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 Crawford, Mae West, Katharine Hepburn, Norma Shearer, Dolores del Río and Fred Astaire among others. While she was in London, officials of the Nazi Party approached Dietrich and offered her lucrative contracts, should she agree to return to Germany as a foremost film star in the Third Reich. She refused their offers and applied for US citizenship in 1937. She returned to Paramount to make "Angel" (1937), another romantic comedy directed by Ernst Lubitsch; the film was poorly received, leading Paramount to buy out the remainder of Dietrich's contract. In 1939, with encouragement from Josef von Sternberg, she accepted producer