Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich lived and loved with unconventional passion, enthralling men and women alike. Her Prussian bourgeois background shaped her, but so did the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Berlin in the 'Roaring Twenties'. Hollywood of the Depression years was shocked by her. America at war with Germany adored her. And Marlene in turn craved the adoration. When she saw her homeland again, it was no longer the country she remembered. The Germany she knew had died, killed by the Nazis and destroyed by Allied bombs.
She only returned permanently after her death: she is buried in a cemetery in her native Berlin. For the last years of her life, she was the 'floating Dietrich', living her life from day to day, in Paris or New York, in pursuit of money and her career, driven not by ambition, but perfectionism. Her public legend became so important to her that she spent her last decade in total seclusion, rather than allow her audiences to witness her decline. 'It makes no difference how she breaks your heart,' wrote her friend Ernest Hemingway, one of the few men with whom she didn't have an affair, 'if she is there to mend it'.
Fiche Technique
- ISBN-13 : 9781904341130
- Publisher : Haus Publishing
- Publication date : 01/02/2003
- Series : Life&Times Series
- Author : Melene Sheppard Skaerved, Malene Sheppard Skrved
Editorial Reviews
Publishers Weekly
Sk rved's snazzy little volume, part of Haus's Life & Times series, pays homage to the glamorous star of Shanghai Express and Destry Rides Again. Showing Dietrich (1901-1992) as a woman who had impeccable "control of her persona and career," the author presents a chronological view of the actress's life, from her German youth to her Hollywood successes. Pull-out quotes (printed in red) and intriguing tidbits about Dietrich's life add pizzazz and colorful details. Despite its slim, pocket-sized format, the work is comprehensive; Sk rved, who teaches screenwriting at London's Birkbeck College, paints a well-rounded portrait not only of the woman, but of the era in which she lived. Among the dramatic b&w and color photographs are images depicting the siren being showered with carnations after a 1963 Stockholm theater performance and of her donning a jacket and tie on her first Atlantic crossing in 1930.
Meet the Author
Teaches screenwriting at Birbeck college, and has collaborated on an opera with the British composer Paul Archbold. She has won many prizes for her short films.