Happy Birthday: Marlene Dietrich!

Marlene Dietrich(27 December 1901 – 6 May 1992), was born in Schöneberg, Germany. She was the younger of two daughters of Louis Erich Otto Dietrich and Wilhelmina Elisabeth Josephine Felsing. Dietrich's mother was from a well-to-do family who owned a clock making company and her father was a police lieutenant.  Afther her father died in 1911, her mother married  his best friend, Eduard von Losch, who died soon after as a result of injuries he received during World War I.

Dietrich went to Auguste Victoria School for Girls from 1906 to 1918. She studied the violin and became interested in theatre and poetry. Her dreams of becoming a concert violinist were cut short when she injured her wrist.

In 1921, Dietrich soon found herself working in his theatres as a chorus girl and playing small roles in dramas, without attracting any special attention at first. She made her film debut playing a bit part in the 1922 film, So sind die Manner. She met her future husband, Rudolf Sieber, on the set of another film made that year, Tragodie der Liebe. Dietrich and Sieber were married on 17 May 1924. Her only child was born on 13 December 1924.

Dietrich continued to work on stage and in film both in Berlin and Vienna throughout the 1920s. On stage, she had roles of varying importance in, Pandora's Box, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Back to Methuselah and Misalliance. It was in musicals and revues, such as Broadway, Es Liegt in der Luft and Zwei Krawatten, that she attracted the most attention. By the late 1920s, Dietrich was also playing sizable parts on screen, including Cafe Elektric (1927), Ich küsse Ihre Hand, Madame (1928) and Das Schiff der verlorenen Menschen (1929).

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