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 in the German city of Belsen throughout the war years, running a cinema frequented by Nazi officers and officials who oversaw the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Dietrich's mother remained in Berlin during the war; her husband moved to a ranch in the San Fernando Valley of California. Dietrich vouched on behalf of her sister and her sister's husband, sheltering them from possible prosecution as Nazi collaborators. Dietrich would later omit the existence of her sister and her sister's son from all accounts of her life, completely disowning them and claiming to be an only child. Dietrich received the Medal of Freedom