Marlene Dietrich filmography 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 contract with Paramount Pictures in the United States. Paramount sought to market Dietrich as a German answer to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Swedish sensation, Greta Garbo. Her first American film, "Morocco" (1930), directed by Sternberg, earned Dietrich her only Oscar nomination. She would appear in several other
Marlene Dietrich platonic love and whom she considered a genius. She also had an affair with Cuban-American writer Mercedes de Acosta, who claimed to be Greta Garbo's lover. "Sewing circle" was a phrase used by Dietrich to describe the underground, closeted lesbian and bisexual film actresses and their relationships in Hollywood. In the supposed "Marlene's Sewing Circle" are mentioned the names of other close friends such as Ann Warner (the wife of Jack L. Warner, one of the owners of the Warner studios), Lili Damita (an old friend of Marlene's from Berlin and the wife of Errol Flynn), Claudette Colbert, and Dolores