Marlene Dietrich.

Marie Magdalene Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich — Actor

Born 27 Dec 1901 Schöneberg, Germany

Died 6 May 1992 Paris, France

Citizenship Germany

Would Be 124 yr If Living

14 min read

Reading time

2,733

Words

Mar 1, 2026

Published

81

Film credits

5

Books

13

Awards

TL;DR

Playing Lola Lola in The Blue Angel 1930 launched Marlene Dietrich’s career; she became one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actresses. She made a comeback in Destry Rides Again 1939 opposite James Stewart and earned acclaim in Witness for the Prosecution 1957. Dietrich toured for the Allied war effort, receiving the Medal of Freedom in 1947. She spent her final years in seclusion in Paris.

Identity & family.

KIN · 4

Names, aliases, and relatives of Marlene Dietrich — birth name, kin, and personal ties.

Birth Name Marie Magdalene Dietrich

Nicknames Lili Marlene

Aliases Marlena Dietrichová, Maria Magdalene Sieber

PARENTS: Wilhelmina Elisabeth Joséphine Felsing Louis Erich Otto Dietrich
SPOUSES: Rudolf Sieber
CHILDREN: Maria Riva

At a glance.

STATS

Marlene Dietrich by the numbers — life, work, and family.

90 Years lived

81 Film credits

5 Books

13 Awards

1 Marriage

1 Child

Who was Marlene Dietrich?

BIOGRAPHY

Marlene Dietrich — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.

Early life

On December 27, 1901, Marie Magdalene Dietrich, later Marlene Dietrich, was born in Schöneberg, now part of Berlin. Her father Louis Erich Otto Dietrich, a police lieutenant, died after falling from a horse when she was ten. Her mother remarried to Colonel Eduard von Losch, who was killed in WWI. She attended the Goethe Gymnasium and later studied at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar and the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts. Initially trained as a violinist, an injury led her to acting. She began performing in Berlin cabarets in the 1920s.

Career

Josef von Sternberg discovered Dietrich in a Berlin cabaret in 1929 and cast her as the cabaret singer Lola Lola in The Blue Angel 1930. The film was a sensation; von Sternberg brought her to Hollywood, where she starred in Morocco 1930. They made a series of films together, and she became the highest-paid actress of her time. Mid-1930s projects faltered critically and commercially. She returned to Europe and then made a comeback in Destry Rides Again 1939, playing a saloon singer opposite James Stewart. During World War II, she toured for Allied troops and became a United States citizen on March 6, 1937. After the war, she limited film work but found a new career as a stage performer in Las Vegas and on Broadway, winning a Special Tony Award in 1968.

Personal life

Marlene Dietrich married Rudolf Sieber in 1923; though they lived together only the first five years, they remained married until his death in 1976. Her only child, daughter Maria Riva, was born on December 13, 1924. She had affairs, including with co-star James Stewart which resulted in a pregnancy she terminated, and members of the Kennedy family. She became a U.S. citizen in 1937. For her last decade she lived in seclusion in her Paris apartment on the avenue Montaigne, bedridden for the final 12 years but maintaining telephone and correspondence contact with friends.

Legacy

AFI ranked Marlene Dietrich #9 on its 50 Greatest Screen Legends list, and she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Four of her films are preserved in the National Film Registry: Morocco from 1930, Destry Rides Again from 1939, Touch of Evil from 1958, and Judgment at Nuremberg from 1961. In 2002, Berlin made her an honorary citizen, reconciling after decades of estrangement.

Filmography.

FILMS · 81

Browse the complete filmography of Marlene Dietrich — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.

TV

Tony Awards

1956
TV

Ally McBeal

1997
Movie

Witness for the Prosecution

1957
Movie

Judgment at Nuremberg

1961
Movie

Around the World in 80 Days

1956
Movie

The Blue Angel

1930
Movie

Paris When It Sizzles

1964
Movie

The Spoilers

1942
Movie

Stage Fright

1950
Movie

Shanghai Express

1932
Movie

Morocco

1930
Movie

Destry Rides Again

1939
Movie

Rancho Notorious

1952
Movie

Triumph Over Violence

1965

Could not load more credits.

Awards & honors.

AWARDS · 13

Every award, honor, and recognition received by Marlene Dietrich — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.

Commander of the Legion of Honour
honorary citizen of Berlin
AFI's 100 Years… 100 Stars
Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres
Medal of Freedom
Knight of the Order of Leopold
Knight of the Legion of Honour
Officer of the Legion of Honour
Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres
Knight of the National Order of Merit
German Film Honorary Award
CFDA Lifetime Achievement Award
star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

Bibliography.

