Marlene Dietrich

This bio of Marlene Dietrich (MD) by her daughter Maria Rivas is 790 pages - a lot to review. The book is based on Rivas's long-time, intimate relationship with her mother, her own diaries, MD's diaries, her father's diaries, newspaper and critics' reports - plus, copies of MD's personal correspondence (she always made a copy of everything, knowing that Rivas would some day write her bio). MD was a great star; the American Film Institute ranked her 9th among the greatest actresses of all time. She began her career as an actress in Germany, then Hollywood, and then later she performed in Las Vegas, night clubs and other venues as a singer, performing all over the globe. The book is interesting because she was a great celebrity and constantly active for some 6 decades. She was also a maverick in many respects: she wore men's clothing, she was bi-sexual, her husband and she had an 'open' marriage, which allowed her to pursue liaisons with anyone, anywhere - but usually with celebrities like herself - actors, singers, politicians, generals, movie makers, writers, etc. She lived constantly on the road in hotels or in other accommodations provided by friends. She earned big money and she was very generous with it. She read voraciously - in at least 3 languages - and maintained that 'the more you read, the better it gets!'. She had a lot to say about men and sex (trust me!). She eventually became very opinionated about most subjects, a chronic complainer in general, and brutally frank and free with her criticism of others (Wallis Simpson, for example, 'must have been 'very good' to land a king!). She became a student of her profession and eventually an accepted authority on most subjects related to it - costumes, make-up, coiffure, lighting, sound, jewelry, diet, etc.. American movies, she remarked, are mainly about 'little people with little problems - all presented like big dramas!'. Movie making, she maintained, was simply about making films. If well attended, you were engaged to make another, and vice-versa. She believed in the powers of astrologers and often conferred with one before making a serious decision regarding her career or travel. She lived more regally than the average queen and usually travelled with some 40 suitcases. She basked in the glory of her own celebrity. She thought people should do whatever makes them happy, live life to the fullest, with no limitations, and that's what she did. Eventually she began to suffer some aches and pains, which resulted in her eventually becoming an out-of-control alcoholic and drug addict. With her contacts and her money she was able to obtain any medications she wanted. When friends complained about their physical problems, MD would 'prescribe' something, buy it and mail it to them. Rivas feared that her mother would one day be arrested for distributing illegal drugs - but that never happened, because MD was basically above the law. MD's favorite role, she maintained, was entertaining the front-line troops in Europe during WWII with the USO. To facilitate her travels in the war zone she was given the rank of captain and she travelled in her army uniform. Her wartime performances won for her many, many new fans and the highest possible civilian awards from the U.S. and French governments. MD's bio offers much to admire and much to criticize, perhaps, but both make for interesting reading. Enjoy! Rolland Amos, Severn MD

There are a great many reasons to dislike this book. It is badly organized, written, edited, and proofread. Perhaps the most annoying thing about the book, however, is Riva's inclination to use what is ostensibly a biography of Dietrich as a vehicle for Riva's own autobiography. I'm sure it comes as a bitter disappointment to Riva, but we're still not really interested in her.

This book is SO GOOD. Not only does it give so much detail of Marlene Dietrich by her daughter, but also a first hand account of Pre and Post WW2 Europe and what it was like in California during the "good old days" of old Hollywood. I got this from the library but upon returning it I immediately bought the book to have at home to reread.

Maria Riva writes this "insider" book in exquisite detail and detachment. She definitely loves her mother and has forgiveness skills beyond a saint. She is her mother's toy, her audience, her confidant and her one and only friend. Marlene is a narcissistic arrogant mother who had a strong will to succeed and used everyone around her to create the "Marlene Diethrich" goddess myth.

Throughout the book I see a sad but smart only child; who looks for love in her mother, as well as Marlene's many lovers, and her father's mistress. She desperately wants a normal life, but accepts what she has. To write in this great detail Marlene's diaries were used, and I had the feeling throughout the book that Maria must have kept a daily record of events and feelings. It mercilessly exposes Dietrich who only feels alive when she is in "Love" and many affairs carried on at the same time. Marlene loves women and men and hides very little from her daughter. She dominates, and even puts pictures aside and marks them "for Maria's book". Marlene had typical German personality, and my bet is she modeled mostly after her father, a Prussian officer. He was military, and must have bequeathed her with his high intelligence, strong will, discipline and eye for drama.

The book is long, 790 pages, full of dialogue and inside stories. The first half is Maria's childhood and the second half is when Marlene becomes the child to Maria. She needs constant attention, management of health problems, her career, and her life in general.

