Dietrich

‘This wonderful pocket biography recounts the life and loves of a true superstar.’
The Daily Express

‘Dietrich worked hard has a pack horse in the upkeep of her legend, and the author follows suit with a no-nonsense prose that states the facts.’
Sight & Sound

Marlene Dietrich, shaped by her Prussian bourgeois background and the Berlin of the 1920s, lived with unconventional passion. A cosmopolitan star, she used the power of glamour and conviction as a weapon against Nazi Germany. Her legend became so important that she spent her last decade in total seclusion, rather than let her audiences witness her decline. ‘It makes no difference how she breaks your heart,’ wrote Ernest Hemingway, ‘If she is there to mend it.’

MALENE SHEPPARD SKÆRVED teach screenwriting at Birkbeck College, London. She has collaborated on an opera with the British composer Paul Archbold and won many prizes for her short films.