BOOKS · 5

Marlene Dietrich's bibliography — every authored, edited, and co-written book, ranked by edition count.

Amazon

Marlene

by Marlene Dietrich
Amazon

Ich Bin, Gott Sei Dank, Berlinerin

by Marlene Dietrich
Amazon

My Life

by Marlene Dietrich
Amazon

Ich Bin, Gott Sei Dank, Berlinerin. Memoiren

by Marlene Dietrich
Amazon

Marlene Dietrich – the Songbook

by Marlene Dietrich

Notable quotes.

QUOTES · 27

A wall of memorable lines from Marlene Dietrich — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.

I Am Not a Myth.
I Never Enjoyed Working in a Film.
In Europe, It Doesn’t Matter If You’re a Man or a Woman We Make Love with Anyone We Find Attractive.
A Country Without Bordellos Is Like a House Without Bathrooms.
To Be Completely a Woman You Need a Master, and in Him a Compass for Your Life. You Need a Man You Can Look up to and Respect. If You Dethrone Him It’s No Wonder That You Are Discontented, and Discontented Women Are Not Loved for Long.
The Weak Are More Likely to Make the Strong Weak Than the Strong Are Likely to Make the Weak Strong.
Think Twice Before Burdening a Friend with a Secret.
I Am at Heart, a Gentleman
When You’re Dead, You’re Dead. That’s It.
Careful Grooming May Take Twenty Years off a Woman’s Age, but You Can’t Fool a Flight of Stairs.
I’m Not an Actress I’m a Personality.
Sex Is Much Better with a Woman, but Then One Can’t Live with a Woman!
Most Women Set Out to Change a Man, and When They Have Changed Him They Do Not Like Him.
I Have a Child and I Have Made a Few People Happy. That Is All.
The Relationship Between the Make up Man and the Film Actor Is That of Accomplices in Crime.
There Is a Lack of Dignity to Film Stardom.
I Never Ever Took My Career Seriously.
I Was an Actress. I Made Films. Finish.
Gary Cooper Was Neither Intelligent nor Cultured. Just Like the Other Actors, He Was Chosen for His Physique, Which, After All, Was More Important Than an Active Brain.
Latins Are Tenderly Enthusiastic. in Brazil, They Throw Flowers at You. in Argentina They Throw Themselves.
The Legs Aren’t so Beautiful. I Just Know What to Do with Them.
The Diaphragm Is the Greatest Invention Since Pan Cake Makeup.
Once a Woman Has Forgiven a Man, She Must Not Reheat His Sins for Breakfast.
In America, Sex Is an Obsession, in Other Parts of the World It’s a Fact.
If There Is a Supreme Being, He’s Crazy.
Ernest Hemingway Is the Most Positive Life Force I Have Ever Encountered. I Hate Anything Negative, and I Hate Waste. in Hemingway, Nothing Is Wasted.
Magazines the Biggest Myth Creators of All! You Must Never, Ever Read American Magazines. and If You’re Sitting in a Waiting Room and Can’t Help It Don’t Believe a Word of Any of Them.

Did you know?

FACTS · 49

Little-known facts about Marlene Dietrich — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.

