Marlene Still Mystifies

For some it doesn't end with death. In fact it just catapults them into stratospheric elusiveness. It's been eight years since she died bu...

For some it doesn8217;t end with death. In fact it just catapults them into stratospheric elusiveness. It8217;s been eight years since she died but a mere mention of one of the world8217;s most desirable women Marlene Dietrich, still pumps up the adrenaline and whips up emotions, depending on whether you8217;re free of Deutsche dilemmas.

Returning to centrestage in her homeland, with Marlene, a film of her life, which was premiered last week in Germany amid a flood of publicity, fans of die Deutsche diva played by Katja Flint, 39, can buy Marlene sunglasses and even Marlene Sekt, German champagne. Of course, it wouldn8217;t be her if she didn8217;t stir up controversy even after her restless spirit was laid to rest years ago.

For the film threatens to reopen controversy over a woman who was never forgiven by many Germans for what they saw as the ultimate act of betrayal: donning an American Army uniform and entertaining Allied troops during the Second World War.

The highpoint of Marlene is Dietrich8217;s triumphant appearance in The Blue Angel, the first German talking film, that turned the once-plump fraulein into an international celebrity almost overnight in April 1930. The star went straight form the ceremony to the boat-train to Bremen and then to the ship that took her to America. There, under the stern guidance of Josef von Sternberg, the American who discovered her and directed The Blue Angel, Dietrich made 30 more films, starting with Morocco, with Gary Cooper. Within a year she was the most highly paid woman in the world. Dietrich was as famous for her exploits off screen as for those on, captivating some of the most eligible men in Hollywood. Besides Cooper, her lovers are said to have included John Wayne, Yul Brynner and Fritz Lang.

In 1937 she turned down a lucrative offer from Adolf Hitler to make films in Germany. He responded by banning all her works. Two years later, just before the outbreak of war, she took American citizenship.

Marlene8217;s director, Joseph Vilsmaier, best known for the 1992 war epic Stalingrad, chose to end his film during the second world war. This allowed him to avoid Dietrich8217;s return to her homeland in 1960, when she was booed and spat at by angry crowds in Berlin chanting: 8220;Marlene, Go Home.8221;

Attitudes towards her in her former homeland remained polarised, and her death from kidney failure in 1992 did little to soften them. When, in 1996, left-of-centre politicians in Berlin sought to name a street after her, they were astonished by the acrimony the plan generated.