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Marlene Dietrich

The Life

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Marlene Dietrich

By: Maria Riva
Narrated by: Christa Lewis
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About this listen

With intimate detail, author Maria Riva reveals the rich life of her mother, Marlene Dietrich, the charismatic star of stage and screen whose career spanned much of the 20th century. Opening with Dietrich's childhood in Schöneberg, Riva's biography introduces us to an energetic, disciplined, and ambitious young actress whose own mother equated show business with a world of vagabonds and thieves.

Dietrich would quickly rise to stardom on the Berlin stage in the 1920s with her sharp wit and bisexual mystique, and wearing the top hat and tails that revolutionized our concept of beauty and femininity. She comes alive in these pages in all her incarnations: muse, collaborator, bona fide movie star, box-office poison, lover, wife, and mother.

During World War II, Dietrich would stand up to the Nazis and galvanize American troops, eventually earning the Congressional Medal of Freedom. There were her artistic relationships with Josef von Sternberg (The Blue Angel, Morocco, Shanghai Express), Colette, Erich Maria Remarque, Noël Coward, and Cole Porter, as well as her heady romances. And in her final years, Dietrich would make herself visibly invisible, devoting herself to the immortality of her legend.

©2017 Maria Riva (P)2020 Tantor Entertainment & Celebrities Entertainment & Performing Arts Film & TV Women Entertainment Celebrity Morocco
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Maria Riva, a beautiful woman who is the Wind Beneath her mother’s wings. Describes her life as her mothers daughter, with her mothers; and her own tales of living on her Marlene’s shadow, but is the reason her mother remained a success so much longer than most Starlets of the Golden Ages of Hollywood.
Maria’s story, compassion, love, devotion and heartache shines through in every word.

The First Goddess of TV & her famous mother’s life journies.

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Daunted by it 33+ hour listening time the hours zoomed by as we sat gripped by the narrator. Christa Lewis is very good but her impersonation of Marlene is hilarious!

Maria Riva spent 25 years reflecting upon her mother's life and career. Her research utilises her mother and father's diaries and Marlene's voluminous correspondence which her mother always copied to her, before publishing this superb biography which is no "Mommie Dearest". Marie is keen to come to terms with who her mother, was and what they meant to each other but is determined to present things as they realy were.

Looking forward to rewatching Marlene's films especially her early Von Sternberg masterpieces.

A wonderful listen!

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