Between takes she sucked lemon wedges to keep her mouth muscles tight.
She demanded that Max Factor sprinkle half an ounce of real gold dust into her wigs to add glitter during filming.
Noël Coward and Dietrich became and remained close friends since their first conversation by transatlantic telephone in 1935.
According to her make-up man, she kissed so hard that she needed a new coat of lipstick after every kiss.
The city of Berlin bid 8 million German marks for her estate of about 300,000 pieces.
The only show-business friend she ever had was Mae West, though they never saw one another outside the Paramount lot.
She spent her last decade in her apartment on the avenue Montaigne in Paris, unseen in public but a prolific letter-writer and phone-caller. In 1984, Academy Award winning actor Maximilian Schell persuaded her to be interviewed for a documentary, but she did not appear on screen.
She received the U.S. War Department’s Medal of Freedom in 1947 for entertaining American troops in WWII and her strong stand against Naziism.
Her father, a Berlin police lieutenant, died after he fell off a horse when she was ten years old.
She was the first German actress nominated for an Oscar.
Became an American citizen on March 6, 1937.
Almost immediately upon hearing of John Gilbert’s status as an all-but-forgotten matinee idol drinking himself to death, Dietrich devoted herself to rehabilitating Gilbert. Although she failed to save Gilbert, who died in 1936, she became a lifelong guardian angel to Gilbert’s young daughter, remembering the child with annual Christmas and birthday gifts until Dietrich died more than 60 years later.
She prided herself on having slept with three men of the Kennedy clan: Joseph P. Kennedy, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., and John F. Kennedy.
Ten years after her death, Berlin, the city of her birth which she shunned for most of her life, declared her an honorary citizen. On April 18, 2002, the city’s legislature bestowed the honor, calling her an ambassador for a democratic, freedom-loving and humane Germany.
She never worked without a mirror on the set so she could constantly check her makeup and hair.
She became pregnant in 1938 as a result of an affair with James Stewart during the filming of the 1939 film Destry Rides Again but underwent an abortion; Stewart did not know she was pregnant.
Despite being a Hollywood sex symbol, she most enjoyed playing the hausfrau, cleaning house, cooking chicken soup, and comforting those in need. Bette Davis adored her for her devotion to the USO Hollywood canteen, remembering Dietrich as likely to be dancing with servicemen or scrubbing the canteen’s kitchen floors.
Four of her films are in the National Film Registry: Morocco from 1930, Destry Rides Again from 1939, Touch of Evil from 1958, and Judgment at Nuremberg from 1961.
She suffered from bacilophobia, the fear of germs.
She lived out her life in apartment #12E at 993 Park Avenue in Manhattan, where Jamie Lee Curtis had earlier stayed with then fiance J. Michael Riva, Dietrich’s grandson, during the Trading Places shoot in 1983.
She fell and broke her left leg at her last ever stage appearance in Sydney, Australia, in September 1975.
Berlin has a street named Marlene Dietrich Platz.
In 1933, she was detained at a train station in Paris for violating the ban on women wearing trousers.
In a posthumous gift of forgiveness, she left her vast collection of memorabilia to the city of Berlin.
She gave birth to her only child at age 22: daughter Maria Elisabeth Sieber known as Maria Riva on December 13, 1924. The child’s father was her husband, Rudolf Sieber.
She won a Special Tony Award in 1968.
Her father, Lt. Louis Erich Otto Dietrich, died when she was very young. Her mother remarried to Colonel Eduard von Losch, who was killed in WWI.
She thought feet were the ugliest part of the human body and always tried to hide them.
She was proficient on the musical saw.
She was in four Oscar Best Picture nominees: Shanghai Express from 1932, Around the World in 80 Days from 1956, Witness for the Prosecution from 1957, and Judgment at Nuremberg from 1961. Around the World in 80 Days was the only winner.
She appears on the sleeve of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.
The producers considered her for the role of Margo Channing in All About Eve from 1950 after Claudette Colbert pulled out, but the part went to Bette Davis.
AFI named her #9 Actress on its 50 Greatest Screen Legends list.
She started training to be a violinist until she injured her hand and switched to acting.
France made her a Chevaliere of the Legion of Honour.
Entertainment Weekly voted her the 43rd Greatest Movie Star of all time.
She is buried at Friedhof III in Berlin-Friedenau, Germany.
According to daughter Maria Riva, Dietrich had a long-standing dislike of actress Loretta Young.
Empire magazine chose her as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history, ranking her #60.
She campaigned for the role of Mama Hanson in I Remember Mama from 1948 but Irene Dunne was cast instead.
Production designer J. Michael Riva was her grandson.
As the popularity of the Max Fleischer cartoon character Betty Boop grew in the early 1930s, the studio placed an ad stating Betty Boop combined the allure of Dietrich.
She is one of the many movie stars mentioned in Madonna’s song Vogue.
She achieved fame in the film Blue Angel, in which she sang Falling in Love Again.
Two of her quotes appear in Hollywood Mouth 3 from 2018: Schwache limonade and Like all great talents, his inner richness protected him from pettiness, referring to Orson Welles.
Stuart Oderman interviewed her for his book Talking to the Piano Player.
The original One Touch of Venus Broadway musical was to star Dietrich, but she backed out during rehearsals, calling it too sexy and profane, giving Mary Martin her big break.
In Destry Rides Again she sang See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have.
She turned down the role of Charlie in Station West from 1948; the part went to Jane Greer.

You wanted to know.

FAQ · 36

Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about Marlene Dietrich.

When was Marlene Dietrich born?

Marlene Dietrich was born on December 27, 1901. Her birth name was Marie Magdalene Dietrich.
Where was Marlene Dietrich born?

She was born in Schöneberg, Brandenburg, Prussia, German Empire, which is now part of Berlin, Germany.
When did Marlene Dietrich die?

Marlene Dietrich died on May 6, 1992 at the age of 90.
How old was Marlene Dietrich when she died?

She was 90 years old at the time of her death.
Where did Marlene Dietrich die?

She died in Paris, France, where she had lived in seclusion during her final years.
How did Marlene Dietrich die?

