Blue Angel

FROM OUR EDITORS

One of the world's most enigmatic stars comes to life in this provocative biography covering the great Dietrich's childhood; her career in cabarets, theaters, and films; her work during World War II; her notorious love affairs; more. B&W photos.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Marlene Dietrich was perhaps the most glamorous, most alluring woman of the twentieth century. In a career spanning six decades on screen and stage, she created an indelible image of mysterious sensuality and shimmering beauty that made her into and international icon.

Blue Angel is an enthralling portrait of this enchantingly enigmatic star--a book as provocative and seductive as the woman herself. The story moves from the theaters and cabarets of Berlin in the 1920s, where she struggled for recognition as an actress and developed a taste for romance of all kinds, to the Hollywood studios of the 1930s, where--under the tutelage of director Josef von Sternberg she became a screen goddess in films like Morocco, Blonde Venus and The Devil Is a Woman. Later, Dietrich forsook glamour as she saw the bloody trenches of Europe during World War II and entertained Allied troops.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992) dedicated her energies to maintaining the Garbo-like image of a mysterious, alluring, remote creature, a glamour-queen role crafted by her mentor and sometime lover, director Josef von Sternberg. But the earthy German-born actress we meet in Spoto's marvelous, elegantly written biography was ``entirely a woman of the moment''--a sexual libertine with lovers of both sexes, a frequent cross-dresser, a neglectful mother who condescended to her troubled daughter, an astrology addict, a `` Hausfrau who put a towel around her head'' and constantly ``complained about almost everything.'' Spoto ( Laurence Olivier ) tells how Dietrich wrapped herself in illusions and deceptions, denying the existence of her sister and obscuring the details of her long marriage to Rudolf Sieber, a man she rarely saw. She paid the price, Spoto writes, through emotional imbalance, loneliness, decades of self-imposed isolation and ``a spiritual vacuum at the core of herself.'' He also details her many sexual conquests, among them Yul Brynner, Eddie Fisher, John Wayne and Gen. George Patton. An empathetic, demystifying portrait, heartbreakingly beautiful and sad, this biography blends astute film criticism with backstage and bedroom lore. Photos. (Aug.)

Library Journal

Having previously published a photo-essay on Dietrich ( Falling in Love Again: Marlene Dietrich , Little, Brown, 1985. o.p.), Spoto has now completed a full-scale biography of the star of screen and stage. Blue Angel evidences extensive research, as did Spoto's recent Laurence Olivier: A Biography ( LJ 2/15/92) and his books on Alfred Hitchcock. News of Dietrich's bisexuality isn't likely to astound knowledgeable film buffs, but Spoto goes further than previous biographers in naming sexual partners (usually without citing his sources). Spoto also seems to have penetrated farther behind Dietrich's public persona than have other writers; he is taken with her, but not taken in. A good choice for most public libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/92.-- John Smothers, Monmouth Cty. Lib., Manalapan, N.J.

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—notseen.)