Marlene Dietrich

Actor / Singer

Marlene Dietrich was a film actress and cabaret singer from Berlin who became a Hollywood star after starring in Josef von Sternberg's film The Blue Angel (1930). The film featured "Falling in Love Again (I Can't Help It"), a signature song she performed internationally until the 1970s. All angles and androgyny, she's been a sex symbol and fashion icon since she appeared in German films in the 1920s. As an actress she is best known for her roles in the von Sternberg movies Shanghai Express (1932), Blonde Venus (1932) and The Scarlet Empress (1934). In Hollywood her best-known roles were in the western comedy Destry Rides Again (1939, featuring her other well-known song, "The Boys in the Back Room"), the courtroom drama Witness for the Prosecution (1957) and the Orson Welles thriller Touch of Evil (1958). As a singer she was known for cabaret songs sung in a deep, sultry voice, for her support of U.S. troops during World War II and for her popularity in the 1950s in London and Las Vegas. She broke her leg during a performance in 1975 and stopped appearing publicly, spending her remaining years as a recluse in her Paris apartment.

Extra credit: Dietrich's many love affairs are part of Hollywood lore, but she was only married once, to Rudolf Sieber, from 1923 until his death in 1976.