Gay Icons - The Divas: Marlene Dietrich

Today, we move on to a new series of portraits: the Gay Icons, the female singers and the divas of Hollywood that we most identified with. They were all larger than life. Some were bisexual - and some had close relationships with gay men, familial or otherwise, but all were hugely talented trailblazers - and rebels in one way or another. The lady currently under examination was one of the shiniest Glamour Queens of the 20th century.

Marlene Dietrich was undoubtedly a superstar of Hollywood's Golden Era - but she also was much more than that. By constantly reinventing herself, Dietrich stretched her career over sixty years becoming a pioneering star of radio, a medal-winning war hero, a top-flight international cabaret artist, a big-selling recording star and an icon for generations of gay people around the world. Marlene started her career as a chorus girl during the era of "divine decadence" in 1920s Weimar Berlin. The freewheeling approach to sexuality during that period suited her very well - she embraced the sexual liberation enthusiastically and never abandoned it through her long life. Her many lovers included men and women, and she never apologized or tried to hide her preferences. Famed as much for wearing men's clothes as being a femme fatale, Dietrich's cosmopolitan, sexually ambiguous and world-weary persona inspired many artists who followed. Madonna, Lady Gaga, Kylie Minogue and a thousand drag queens - they have all tried to channel Dietrich's special allure.

Dietrich was born on 27 December 1901 at Leberstraße 65 in the neighborhood of Rote Insel in Schöneberg, now a district of Berlin. Her mother, Wilhelmina Elisabeth Josephine (née Felsing), 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 1916, but he died soon afterwards from injuries sustained during the First World War. Von Losch never officially adopted the Dietrich girls, so Dietrich's surname was never von Losch, as has sometimes been claimed.

Her birth-name was Marie Magdalene. Her family called her "Lena" and "Lene" - and at age 11, she combined her two names to form the name "Marlene".

Growing up, Dietrich studied French and English at a private school. She also took violin lessons with the hopes of becoming a professional violinist. She was a promising violin student until she injured her hand and had to give up playing.

While in her late teens, Dietrich gave up music to explore acting. She attended Max Reinhardt's drama school and soon started to land small parts on stage and in German films. In 1923, Dietrich married Rudolf Sieber, a film professional who helped her land a part in Tragedy of Love (1923). The couple welcomed their only child, Maria, the following year. They later separated but never divorced.

Dietrich continued to work on stage and in film both in Berlin and Vienna throughout the 1920s. Her first recorded single came out in 1928. It was called Wenn die Beste Freundin, it was from the show Es Liegt in der Luft and also featured Margo Lion and Oskar Karlweiss:

Dietrich's career in Germany began to take off in the late 1920s. Making film history, she was cast in Germany's first talking picture, Der Blaue Engel (1930), by Hollywood director Josef von Sternberg. An English-language version, The Blue Angel, was also filmed using the same cast. With her sultry good looks and sophisticated manner, Dietrich was a natural for the role of Lola Lola, a nightclub dancer. The film follows the decline of a local professor who gives up everything to have a relationship with her character. A big hit, the film helped make Dietrich a star in the United States.

The classic Falling in Love Again appears on the English-language version of the film:

This is a later recording of the song (in 1939, with Victor Young and his Orchestra):

The German version of Falling in Love Again was called Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe Eingestellt. It appeared on the German-speaking version of Blue Angel:

Ich Bin Die Fesche Lola is another classic song from Blue Angel:

In April 1930, shortly after the premiere of Der Blaue Engel in Berlin, Dietrich moved to America. Again working with von Sternberg, Dietrich starred in Morocco (1930) with Gary Cooper. She played Amy Jolly, a lounge singer, who gets entangled in a love triangle with a member of the Foreign Legion (Cooper) and a wealthy playboy (Adolphe Menjou). For her work on the film, Dietrich received her one and only Academy Award nomination.

