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Legendary beauty had an ugly side
BERLIN — Marlene Dietrich was not the femme fatale she played in her films, but was an emotionally distant woman and a harsh disciplinarian with her only child, her grandson said Sunday.
Yet this is not the side of the German-born actress and singer that her grandson, director J. David Riva, chose to explore in a documentary.
“Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Story” focuses on her hatred of the Nazis and her passion for the Allied effort to defeat Hitler’s Third Reich.
Germans have long seen Dietrich, who died in 1992, as a symbol of resistance to Hitler — or a traitor.
A star in pre-Nazi Germany, the beautiful blonde whose father was a Prussian general symbolized the Nazi ideal of the “Aryan” woman. Her decision to become a U.S. citizen and work in Hollywood after the Nazis took power in 1933 was a blow to Hitler and his propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels.
Riva, 40, said he culled World War II footage of Dietrich to make a film he hopes will give a fuller picture, especially to Americans.
