Marlene Dietrich: Life and Legend - Hardcover

Bach, Steven

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 000217944X ISBN 13: 9780002179447

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1992

Synopsis

A biography of Marlene Dietrich, the actress and singer who worked with some of Hollywood's most famous film directors. During the World War II, she established her career as a concert artist, but in her homeland she was branded as a traitor. 15 years later she made a triumphant return to Germany.

About this title

Review:

"The finest picture-star biography I have read."—Peter Bogdanovich, "Los Angeles Times"

"What a star biography should be but rarely is."—"Choice"

"This massive, admiring biography refutes the notion that Marlene Dietrich's femme fatale image was wholly the invention of director Josef von Sternberg. Bach, a film producer and author of "Final Cut", who studied with von Sternberg, portrays the latter as a megalomaniac whose amorous frustrations with the star he had created drove him to maintain that she was a puppet who danced to his strings. Bach rejects the standard comparisons with Garbo as he plumbs Dietrich's special blend of erotic power, irony, and humor and limns a strong-willed woman whose innumerable sexual affairs satisfied a simple need for companionship. ... This engrossing biography is especially good on Dietrich's early career, her valiant anti-Nazi efforts, and her phoenixlike rebirth as a troubadour-actress." --"Publishers Weekly"

"What a star biography should be but rarely is." --"Choice"

"The finest picture-star biography I have read." Peter Bogdanovich, "Los Angeles Times""

"The finest picture-star biography I have read." --Peter Bogdanovich, Los Angeles Times

"Dietrich will never have a more meticulous, eloquent, or sympathetic biographer." --Times Literary Supplement

"If you open it to the right pages in the right mood, you can practically hear the applause still ringing." --New York Times Book Review

From the Back Cover:

Marlene Dietrich was the century's supreme embodiment of erotic sophistication. She was a legend, an icon of beauty and glamour whose appeal crossed borders of nationality, language, even sex, and her mystery remains as potent after her death as when she burst onto the world scene in 'The Blue Angel' in 1930. She has been the subject of innumerable biographies, most of which have served to perpetuate her own notoriously unreliable account of her life. The true story has remained elusive – until now.

'Marlene Dietrich: Life and Legend' focuses on both the woman and the myth. Where she was born, and when? Was her early career as negligible as she claimed? How much did she owe to her 'discoverer' Josef von Sternberg, and what was the true nature of their relationship? Or that of Dietrich and her husband, whom she rarely saw but never divorced? Above all, what motivated her throughout a career Bach calls 'one of the most disciplines and sustained creative acts of the century'? Steven Bach gives us – at last – the definitive biography, which will lead to a complete reappraisal of Dietrich's life and work. In his words, 'Marlene Dietrich: Life and Legend' is 'neither worship at the shrine, nor autopsy: it is a celebration, and – very often – an act of wonder'

‘Luminous as the dazzler herself... Bach's peerless account is that rare celebrity biography transcending the genre to become an enduring work of history.’
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 000217944X
• ISBN 13: 9780002179447
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416