In Morocco, she sang Quand l'Amour Meurt:

This is the single version:

In 1931 she recorded Wenn Ich Mir Was Wünschen Dürfte. This is the original version, with the song's composer, Friedrich Hollaender on piano:

This is a re-recorded version, in 1960, arranged by Burt Bacharach:

Peter was another single, released in 1931:

On the B-Side, there was Jonny:

In 1932, she recorded Allein In Einer Grossen Stadt:

Assez came out in 1933:

Ja, So Bin Ich was another single from 1933:

Continuing to play the femme fatale, Dietrich challenged accepted notions of feminity. She often wore pants and more masculine fashions on- and off-screen, which added to her unique allure and created new trends. Dietrich made several more films with von Sternberg, including Dishonored (1931), Shanghai Express (1932) and The Scarlet Empress (1934), in which she played the famed member of Russian royalty, Catherine the Great. Their last film together was The Devil Is a Woman (1935) -reportedly her personal favorite film. Considered by many to be her most ultimate portrayal of a vamp, Dietrich played a cold-hearted temptress who captivates several men during the Spanish revolution. From The Devil Is a Woman, this is If It Isn't Pain (Then It Isn't Love). The song was considered too risqué and was edited out of the movie:

... And from the same movie, this is Three Sweethearts Have I:

From Desire (1936), this is Awake in a Dream:

Dietrich later softened her image somewhat by taking on lighter fare. Starring opposite Jimmy Stewart, she played a saloon gal in the western comedy Destry Rides Again (1939). Around this time, Dietrich also made several films with John Wayne, including Seven Sinners (1940), The Spoilers (1942) and Pittsburgh (1942). The two were said to have had a romantic relationship, which later turned into a strong friendship.

This is, You've Got that Look, from Destry Rides Again:

This is, I've Been In Love Before, from Seven Sinners:

This is, He Lied and I Listened, from Manpower (1941):

Here she is, as impressive as ever, in Kismet (1944):

In her personal life, Dietrich was a strong opponent of the Nazi government in Germany. She had been asked to return to Germany by people associated with Adolf Hitler in the late 1930s to make films there, but she turned them down. As a result, her films were banned in her native land. She made her new country her official home by becoming a US citizen in 1939. During World War II, Dietrich traveled extensively to entertain the Allied troops, singing such songs as Lili Marlene and others that would later become staples in her cabaret act. She also worked on war-bond drives and recorded anti-Nazi messages in German for broadcast. This is the classic Lili Marlene:

This is the original version, in German, sung by Lale Andersen:

After the war, Dietrich made several more successful films. Two films directed by Billy Wilder, A Foreign Affair (1948) and Witness for the Prosecution (1957) with Tyrone Power, were among the most notable from this period. She also turned in two strong supporting performances in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958) and Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg (1961).

From A Foreign Affair, this is Illusions. I'm sure that Amanda Lear has often heard this song, her phrasing is so similar:

In Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright (1950), she performed The Laziest Gal in Town:

In Fritz Lang's Rancho Notorious (1952), she performed Get Away Young Man:

In Witness for the Prosecution (1957), she performed I May Never Go Home Anymore:

This is a scene from Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). Her partner on this scene is Spencer Tracy:

From the early 1950s until the mid-1970s, Dietrich worked almost exclusively as a highly paid cabaret artist, performing live in large theatres in major cities worldwide. Also, in 1951 she released her first album, Marlene Dietrich Overseas. All the vocals were in German. From this album, here's Miss Otis Regrets:

Marlene and Rosemary Clooney were great friends. They met when they were guests on Tallulah Bankhead's radio show before Rosemary became a household name - and remained lifelong devoted girlfriends. Rosemary had commented that you never have seen a house cleaned until you witnessed Marlene Dietrich clean a house. When Rosemary was pregnant (which was often in the mid to late 1950s) and needed to stay in bed - Marlene would come to visit - dismiss the hired help - don an apron - and proceed to cook soup and other simple meals for the expectant Rosie. Marlene was a unique combination of German "hausfrau" (housewife) and world-famous, glamorous movie star. Rosemary had observed that friends were extremely important to Marlene - she would "walk the plank" for her friends!