After Riva is raped by one of her mother's female lovers, the book begins to feel like a horror story, including the nanny Marlene hired, a lesbian who tries to seduce Riva. Marlene hopes to turn her daughter into a lesbian herself. Riva conjectures that her mother would therefore always have her and never have to compete with men - maybe Diethrich herself could love Maria that way as an adult. As you see, it almost becomes a Stephen King Novel. Diethrich's personality sounds so far off the Bell Curve but the way it is described and details around all the other drama throughout the book - it sounds possible to me.

Riva is overwhelmed and at one point turns into an alcoholic, but conquers this. She goes on to get married, have children and a fairly normal life. She manages and helps her mother until her mother dies. For all the craziness there is a love of some sort between the two women. It is one that accepts each other despite not quite living up to the others expectations.

They say most geniuses are also crazy. This book proves that point. Marlene was a genius as far as promoting her image, however, like the Wizard of Oz - mostly smoke and mirrors (and of course lighting!)

This is Maria Riva's desperate attempt to cut off the head--even in death--of her far more charismatic, talented and fascinating mother.
Christina Crawford tried to do the same in Mommie Dearest. Riva fails to take responsibility for her own life, even long after
she'd supposedly reached adulthood. If you doubt her relentless malice toward Dietrich, take a look at the page where she
describes helping her mother into her costume for a concert. Her remarks about her mother's aging body are disgusting
in their cruelty. Although Dietrich was an emotionally (and financially) generous mother and grandmother, Riva feels gratitude
for none of it. In fact, she resents the fact that Dietrich protested mildly when Riva tried to drape her entire
family on Grandmother's largesse. How sad this book would have made Dietrich, who loved her daughter very much. And how sad that
Riva probably believes her own pitiful slanders.

There are great autobiographies or memoirs written by friends of celebrities that consist of personal information and small tidbits that greatly interest readers. Then there are biographies, often more informational and objective than autobiographies. This book is composed of both which makes it one of the best books about a celebrity around.

Maria Riva is the daughter of legend Marlene Dietrich, an androgynous star of the 1930s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. One would believe that a daughter would be the most biased person to write a biography but this is not the case in this book. Riva has moments where she shares personal information but she always cites when she does so as to not confuse readers from fact and observation. She has included diary entries, letters from lovers, and a bevy of other sources including other acquaintances of Dietrich in the book. She reveals things that her mother made up for the press and what her mother really thought about things like films, other stars, and sex.

Riva always remains objective and portrays her mother respectably even in embarrassing or hateful situations because she is aware of the multitude of fans of Dietrich. She does not praise simply to praise though; she seems to understand the adoration of the facade Marlene Dietrich showed the world. Riva talks about how she had to trick her mother into being treated for a cancer she swore she didn't have. She writes about her mother forcing her to get fitted for a diaphragm before she traveled overseas to entertain the troops during the second World War. Even when she speaks of when Dietrich told Riva's sons that their mother had stolen them from her, she does not try to persuade readers to hate her mother.

This is an incredible book. Enjoy this jewel of writing.

Fascinating, entertaining, funny, sad and more than a little terrifying -- this has got to be the best celebrity/artist biography I have ever read, and I've read many, as memoirs and biographies are among my favorite books to read on my long commutes to and from work. I missed subway stops while reading this book -- it was that absorbing.

Some may feel as they get toward the middle of this lengthy memoir, that Dietrich's daughter is doing a "Mommy Dearest" number on Dietrich, but this is a very well written book, not just an act of revenge, the way Crawford's daughter's book was. Riva is a real writer, and her story is nicely balanced between her awe and respect for her singing movie star mother and a genuine analysis of Dietrich's personal flaws and sometimes outright cruelties. Her father was equally fierce and egotistical, and both parents often come off as insufferable snobs, with little respect for the common working people surrounding them and serving them. They did some things to others, especially to the father's long-suffering mistress, that struck me as nearly inhuman, without conscience. One revelation, which I don't want to spoil other readers' pleasure by describing, was a true shock. I guess there were clues, but I did not see it coming, and it made me feel that Dietrich and her husband should have been thrown in jail for what they did to that poor soul!

