Marlene Dietrich

In 1994 her memoralilia were sold to the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek (after US insitutions showed no interest) where it became the core of the FilmMuseum Berlin in the Sony Center on Potsdamer Platz, Berlin. Elsie Ferguson was interred in the Duck River Cemetery in Old Lyme, Connecticut. de:Friedenau Cemetery. A very wealthy woman with no heirs, and a lover of animals, on her passing in 1961 she left a large part of her considerable estate to a variety of charities including several for animal welfare. Her body, covered with an American flag, was then returned to Berlin where she was interred in the Städtischen Friedhof III, Berlin-Schöneberg, Stubenrauchstraße 43-45. Ferguson made her final appearance on Broadway in 1943 at the age of 60 that met with critical acclaim. A service was conducted at La Madeline in Paris before 3,500 mourners and a crowd of well-wishers outside. Married four times, following her final marriage at age 51 she and her husband acquired a farm in Connecticut and divided their time between it and her Cap d'Antibes home on the Mediterranean Sea in the south of France.

Dietrich died peacefully at the age of 90 in Paris, of general old-age. Despite her wealth and fame and glamorous lifestyle, Elsie Ferguson's personal life had more than its share of turmoil. It is true that she quipped that she would return only when one of her Jewish friends (possibly Max Reinhardt) could accompany her. Although her voice came across well enough, at age 47 she was well past her prime for fans who wanted to see her as the great youthful beauty she had once been. Despite all of this, she was reportedly offered a king's ransom to return to Germany, due to her immense popularity as well as Hitler's ardour, which she declined. In 1930 she made her first talkie that would also be her final film. When Maria gave birth to a son in 1948, Dietrich was dubbed "the world's most glamorous grandmother." Although they never married, the great love of her life was the French actor and military hero, Jean Gabin. In 1925 she made one film only before returning to the Broadway stage.

13, 1924. It is considered her best work in film. Her only child, Maria, was born on Dec. One of these was the 1921 film entitled Forever in which she starred opposite the leading heartthrob of the day, Wallace Reid. She married once, to director's assistant (and later director at Paramount Pictures, France) Rudolf Sieber. In 1921, she accepted another contract offer from Paramount Pictures to star in four films to be spread over a two-year period. Unlike her professional celebrity, which was carefully crafted and maintained, Dietrich's personal life was kept out of public view. She fell in love with Paris and the French Riviera and within a few years bought a permanent home there.

Her public image and some of her movies included strong sexual undertones, including bisexuality. Accordingly, it is no surprise that she had affairs with women (Mercedes de Acosta was among her lesbian lovers) as well as men. In 1920, she traveled to the Middle East and Europe. Dietrich was a fashion icon to the top designers as well as a screen icon whom later stars would follow. Elsie Ferguson eventually followed the move west and bought a home in the hills of Hollywood, California. She is also famous for having recorded Lili Marleen during World War II, a curious example of a song transcending the hatreds of war. Many of the films she agreed to do were because they were adaptations of stage plays with which she was familiar. Dietrich became an American citizen in 1937, raised a record number of War Bonds and entertained American troops during the Second World War. Continuing to play roles of elegant society women, Ferguson was quickly dubbed "The Aristocrat of the Silent Screen." But the aristocratic label was also because she was known as a difficult and sometimes arrogant personality to work with.

Her singing helped here too, as she recorded a number of anti-Nazi records in German for the OSS. At the peak of her popularity, several film studios offered her a contract but she declined them all until the widely respected New York based French director Maurice Tourneur proposed she appear in the lead role as a sophisticated patrician in his 1917 silent film, "Barbary Sheep". Following this first film, Elsie Ferguson starred in two more films directed by Tourneur under a lucrative contract from Paramount Pictures that paid her $1,000 per day of filming. She sang for the Allied troops on the front lines in Algiers, Fance and into Germany with Generals Gavin & Patton. Ferguson, noted for her great beauty and as one of the "Park Avenue aristocrats," on one occasion is reputed to have sold $85,000.00 worth of bonds in less than an hour. She was a staunch anti-Nazi who despised Germany's anti-semitic policies of the time. During World War I, a number of Broadway stars organized a campaign to sell Liberty Bonds from the theatre stage prior to the performance as well as at highly publicized appearances at places such as the New York Public Library. Dietrich was known to have a strong set of political convictions and a mind to speak them. In 1910 she spent time on the stage in London, England.

Madeline Kahn did the same in the Mel Brooks film "Blazing Saddles". By 1909, she was a major Broadway star. Her distinctive voice was later satirized, by Lotte Lenya, in the song Lieder by cult British trio Fascinating Aïda. Raised and educated in Manhattan, she became interested in the theater at a young age and made her stage debut at seventeen as a chorus girl in a musical comedy. She spent the last twelve years bed-ridden, in seclusion in her apartment in Paris. Born Elsie Louise Ferguson in New York City, she was the only child of a successful attorney. Her show business career largely ended, however, in 1974, when she broke her leg during a stage performance. Elsie Ferguson, born August 19, 1883 - died November 15, 1961, was an American stage and film actress.

Spectacular costumes (by Jean Louis) and careful stage lighting helped to preserve Dietrich's glamorous image well into old age. His arrangements helped to disguise Dietrich's limited vocal range and allowed her to perform her songs to maximum dramatic effect. Until the mid-1960s her musical director was pop composer Burt Bacharach. Her repertoire included songs from her films as well as popular songs of the day.

From the 1950s to the mid-1970s Dietrich toured internationally as a successful cabaret performer. Following a slowdown in her film career, she made a number of records first for Decca, Elektrola, EMI, and for Columbia. Dietrich sang in several of her films (most famously in von Sternberg's The Blue Angel, in which she sings "Falling In Love Again"), having made records in Germany in the 1920s. She gradually broadened her repertoire in roles such as Destry Rides Again, A Foreign Affair, Witness for the Prosecution, Touch of Evil, and Judgment at Nuremberg.

Her most lasting contribution to film history was as the star in several films directed by Josef von Sternberg in the early 1930s, such as The Scarlet Empress and Shanghai Express, in which she played "femme fatales". After playing in only German movies at first, she got her first role in the 1st European talking picture, The Blue Angel(1930; directed by Joseph von Sternberg) and then moved to Hollywood to make Morocco (for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress). Born in Schöneberg, Berlin, Dietrich played the violin before joining an acting school in 1921, making her film debut the following year. Marie Magdalene "Marlene" Dietrich (December 27, 1901 - May 6, 1992) was a German actress and singer.