Marlene Dietrich was born Marlene Elisabeth Maria Schwarzkopf on 21 July 1901 in Berlin, Germany. Her father, Rudolf Schwarzkopf, was a bookkeeper for the family's toy business. Her mother, Maria Anna Josefa (née Seidl), was the daughter of a house painter.
Dietrich's career began when she was discovered by film director Richard Oswald in a cabaret in Berlin in 1923. She made her stage debut in Berlin the same year
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By 1925 she had signed a contract with the German company UFA and began making films with director Josef von Sternberg. Dietrich became known as the "Queen of the Melodrama." She was noted for her on-screen independence and frank sexual behavior and became an international star.
In 1933, Dietrich began to receive critical acclaim for her acting and singing skills at the height of Nazi Germany's "cultural revolution." She also became known as "the most popular movie star" in Europe as well as "the most photographed woman in the world." In 1936 she starred in The Blue Angel, which is considered a masterpiece of German film and is one of her best-known films.
During World War II she was featured on the cover of Life magazine three times over a three-year period and was awarded the Great Cross of Merit by the Reichspropagandaleiter (Nazi propaganda minister) Joseph Goebbels. She appeared on more than forty magazine covers during World War II and throughout her lifetime appeared on eighty-five cover pages of Life alone.
Dietrich starred opposite Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959).
She gained further acclaim for her role as Mirella Manieri opposite Tyrone Power in Otto Preminger's Angel Face (1953). Perhaps her most famous role came when she was cast as Lola Lola Teplitzky opposite Alan Ladd in Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (1930).
In 1955 Dietrich starred with David Niven in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much, which coupled them at their peak popularity with audiences around the world.
They worked together again two years later in Robert Siodmak's The Spiral Staircase as husband and wife as well as with Dietrich reprising her role from The Blue Angel as Lola Teplitzky opposite Ladd once again as Leo G