Blue Angel: The Life of Marlene Dietrich [Hardcover]

Donald Spoto (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1992

Acclaimed biographer Donald Spoto brings to life one of the most incandescent and elusive star to grace Hollywood, Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992). He has tapped archival materials and conducted dozens of interviews to present a life story filled with crucial new details: her hardships and struggles for recognition in 1920s Berlin; her transformation into a screen goddess; her entertainment of Allied troops during the World War II; and her stint as a nightclub singer in the 1950s. Spoto also includes accounts of her love affairs with Yul Brynner, Maurice Chevalier, Gary Cooper, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr, Eddie Fisher, general George S. Patton, Erich Maria Remarque, Frank Sinatra, and John Wayne.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From 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.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From 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.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 335 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (July 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385425538
• ISBN-13: 978-0385425537
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,944,190 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Yeah, well, August 30, 2001

By 

Lambchops N. Sweaters (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blue Angel: The Life of Marlene Dietrich (Paperback)

An enjoyable and informative read, though at times presented too romantically and subjectively. A fine job of portraying Dietrich from many angles, fleshing her out (though the author is irritatingly fond of the word "plump")... Spoto seems to approach his subject with celestial reverence, as though trying to conceal his own crush behind historical voyeurism (the discussion of debauched 1920s Berlin is particularly gratifying). Sometimes he speculates too much on possible motivations instead of simply offering facts, but he also makes good use of others' reminiscences of Dietrich to back up some of his insightful conjectures. Enjoyable but not riveting.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars No "Angel", April 16, 2004

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Blue Angel: The Life of Marlene Dietrich (Paperback)

Donald Spoto tends to write pleasant, sometimes very insightful biographies that tend to look at different aspects of the stars they focus on. "Blue Angel," however, is not up to par. While his biography of actress Marlene Dietrich is well-written, he seems too disconnected from his subject.

Marlene Dietrich was a dominant sex symbol alongside the distant Greta Garbo. Her big break came with Josef von Sternberg, a German director who found the struggling actress and made her his muse, lover and inspiration. Dietrich kept spreading her wings in Hollywood, and in the 1940s she entertained Allied troops for her adopted country.

Spoto does a pretty good job of covering Dietrich's many-faceted life. Hausfrau and actress, Berlin cabaret and Hollywood, he checks it all out and describes it with a fair amount of detail. And despite the varied nature of Dietrich's love life, he at least tries to keep his tone professional and detached. (Even when describing Dietrich placing a bouquet of violets in a rather, um, intimate place)

What's Spoto's biggest problem? He seems to have no idea what made Dietrich tick. When describing the real Dietrich -- the woman behind the image -- he seems genuinely befuddled by her real personality, and spends too much time speculating on her motivations. However, he sheds a great deal of light on Dietrich's mystique, and how it was created by von Sternberg.

Donald Spoto's "Blue Angel" sheds some light on the not-so-angelic Marlene Dietrich, but his lack of insight into Dietrich's mind makes it a somewhat frustrating read.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gives the Devil Her Due, August 20, 2010

By 

Samuel Leiter (Howard Beach, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Blue Angel: The Life of Marlene Dietrich (Paperback)

According to his acknowledgments, Donald Spoto finished this book in January 1991. Five months later, his subject, Marlene Dietrich, died. This leaves the book with an unfinished goal, the biography of a great celebrity from birth to death. Dietrich was 90 when she died, and by that time an alcoholic recluse, but the circumstances of her passing would have brought this book the closure it lacks. Moreover, Spoto did not personally interview the star, so he had to rely on extensive research into published and unpublished sources, as well as interviews with those who knew La Dietrich, yet the overall result is a well-written, compact survey of her artistic career, with enough description of her personal triumphs and tragedies to satisfy most fans' interest. Dietrich's life and career are the stuff that biographers' dreams are made of; she started life as a well-brought up middle-class German girl born at the turn of the century; became a stage performer in the decadent Berlin of the Weimar Republic's 1920s; made the transition into silent and then sound films; had the good fortune to be the Trilby to the Svengali of genius cinematographer/director, Josef von Sternberg; found success as Hollywood's highest paid star of the 1930s, with a carefully crafted beauty that overrode concerns about her somewhat limited--but nonetheless memorably expressive-- singing and acting talents; became an icon of USO entertainers on the front lines of World War II, and let her native Germany know just what she thought of it; had a vast array of male and female lovers, including many of Hollywood's leading players; gained fame for her sense of style, both in glamorous female garments and striking male ensembles; resurrected her career in middle and old age by appearing as an ageless glamour girl in countless performances of a one-woman show she gave around the world; and then, unable to let the world see how age was robbing her of her vaunted beauty, chose to live out her life in a Paris apartment, slowly drinking herself to death.

Despite being something of an enigma, her personality comes across quite vividly in this biography, and Spoto should be commended for presenting both her admirable qualities--relentless professionalism, maternal affection for those she loved, remarkable courage, and ability to craft an unforgettable artistic persona--and her less admirable ones--sexual profligacy, erratic temperament, astonishing egotism, and so on. This is not a work of hagiography, and the reader comes away both admiring Marlene Dietrich and despising her.

Although Spoto's book covers many of Dietrich's numerous affairs, it is now clear that there were many others he overlooked (including Burt Lancaster and Barbara Stanwyck). Perhaps some later writer has covered these; I'm looking forward to reading Maria Riva's biography of her mother, which is about three times as long as Spoto's volume. An advantage of reading the book in 2010 is that one can easily see many of the performances being described by simply going to YouTube. Doing so allows you to compare your critical reaction to some of Dietrich's filmic song renditions with those of Spoto. Occasionally, he overstates his case, and to me, at least, the performances do not match his assessments of them. Still, I was totally engrossed by the book, and, even though it's been almost 20 years since it was published, readers should still find it worth their time.