Blue Angel: The Life of Marlene Dietrich - Softcover

Spoto, Donald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0815410611 ISBN 13: 9780815410614

Publisher: Cooper Square Press, 2000

Synopsis

Acclaimed biographer Donald Spoto brings to life one of the most incandescent and elusive star to grace Hollywood, Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992). He has tapped archival materials and conducted dozens of interviews to present a life story filled with crucial new details: her hardships and struggles for recognition in 1920s Berlin; her transformation into a screen goddess; her entertainment of Allied troops during the World War II; and her stint as a nightclub singer in the 1950s. Spoto also includes accounts of her love affairs with Yul Brynner, Maurice Chevalier, Gary Cooper, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr, Eddie Fisher, general George S. Patton, Erich Maria Remarque, Frank Sinatra, and John Wayne.

About this title

From the Publisher:

9 1.5-hour cassettes

From Kirkus Reviews:

Spoto's second book on Dietrich (Falling in Love Again, 1985- -not reviewed), minus the sexual fantasy and foot-slogging style that marred his recent Laurence Olivier (p. 42). Spoto captures well the high kitsch of the twilight of the German aristocracy into which Maria Madgelene Dietrich (1901-92) was born. Her mother drilled the spontaneously honest child never to show her feelings--the birth of the actress's famous mask of alluring remoteness. Ten years of violin lessons trained her for the musical side of her career (her violin teacher deflowered her, she told Billy Wilder) and for some of her funniest and even moving scenes under the direction of Josef von Sternberg, the Svengali who--in The Blue Angel--turned Dietrich into a goddess after many roles in drama school and German silents. The skill, emotional depth, and richness of the actress's finest work (Judgment at Nuremberg) were overshadowed by the sheer emission of star-power in such ``rapturously photographed'' early films as The Devil is a Woman--her own favorite picture--because she was then, Spoto points out, at her most beautiful. Dietrich married early and never divorced (though she remained parted from, if friendly with, her husband) and became a doting mother and grandmother. In private, she was nothing like the insolent indifference of her screen image, but was an intelligent, ambitious creature who was addicted to lengthy long-distance calls and who died a reclusive, wealthy alcoholic. Her lovers included Gary Cooper, John Gilbert, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Yul Brynner, Frank Sinatra--and on and on. Spoto's best biography--warm, well balanced, restrained. (B&w photos--75--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cooper Square Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0815410611
• ISBN 13: 9780815410614
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 333