The cause of death was kidney failure. She had been bedridden for the last 12 years of her life.
What was Marlene Dietrich's real name?

Her birth name was Marie Magdalene Dietrich. She later adopted the stage name Marlene Dietrich.
What was Marlene Dietrich's height?

She stood 5 feet 5 inches, 1.64 meters tall.
What was Marlene Dietrich's nickname?

She was nicknamed Lili Marlene, after the famous song she popularized.
What did Marlene Dietrich do for a living?

She was an actress, singer, and entertainer, working in film, cabaret, and stage performances.
What nationality was Marlene Dietrich?

She was German by birth and later became a United States citizen in 1937.
What language did Marlene Dietrich speak?

Her native language was German, but she also spoke English fluently.
Who were Marlene Dietrich's parents?

Her father was Louis Erich Otto Dietrich, a police lieutenant who died when she was ten. Her mother was Wilhelmina Elisabeth Joséphine Felsing.
Was Marlene Dietrich married?

She was married to Rudolf Sieber from 1923 until his death in 1976, though they lived together only the first five years.
Did Marlene Dietrich have children?

Yes, she had one daughter: Maria Riva born Maria Elisabeth Sieber, born on December 13, 1924.
Where did Marlene Dietrich go to school?

She attended Goethe Gymnasium, Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar, and Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts.
What awards did Marlene Dietrich win?

She received many honors, including the Medal of Freedom in 1947, the Commander of the Legion of Honour, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
How many awards did Marlene Dietrich win?

She won 13 major awards, including the German Film Honorary Award and the CFDA Lifetime Achievement Award.
What is Marlene Dietrich best known for?

She is best known for films like The Blue Angel from 1930, Morocco from 1930, Witness for the Prosecution from 1957, and Destry Rides Again from 1939.
What was Marlene Dietrich's first major film role?

Her breakthrough role was as Lola Lola in The Blue Angel from 1930, directed by Josef von Sternberg.
How did Marlene Dietrich get discovered?

She was discovered by director Josef von Sternberg while performing in a Berlin cabaret in 1929.
Did Marlene Dietrich serve in WWII?

She did not serve in combat but toured extensively for the Allied war effort, entertaining American troops, and received the Medal of Freedom in 1947.
Did Marlene Dietrich have any phobias?

She suffered from bacilophobia, the fear of germs.
What was Marlene Dietrich's relationship with James Stewart?

She had an affair with James Stewart during the filming of Destry Rides Again from 1939, which resulted in a pregnancy she terminated. Stewart never knew.
What happened to Marlene Dietrich in her final years?

She spent her last decade in seclusion in Paris, bedridden for the final 12 years, but remained in touch with friends via telephone and letters.
Where is Marlene Dietrich buried?

She is buried at Friedhof III in Berlin-Friedenau, Germany.
Was Marlene Dietrich in any Academy Award-winning films?

Yes, she appeared in four Oscar Best Picture nominees: Shanghai Express from 1932, Around the World in 80 Days from 1956, Witness for the Prosecution from 1957, and Judgment at Nuremberg from 1961. The winner was Around the World in 80 Days.
Did Marlene Dietrich ever win an Oscar?

She was the first German actress nominated for an Oscar but never won a competitive Academy Award.
What is Marlene Dietrich's connection to The Beatles?

She appears on the sleeve of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.
Why did Marlene Dietrich leave her estate to Berlin?

In a posthumous gesture of reconciliation, she left her vast collection of memorabilia to the city of Berlin, which had earlier shunned her, and Berlin later declared her an honorary citizen in 2002.
What did Marlene Dietrich think of her own feet?

She considered feet the ugliest part of the body and always tried to hide them.
Was Marlene Dietrich a U.S. citizen?

Yes, she became an American citizen on March 6, 1937.
How many films of Marlene Dietrich are in the National Film Registry?

Four of her films are preserved: Morocco from 1930, Destry Rides Again from 1939, Touch of Evil from 1958, and Judgment at Nuremberg from 1961.
What was Marlene Dietrich's relationship with Mae West?

Mae West was the only show-business friend Dietrich ever had, though they never met outside of Paramount Studios.
Did Marlene Dietrich have a street named after her?

Yes, Berlin has a street called Marlene Dietrich Platz.
What was Marlene Dietrich's specialty instrument?

She was proficient on the musical saw.

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Audited & updated by

If something's wrong in a profile, Daniel will find it. With 7 years of research experience, he's developed an almost unreasonable eye for inaccurate career timelines, misattributed credits, and dates that don't quite add up. He doesn't publish anything he can't verify. The profiles on Famousy are as accurate as they are largely because of work you'll never see his name on.

Published on March 1, 2026

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