Marlene Dietrich filmography film appearance was as herself in the 1984 documentary, "Marlene". In 1999, the American Film Institute named Dietrich as the ninth-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema. </div style="font-size: 95%"> </div style="font-size: 95%"> </div style="font-size: 95%"> Complete list of television appearances (excluding news footage): Marlene Dietrich filmography Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress. In the 1920s, she acted on the Berlin stage and in silent films, making her film debut in 1922. She was propelled to international fame by director Josef von Sternberg, who cast her as Lola-Lola in "The Blue Angel" (1930). The film's commercial success brought her a
Marlene Dietrich 29 September 1975, when she fell off the stage and broke her thigh during a performance in Sydney, Australia. The following year, her husband, Rudolf Sieber, died of cancer on 24 June 1976. Dietrich's final on-camera film appearance was a cameo role in "Just a Gigolo" (1979), starring David Bowie and directed by David Hemmings, in which she sang the title song. An alcoholic dependent on painkillers, Dietrich withdrew to her apartment at 12 in Paris. She spent the final 11 years of her life mostly bedridden, allowing only a select few—including family and employees—to enter the apartment. During this