MARLENE DIETRICH

 

“It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily.”

Marlene Dietrich, SHANGHAI EXPRESS

 

Indeed.

 

Marlene Dietrich lived … truly lived.

 

Berlin, the 1920s. Before Christopher Isherwood brought Sally Bowles to life in the pages of Berlin Stories, before Kander & Ebb put her to music in Cabaret, Marlene Dietrich lived it -- she was a cabaret performer in Berlin. Among her Berlin colleagues during that legendary decade: Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch, and Joseph Von Sternberg.

 

Dietrich also made half-a-dozen silent films, and by the time the decade had closed, she was a popular film star in Germany. Moving to Hollywood, she became an immediate presence in the U. S. with the 1930 release of the deliriously romantic Morocco. Dietrich’s scenes opposite Gary Cooper, deftly challenging gender roles, are riveting, still erotically charged.

 

Dietrich continued to challenge conventions and expand her repertoire of strong women throughout the thirties, in such films as: Shanghai Express, Dishonored, Desire, Garden Of Allah, Blonde Venus, and ,Destry Rides Again.

 

Among her leading men, in addition to Cooper, were Cary Grant, Charles Boyer, James Stewart, and Robert Donat.

 

By the time America entered WW II in 1941, Dietrich had long been an outspoken and vociferous opponent of Hitler and Nazi Germany, unlike many in the Hollywood community. Her work on behalf of the allies during the war years – getting refugees out of Germany, working with the OSS, troop appearances in Europe, including the Battle of the Bulge! -- is worth a film in itself.

 

Moving to New York after the war, Dietrich cut back on her film work. She even began performing a solo act in Las Vegas. Eventually, she would bring her one-woman act to Broadway, for a sold-out run. And though her film output was considerably less than during her pre-war years, Dietrich continued to work with some of the best directors -- Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Orson Welles, and Fritz Lang.

 

But it wasn’t until1961 that Marlene Dietrich took on the most emotionally wrenching part of her entire career, in Stanley Kramer’s Judgment At Nuremberg.

 

This Sunday night, Aug. 19, at 8 pm ET, on ICONS Radio Hour, Marlene Dietrich’s grandson, Peter Riva, discusses her career in front of -- and beyond – the camera. He also elaborates on her long friendship with Ernest Hemingway. Riva offers a revealing portrait of a complex woman, passionate about her art and passionate about life.