In 1952, Marlene and Rosemary released Too Old to Cut the Mustard as a duet. It was Marlene's only single to make the US pop chart, peaking at #12:

A year later, the two of them released Besides (He's A Man):

In 1953, Dietrich was offered a then-substantial $30,000 per week to appear live at the Sahara Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. The show was short, consisting only of a few songs associated with her. Her daringly sheer "nude dress" - a heavily beaded evening gown of silk soufflé, which gave the illusion of transparency - designed by Jean Louis, attracted a lot of publicity. This engagement was so successful that she was signed to appear at the Café de Paris in London the following year; her Las Vegas contracts were also renewed.

Dietrich employed Burt Bacharach as her musical arranger starting in the mid-1950s; together, they refined her nightclub act into a more ambitious theatrical one-woman show with an expanded repertoire. Her repertoire included songs from her films as well as popular songs of the day. Bacharach's arrangements helped to disguise Dietrich's limited vocal range - she was a contralto - and allowed her to perform her songs to maximum dramatic effect; together, they recorded four albums and several singles between 1957 and 1964. In a TV interview in 1971, she credited Bacharach with giving her the "inspiration" to perform during those years. This is the 1971 interview, recorded in Copenhagen, Denmark for Swedish Television:

Bacharach then felt he needed to devote his full-time to songwriting. But she had also come to rely on him in order to perform, and wrote about his leaving in her memoir:

"From that fateful day on, I have worked like a robot, trying to recapture the wonderful woman he helped make out of me. I even succeeded in this effort for years, because I always thought of him, always longed for him, always looked for him in the wings, and always fought against self-pity... He had become so indispensable to me that, without him, I no longer took much joy in singing. When he left me, I felt like giving everything up. I had lost my director, my support, my teacher, my maestro."

Here are some of the songs that this fortuitous collaboration has produced: this is Near You:

... This is from the album Dietrich in Rio (1959). It's One for My Baby:

Marie - Marie is found in the album Wiedersehen mit Marlene (1960):

Her next album, Die Neue Marlene (1965), including a German version of Blowing In The Wind, called Die Antwort Weiß Ganz Allein Der Wind:

... as well as a German version of Where Have All The Flowers Gone?, called Sag Mir, Wo Die Blumen Sind:

A few months later, she released the album Marlene singt Berlin, Berlin. The album is Dietrich's homage to the city with which she's most often associated: Berlin. The design for the original cover was done by Marlene herself. Dietrich said this was her best album. Here are two songs together, Berlin, Berlin and Solang Noch Unter'n Linden:

This is Wo, Hast Du Denn Die Schönen Blauen Augen Her:

Her last film appearance came in 1978 and beside her was none other than David Bowie. Such an extraordinary combination! The film was Just a Gigolo. Here's a part of it, ending with Marlene singing Just a Gigolo:

By the mid-1970s, Dietrich had given up performing. She moved to Paris where she lived out the remainder of her life in near-seclusion. In the mid-1980s, she did provide some audio commentary for Maximillian Schell's documentary film on her, Marlene (1984), but she refused to appear on camera.

Dietrich died on May 6, 1992, in her Paris home. After her funeral, she was buried next to her mother in Berlin. Dietrich was survived by her daughter Maria and her four grandchildren.

Unlike her professional celebrity, which was carefully crafted and maintained, Dietrich's personal life was kept out of public view. She was fluent in German, English, and French. Dietrich, who was bisexual, quietly enjoyed the thriving gay scene of the time and the drag balls of 1920s Berlin. She also defied conventional gender roles through her boxing at Turkish trainer and prizefighter Sabri Mahir’s boxing studio in Berlin, which opened to women in the late 1920s. As Austrian writer Hedwig (Vicki) Baum recalls in her memoir, "I don't know how the feminine element sneaked into those masculine realms [the boxing studio], but in any case, only three or four of us were tough enough to go through with it (Marlene Dietrich was one)."

