Born in Marie Magdalene Dietrich in Schöneberg, Germany, a small town outside Berlin. Her father was a police lieutenant who had served as an officer in the Fraco-Prussian War, and he imbued in her a military attitude to life. He died after falling from a horse when she was 11, and her mother married Eduard von Losch who adopted the Diectrich children. (Colonel von Losch was killed in WW II.) Marlene enjoyed music and concerts and was adept at playing the violin and piano. She was known in school for "bedroom eyes" and her first affairs were at this stage in her life -- a professor at the school was terminated. She entered the cabaret scene in 1920s Germany, first as a spectator, then as a singer. In 1924 she married, and although she and her husband Rudolpf Sieber lived together only 5 years, they remained married until his death in 1976. They had one child, actress Maria Riva (b. 1924), who is the mother of production designer J. Michael Riva. After studying acting under the renowned Max Reinhardt, Dietrich's film career began in 1923 with THE LITTLE NAPOLEON. She made over a dozen German films, including TRAGODIE DER LIEBE (1923), Alexander Korda's A MODERN DU BARRY (1926) and MADAME WANTS NO CHILDREN (1926), and Maurice Tourneur's THE SHIP OF LOST MEN (1929), before being discovered by American director Josef von Sternberg, who was in Germany to cast the female lead in THE BLUE ANGEL (1930). The character of Lola, a dance-hall girl who could drive a professor to the most extreme humiliations in the name of love, was perfect for Dietrich. With her sultry version of "Falling in Love Again," the entire world fell in love, for the first time, with Marlene Dietrich. Over the next five years at Paramount Pictures, Dietrich and von Sternberg sustained one of film's greatest creative collaborations through six films (MOROCCO, 1930, DISHONORED, 1931, SHANGHAI EXPRESS, 1932, BLONDE VENUS, 1932, THE SCARLET EMPRESS, 1934 and THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN, 1935), each one considerably more abstract and less commercially successful than THE BLUE ANGEL. She became the hightest paid actress of her time, but after the failure of THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN, Dietrich and von Sternberg parted ways. In the ensuing decades Dietrich would act for some of the greatest directors -- Ernst Lubitsch, René Clair, Raoul Walsh, Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang and Orson Welles -- and co-star with some of the greatest actors -- Charles Boyer, James Stewart, John Wayne, Edward G. Robinson, Jean Gabin, Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, Spencer Tracy and Burt Lancaster. During the early 1940s, her onscreen accomplishments were often overshadowed by her contributions to the war effort. After turning down a lucrative offer from Hitler to make films for her Nazi homeland, the anti-Fascist Dietrich (who had become a US citizen in 1937) retaliated by raising the spirits of American servicemen in numerous USO appearances. She receivd the US War Department's Medal of Freedom in 1947 and was made a Chevaliere of the Legion by France. Film credits during this period include DESTRY RIDES AGAIN (1939), THE FLAME OF NEW ORLEANS (1941), THE LADY IS WILLING, THE SPOILERS and PITTSBURGH (all 1942), KISMET (1944), MARTIN ROUMAGNAC (a.k.a. THE ROOM UPSTAIRS) (1946), GOLDEN EARRINGS (1947), A FOREIGN AFFAIR (1948), STAGE FRIGHT (1950), NO HIGHWAY (1951), RANCHO NOTORIOUS (1952), AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS and MONTECARLO (both 1956), WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION (1957), TOUCH OF EVIL (1958), JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG (1961) and a cameo in PARIS - WHEN IT SIZZLES (1964). Some of her idiosyncracies included sucking lemon wedges between takes on the set to keep her mouth muscles tight; never working without a mirror on the set so she could constantly check her makeup and hair; her make-up man said she kissed so hard, she needed a new coat of lipstick after every kiss; she demanded that Max Factor sprinkle half an ounce of real gold dust into her wigs to add glitter to her tresses during filming; she suffered from bacilophobia -- the fear of germs; she prided herself on the fact that she had slept with three men of the Kennedy clan -- Joseph P. (JFK's father), Joe Kennedy, Jr. and JFK as well. In the early 1960s Dietrich decided to bid farewell to the screen, deciding that her advancing years would be less obvious as a concert singer than as an actress. However, this new success was accompanied by a too-close acquaintance with alcohol, until falls in performance eventually resulted in a compound fracture when she fell and broke her leg during her last stage appearance in Sydney, Australia in 1975. Her last film appearance, in JUST A GIGOLO (1979) opposite David Bowie, was only a brief one. In later years, she became increasingly and obsessively reclusive, refusing to be photographed, and spent the last 12 years of her life in bed. Though she was the subject of the 1984 documentary MARLENE, which she commissioned Maximilian Schell to direct, Dietrich refused to appear on camera. She died in Paris in 1992. There are only a handful of actors in the history of film whose personalities far extend the film frame, and Marlene Dietrich is one of these. More than just an actress, Dietrich became one of the most recognizable figures of the 20th century -- a Hollywood star who never imagined her profession to be more important than it was.    Nominated for Actress 1930-31: MOROCCO 1 nomination