Losch.

Dietrich's family nicknamed her "Lena", "Lene", or "Leni". Aged about 11, she combined her first two names to form the name "Marlene". Dietrich attended the Auguste-Viktoria Girls' School from 1907 to 1917 and graduated from the Victoria-Luise-Schule in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, in 1918. She studied the violin and became interested in theater and poetry as a teenager. A wrist injury curtailed her dreams of becoming a concert violinist, but by 1922 she had her first job, playing violin in a pit orchestra for silent films at a Berlin cinema. She was fired after only four weeks.

Morocco Marlene Dietrich

On one of her later film's Dietrich crossdresses as a man with a top-hat, it quickly became her iconic look.

Afterward's Dietrich acted in various theatre production's and minor movies. Throughout the 20s she portrayed minor roles in German movies. After Dietrich landed her breakthough role in the late 20s she became a world wide star, subsequently appearing in major roles in many German and American movies. Her famous songs along with her glamorous and mysterious femme fatale persona enthralled audiences and she quickly became the darling of German tabloid magazine's. Currently Dietrich is one of the biggest movie star's in the world, not to mention Germany. Her next film: Metropolis, which will be released and is directed by the famous Leni Riefenstahl, will include her typical co-star, Hans Albers.


Advertisement