Throughout her career, Dietrich had an unending string of affairs, some short-lived, some lasting decades. They often overlapped and were almost all known to her husband, to whom she was in the habit of passing the love letters from her men, sometimes with biting comments. When Dietrich arrived in Hollywood and filmed Morocco (1930), she had an affair with Gary Cooper, even though he was already having an affair with Mexican actress Lupe Vélez. Vélez once said, "If I had the opportunity to do so, I would tear out Marlene Dietrich's eyes." Another of her famous affairs was with John Gilbert, famous for his alleged affair with Greta Garbo. Gilbert's untimely death was one of the most painful events of her life. Dietrich also had a brief affair with Douglas Fairbanks Jr., even though he was married to Joan Crawford. At the filming of Destry Rides Again, Dietrich started a love affair with co-star James Stewart, which ended after filming. In 1938, Dietrich met and began a relationship with writer Erich Maria Remarque, and in 1941, the French actor and military hero Jean Gabin. Their romance began when both were supporting the Allied troops in World War II. The relationship ended in the mid-1940s.

In the early 1940s, Dietrich also had an affair with John Wayne, her co-star in two films. Dietrich had a strong friendship with Orson Welles, who for her was a kind of platonic love and whom she considered a genius. She also had an affair with Cuban-American writer Mercedes de Acosta, who claimed to be Greta Garbo's lover. Sewing circle was a phrase used by Dietrich to describe the underground, closeted lesbian and bisexual film actresses and their relationships in Hollywood.

The names of other close friends are mentioned in the supposed "Marlene's Sewing Circle", such as Ann Warner (the wife of Jack L. Warner, one of the owners of the Warner studios), Lili Damita (an old friend of Marlene's from Berlin and the wife of Errol Flynn), Claudette Colbert, and Dolores del Río (whom Dietrich considered the most beautiful woman in Hollywood). The French singer Edith Piaf was also one of Dietrich's closest friends during her stay in Paris in the 1950s, and there were always rumors of something more than friendship between them.

The US Government awarded Dietrich the Medal of Freedom for her war work. Dietrich has been quoted as saying this was the honor of which she was most proud in her life. They also awarded her with the Operation Entertainment Medal. The French Government made her a Chevalier (later upgraded to Commandeur) of the Légion d'honneur and a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Her other awards include the Medallion of Honor of the State of Israel, the Fashion Foundation of America award and a Chevalier de l'Ordre de Leopold (Belgium). In 2002, the city of Berlin posthumously made her an honorary citizen.

I will close this presentation with an interview given to the British paper, The Observer, by Dietrich in 1960:

The murmur in the quiet hotel bar froze. Quite suddenly, in a few silent strides, Marlene Dietrich was there. She really is quite something. She was wearing a wild mink coat; a black Balenciaga dress embroidered, at the left breast, with the scarlet bar of the Légion d’honneur; a stiffened black tulle hat; white kid gloves; black patent leather pumps; and a black crocodile handbag. That's all. But the quality of her body gave the mink a luxury no advertiser could ever buy: the black dress was littler and subtler than volumes of Vogue could imply, and her single decoration was somehow more worldly and wicked than all the jewelry in Paris, London, and New York put together.

Unlike the sculptured image of films, in which only the voice moves, she is alert and friendly. Her face has got lines, luckily: two deep ones from nose to chin and several on the forehead. It is alive with warmth and humor. She ordered coffee and the waiter brought it and watched tenderly over the first mouthful: "I dress for the image," she announced. "Not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men. The image? A conglomerate of all the parts I've ever played on the screen. When I was in The Blue Angel people thought that was me: they really thought that was me!"

"If I dressed for myself I wouldn't bother at all. Clothes bore me. I'd wear jeans. I adore jeans. I get them in a public store - men's, of course; I can't wear women's trousers."

"I never go to a collection. It takes too long to pass. They know me now and they show me only the clothes that are mine. I never consider money when I order clothes. Before I had money? I don't remember."

"Yes, I have good taste. It must have been the influence of my mother because it has always come quite naturally. No one else has ever had any effect at all on my clothes. Of course, if I am with someone who I know wants to show me off, then I dress so that they can show me off. And I dress according to what I am doing - that is what taste is - and the country I am in. In Paris, you can be more crazy. New York is a practical place."

Her standards were hard to meet: they were nothing less than perfection. "Glamour," Dietrich once observed, "is assurance. It is a kind of knowing that you are all right in every way, mentally and physically and in appearance, and that, whatever the occasion or the situation, you are equal to it."

And that, my friends, was Marlene Dietrich...