Charlotte Chandler

In the mid-1970s Charlotte Chandler met Marlene Dietrich at the star’s Paris apartment when her career was all but over. Elderly and in retirement, here was a screen legend who could, with the gift of hindsight give Chandler a fresh angle on her fascinating life.Marlene Dietrich began her career as a model in her native Berlin, becoming a stage and screen actress during the silent era, and a star with the worldwide success of The Blue Angel. Then, under the watchful eye of her mentor Josef von Sternberg, she broke America and became one of the brightest stars in Hollywood. A series of acclaimed pictures – Morocco, Shanghai Express, Blonde Venus, Destry Rides Again, among many others – propelled her to international stardom.With the outbreak of World War II, the fiercely anti-Nazi Dietrich became an American citizen and entertained Allied troops on the front lines. After the war she would embark on a new career as a stage performer and with her young music director, the gifted Burt Bacharach – whom Chandler. interviewed for the book – Dietrich enjoyed an outstanding second career. By the late 1970s, however, plagued by accidents, Dietrich had become a virtual recluse in her Paris apartment, communicating with the outside world almost entirely by telephone.Marlene Dietrich lived an extraordinary life, and Marlene, A Personal Biography relies extensively on the star’s own words and conversations with those who knew her well to reveal just how intriguing and fascinating that life really was.

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