A number of stars become known by their Surname or Chrisian name alone. Marlene Dietrich is unique in being universally recognised by the use of either of her names.
She was the first German actress to become a major Hollywood star. After a successful career as a cabaret singer, chorus girl and film actress in 1920s Berlin, she became a World War II frontline entertainer during the 1940s, and finally a topline international stage show performer from the 1950s to the 1970s. In the process she became one of the entertainment icons of the 20th century. The American Film Institute ranked Dietrich No. 9 amongst the Greatest Female Stars of All Time.
Marlene became one of the major female stars of the 1930s, in such films as Song of Songs, The Scarlet Empress, Knight Without Armour and the 1939 Western satire, Destry Rides Again, with James Stewart. A series of disappointments -- The Lady Is Willing, The Spoilers, and Pittsburgh -- followed in the early 1940's, with Dietrich reportedly so disheartened with her work that she considered retirement.
During the early Nazi years, Joseph Goebbels offered to make her "The Queen" of German films if she made movies promoting Hitler, but she consistently refused. Instead, she mounted a series of lengthy tours entertaining wartime troops before returning to films in 1944's Follow the Boys, followed by Kismet.
Her show business career largely ended on September 29, 1975, when, apparently under the influence of drink, she fell and broke her leg during a stage performance in Australia.
She appeared briefly in the film, Just a Gigolo, in 1979, and wrote and contributed to several books during the 1980s.
Dietrich died peacefully of renal failure on May 6, 1992, at the age of 90 in Paris. A service was conducted at La Madeleine in Paris before 3,500 mourners and a crowd of well-wishers outside.
Click Here for Full Biography of Marlene
_03.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment