Berlin's most famous femme fatale lived out her alcohol-fuelled autumn days in Paris where she died nine years ago. Her decision to be buried on home soil was a boon for Berliners who assumed she'd forsaken her native Prussian capital forever.
Since her posthumous return, Berlin has taken 'Lili Marlene' to its heart again, and in 1993, the city bought her entire estate from her daughter, Maria Riva, for $5-million (about R50-million).
Riva has portrayed her mother as a cruel woman fixated on fame, describing how "like serving a queen" she had to exit a room backwards and wait for cues to approach the icy diva.
Dietrich referred to Riva only as The Child, blamed her for destroying her figure through breast-feeding and created an emotional chasm between them. However, Riva's admiration for her mother's success shines through in the meticulous collection of all her belongings.
A sumptuous display at the film museum features some of the star's most precious possessions. Highlights include intimate pages from her unpublished diary, gifts and letters from her many lovers including actors Yul Brynner, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Gary Cooper, the writer Erich Maria Remarque, and Mercedes de Acosta, one of her female conquests. There's even a telegram from a clearly devastated Maurice Chevalier - just one of her traumatised men - breaking off their affair.
Papa Hemingway called her his "favourite Kraut" and she treasured the engraved gold bracelet and signed photograph he gave her.
There's also a signed photograph of Mae West inscribed: 'To Marlene Dietrich. The admiration is mutual' as well as several pictures of Josef von Sternberg, the Austrian movie director who discovered her as a struggling actress in a Berlin cabaret in 1929 and gave her the role of Lola-Lola, the sultry, world-weary nightclub performer in The Blue Angel (Der Blaue Engel).
The Blue Angel opened at Berlin's thriving Zoopalast cinema on April 1 1930, a garter toss from the Kaiser-Wilhelm Memorial Church where, seven years previously, Marlene married Rudolf Sieber.
Despite being permanently thrown out of her bed soon after their marriage and being treated as little more than a factotum for most of their 50 years together, the long-suffering Sieber, like Riva, was responsible for keeping many of the star's things intact.
Dietrich missed out on the success of her premiere, leaving with Von Sternberg for California that very evening. She never returned to live in Berlin again.
In Hollywood, Von Sternberg directed her in another six movies including Morocco (1930), Dishonored (1931), Blonde Venus (1932), Shanghai Express (1932), The Scarlet Empress (1934), and The Devil Is a Woman (1935).
Rumours of a love affair between them were rampant. At one stage Von Sternberg's wife sued the star for the alienation of her husband's affections, but lost her case when Sieber arrived in court to support Dietrich.
Among the exhibits is a gold cigarette case inscribed: "Marlene Dietrich, woman, mother and actress as never before" from Von Sternberg. Of him she wrote: "He was my master, my trainer. He had me on a leash. It was he who let the leash go. Not I. I was lying there, staying there, waiting..."
With seven films behind them, the actress and her master parted in 1935. A rather poignant letter from Von Sternberg to Dietrich reads: "Thank you for my things and for everything - everything - good or not - everything was lovely. Forgive me for being as I am, any other way I'd be nothing ...' The director died of a heart attack in 1969 and is buried at the Westwood Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Less than three years after Marlene sailed to America, Hitler came to power, and even though Goebbels promised her a triumphant entrance through the Brandenburg Gate, Deutschland's favourite diva refused every invitation to return.
"I don't hate the Germans, I hate the Nazis," she said, opting for US citizenship instead. When she did finally return in 1945, it was in an American uniform to entertain the Allied troops.
After World War II she continued to make films such as A Foreign Affair (1948), The Monte Carlo Story (1956), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Touch of Evil (1958), and Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). Her legendary legs and 40-fags-a-day voice also made her a popular nightclub performer.
Dietrich's penchant for wearing men's clothing and the bisexuality that "doubled my chances for a date" as she put it, earned her amorous attention from both sexes. Several letters between the diva and her lovers bring the passion to life again.
One dated March 29 1939 from Marion Barbara Carstairs, known to Marlene as Jo reads: "Goodnight my sweet babe. I love you so much that I do crazy things but I'll think of you next time instead of myself. Just be gay and laugh about it now because I promise I won't be so foolish and mad again. Only one thing I ask: please write me a letter. I love you with all my heart. Jo".
Men were equally enthusiastic about Dietrich. A letter from Douglas Fairbanks reads: "Remember four days ago? The bed is lonely, my heart is lonely and I love you so much, so very, very much. Thank you dearest for everything. Yours D."
However, according to the pages of Dietrich's hand-written diary, her heart belonged to Jean Gabin, a French actor known for his tough anti-hero roles. One of the extracts reads: "There's a wind blowing - my lamp has gone out and I'm cold. Jean - my beloved, I love you. My heart that loves you is stronger than all the dangers of the war and the misery of a life without you is greater than all the suffering in this world. I need your arms, the warmth of your body. I need you in order to live - my adored angel - come back and don't say if we meet again..."
A bracelet from Jean Gabin is inscribed: 'I have two loves, you and then ... you.'
Although the exhibition is permanent, the artefacts are regularly rotated, and with 300 000 documents, 3 000 dresses, 15 000 photos, 8 440 pairs of shoes, 150 pairs of gloves, and more than 2 500 recordings of songs - such as Lili Marlene and Falling in Love Again - that Dietrich immortalised, it should take years for archivists to work through the 40 trunks filled with her life's remnants.
The film museum is in the towering Sony Centre on the massive Potsdamer Platz. Before the war, the Platz was the beating heart of commercial Berlin, obliterated by Allied bombing in 1945. Then the Communists put their infamous wall through it and when that came down, developers and top architects created the gleaming high-rise and most modern CBD area in Europe.
It's the perfect backdrop for Germany' s most famous 20th century diva.
- Lufthansa offer daily flights to Germany. Contact Lufthansa's Service Centre at 0860 572 573 .
- For more info about Berlin call the German National Tourist office on 011 325 1933
- Useful websites: Marlene Dietrich Collection, Berlin: e-mail: [email protected] or visit the website www.filmmuseumberlin.de
Berlin Tourist Board: [email protected]