Marlene Dietrich’s Scandalous Trousers

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​​Defying Nazis and gender norms, Marlene Dietrich was far more than an Oscar-nominated actress… though she was that too. From Weimar Berlin’s cabaret scene to golden-age Hollywood and beyond, Dietrich carved a distinctive path for herself, and crafted an iconic star image. While that star image relied in large part on a cloud of golden hair and long, elegant legs, Dietrich was also often gender-non-conforming, on and off the stage and screen. This podcast episode looks at her international, multilingual, and intermittently scandalous life and career.

​Host: Lucy

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Further Reading

Steven Bach, Marlene Dietrich: Life and Legend.

Eva Gesine Baur, Einsame Klasse: Das Leben der Marlene Dietrich.

Marlene Dietrich, Marlene.

Grace Aldridge Foster, "Marlene Dietrich dressed for the image, not for you," Smithsonian Insider (2017).

Karl Theodor Körner, “Abschied vom Leben.” 

Barbara Kosta, Willing Seduction: The Blue Angel, Marlene Dietrich, and Mass Culture
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Kathleen E.R. Smith, “Tin Pan Alley’s Music War Committee.” In God Bless America: Tin Pan Alley Goes to War, University Press of Kentucky (2003): 114–27.

Kelly Smith, “Marlene Dietrich,”  via WomensHistory.org

"Marlene Dietrich OSS Album," International Spy Museum.

John Theobald, “Ballad for Lili Marlene.” Poetry 66, no. 3 (1945): 142–44.

Marlene Dietrich sings at the UNICEF GALA 1962 " sag mir wo die Blumen sind."

Music: "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin Macleod (www.incompetech.com)