Despite the triumphs and failures in Dietrich's career, it also becomes clear early on that Dietrich was one determined, tireless ball of energy, almost to the end, when poor health and fading looks finally sapped her strength and will. Much is made of Dietrich's alcoholism and drug addictions, especially during the second half of her life, but here there is little that is new -- stories of addiction among celebrities are so common that it's more of a surprise to find one who is NOT an alcoholic or drug abuser -- but here again, Riva writes about her mother's addictions and deep denial (that she was a drinker), with a great deal of understanding, sympathy, and at times, anger and frustration. Dietrich was so strong-willed, Riva can't be faulted for not trying to intervene. She tried watering her mother's drinks during her end times, when she was a bed-ridden recluse.

This entire book, though, is rich with details, historical references that help the reader follow this extraordinary life in the context of changing times, and atmosphere -- it often feels like a really good gothic novel or film noir, and for me, that's what made this a great book, as opposed to a merely entertaining one. I was completely engrossed in this story, from its late 19th century beginning, through its tracing of Dietrich's rise as a movie star and later, her second career as a Las Vegas and concert hall performer, through to her heartbreaking decline into the dark shadows of a single room.

Another aspect of this accounting that really made it thrilling was the intricate relationship described between the director Josef von Sternberg and his muse, and how, through the seven films they made together (some of them great masterpieces of black and white cinema), Dietrich forged her self image, which she projected out into the world. She learned all about lighting and camera angles from von Sternberg, and she used what she learned for the rest of her life, becoming a big enough star that she could walk onto a set and tell the lighting technicians and cameramen how to do their jobs -- and get applauded for it! Dietrich had everything to do with how she was costumed, and she and her daughter collaborated to create some of the gowns and accessories Dietrich wore in her films. She was truly her own creation, visually, usually doing her own make-up and hair.

Strangely, this storm force of a woman seemed not to respect other women much, and didn't have a good thing to say about any other actresses except maybe Katherine Hepburn and Mae West, the latter of whom became a dressing room pal over several years' time. One might think Dietrich would have considered herself an independent woman, a feminist even, yet she seemed to think men were the born leaders and women should be willingly subservient to them, needless to say, a very old-fashioned view of relationships between the sexes. Yet, while not thinking much of women as thinkers or professionals, she liked them well enough to sleep with a few of them. Another one of Dietrich's many contradictions was her constant need for romantic entanglements, albeit entirely unfaithful ones, yet apparently she was not particularly enamored of the sexual act itself. Physical closeness was something she put up with in order to keep her women and her men interested (until she lost interest in them). One would think an active bisexual like Dietrich would be in it at least a little, for sexual pleasure, but she seemed to crave adulation and the trappings of romance without giving in to the kind of true passion that gets as much joy out of giving as from receiving. This woman seemed to have a monstrous ego, and the treatment of her own daughter's marriage, husband, pregnancies, acting career and grandchildren was astonishingly cold-hearted and dismissive. Yet Riva loved her mother enough that when there was an emergency, even a manufactured one, she would drop everything and come running. I, for one, admired Riva's devotion while at the same time wondered at her patience and willingness to put up with whatever her mother dished out.

One last thing I should mention is the collection of great photographs in this book, not confined, as in the usual biography, to one or two sections, but disbursed generously throughout its many pages. To conclude, this was a book I found hard to put down when I had to do other things. It was like entering another world, so wonderfully illustrated with words and images I felt at times that I was there. Not even a good movie can do that very often. This says as much about the writer as it does about her subject. BRAVO!

I applaud Maria Riva for writing this biography on her mother, the one and only Marlene Dietrich!
A friend highly reccomended this book to me and I'm so glad I took his advice on reading it.
One would think this book would be either sugarcoated or vindictive. But it's neither thrashing nor overly sweet. It's an honest book written by a daughter who has witness firsthand all her life the woman with the face. It's revengeful at times but in my opinion rightfully so. But Maria Riva doesn't forget to give credit where credit is due.
The moment that stood out for me in the book was Marlene in her old age. It's been said before that complicated liberal women who cannot give in to humbleness in any shape or form have the unfortunate destiny of ending up alone and most of them would be okay with that. Women who play by their own rules. That was Marlene in my opinion. I believe most men couldn't fully comprehend her and basically all felt betrayed. So they left the sultry film goddess!
It's sad to read the part about the woman who could've had any lover male or female and at her senior age, ended up alone looking distraught in bed. A woman who couldn't come to terms with her aging and became an alcoholic because of that.
Maria's childhood wasn't easy as I imagine. And I believe because of that, she fully embraced her very own marriage and children.
She avoided the mistakes that her mother might've made depending on who you're asking.

Highly reccomended!!!!

A real inside, undeniably subjective, account. Well written. Very compelling.

Very long and rambling.