While it's hard to believe that anyone can write nearly 800 pages about a Hollywood moviestar, Maria Riva has done it with intelligence and style. I feel as though I knew Marlene Dietrich personally and wish I could get to know her daugher better.


Refreshing and candid.   September 19, 2004
 13 out of 21 found this review helpful

A favorite passtime of mine is browsing my corner bookstore in my lunch break, and I have a weakness for biographies. Can't seem to get enough of them! But I am reasonably clean when it comes to other dangerous addictions.

While daydreaming, I stumbled over a biography written by Marlene's daughter, Maria Riva.

It was (surprisingly) well written, and I ended up skipping lunch altogether to read instead.

Apparently some talent from mom's boyfriends has rubbed off on Marlene's daughter, Maria.

I was especially intrigued by the relations to Erich Remarque;-- that affair of Marlene's might have been one of the longest relationships in her glittering gallery of affairs.

I read a lot of Remarque's books in my young days, and I still return to them from time to time.

Actually, Remarque is the reason I was reading anything about all of this in the first place.

Review by Palle Jorgensen, September 2004.


Marlene: All-too-Human Goddess   December 21, 2000
 11 out of 11 found this review helpful

"Marlene Dietrich", a massive, tell-all biography by her daughter, Maria Riva, is a fascinating read about a fascinating subject. Ms. Riva had been writing this book for years, and it was understood by all (including her legendary mother) that it not be published until after her death. A "Mommie Dearest" book? Not really. Riva is in awe of her mother, and does have some affection for her, although it sounds as if Dietrich DARED people to love her. She was a very strong-willed woman, infinitely German in this respect, stubborn, opinionated, and even somewhat delusional. However, well into her seventies, she once peered at herself in her full-length mirror before going onstage, and uttered, "Look at her-isn't she frightening?" The woman had more than a little self-perspective to utter a remark like that. She probably just wouldn't tolerate it coming from someone else. Screen legends are human, even though they may not think so. They are flawed, under pressure to "deliver the goods" and "never grow old", and, in the case of an aging star legendary for her glamorous beauty, "never to become ugly". Miss Dietrich was VERY aware of this, and ultimately trapped by this. But back to the book. It is almost exhaustive in its detail, particularly Ms. Riva's fascination with her mother's self-discipline, scrutinous eye for detail and beauty, and opinions on everything, is fascinating to myself, as well as millions of others. Her disdain for her parents' treatment of "Tami" is well-grounded-they didn't sound like the most sympathetic souls when it came to "personal issues", so who is to say that she is an "ungrateful, self-pitying daughter"? There are millions of parents who AREN'T famous who are insensitive to "personal issues." I think that the critics of this book should realize that ANY book is written with the intention of making money, and that no one would believe a totally whitewashed account of "My wonderful mother". This book could be THE book about being a show-business legend and its effect on everyone involved. Miss Dietrich, in my opinion, was the epitome of "Hollywood glamor" at its divine best. One can see why Madonna, who is a genius at self-perpetuating and publicizing a myth, emulated her for a while. I don't think that she has Dietrich's beauty or class or style, but that's another story. I have been a Dietrich fan since my teens, (I'm in my 40s now), and I am still fascinated by her. I am also a little horrified now, after reading Ms. Riva's book, but I also had to grow up with the fact that screen legends are human, too-even that fascinating, forbidden orchid known as Marlene Dietrich.


"Songs, sequins, sex, and sympathy."   November 25, 2005
 9 out of 9 found this review helpful

In this astonishingly honest biography of Marlene Dietrich from birth to age 73, her daughter Maria Riva reveals the truth about her mother as it contrasts with the sometimes embellished stories of the Dietrich legend. She does this with love, a sense of understanding of the needs of this complex woman, and with a surprising humor which is never deprecating. The resulting biography shows Dietrich in an almost heroic light--but not for the actions which have become part of her show-biz mystique. Her real life and her real commitments, many of which are far less celebrated, often prove to be more remarkable than the stories promulgated by the press.

Dietrich began keeping diaries and journals at age ten, and her daughter uses these and her personal knowledge to show Dietrich's life in three phases. The first part includes her family background, childhood, acting studies, early career, and decision to pursue a film career in Hollywood, and also incorporates her marriage to Rudolf Sieber (which lasted fifty years) and the birth of her daughter. In Part II, her decision to become an American citizen, help actively with the American war effort, and work tirelessly for the USO in America, Europe, and Africa shows a commitment to helping others that belies her cold, sexy image. In Part III, her postwar career in Las Vegas and on tour, despite her undiagnosed health problems, reveal her dedication to remaining a "goddess" on stage and in the public imagination.

Throughout the biography, Riva's honesty, including her awareness of her mother's faults, is always tempered by her respect for Dietrich's integrity and her commitment to entertaining--Dietrich, she says, was "the embodiment of other people's dreams." She details Dietrich's long love affairs with director Josef von Sternberg, with whom she made seven films, with French actor Jean Gabin during the war, and with Yul Brynner in the 1950s, along with shorter relationships with many other show business personalities, generals during the war, and composers and directors.

Though Kenneth Tynan once referred to the fact that Dietrich oozed "sex without gender," Riva pays little attention to the interest Dietrich may have had in other women, and to Dietrich's boast that she had slept with three members of the Kennedy clan. Her "inside look" at Dietrich as she grows older and keeps performing despite serious circulatory and cardiac problems, and her ability to share the "secrets" Dietrich used to enhance her image and hide her flaws, make Dietrich-the-Legend come to life. Written in an informal, straightforward style, Riva continues the legend despite her revelations--she just revises it a bit and makes it more realistic. n Mary Whipple



Worse Than Trash   October 6, 2000
 8 out of 19 found this review helpful

Snide, mean spirited, self aggrandizing doesn't begin to describe this book. There are so many contradictions, impossibilites and "facts" that fly in the face of documented truths that it ought to have been sold as a novel entitled "The Daughter's Revenge". That Mrs. Riva continually sanctifies her father's mistress, a former chorus girl who freely elected to spend her life living with a married man who who was supported by his wife, is beyond despicable. Her insights into her mother's career choices make it plain why her own career never went anywhere, and her attempts to build up her own 15 minutes of fame (mostly for being her mother's daughter) are pathetic. In the end it becomes very clear that the author's motivation for this book is jealousy compounded by a serious need for self justification. Anyone who doubts that need, should read Mrs. Riva's description of her sick, elderly mother who was able to function only with liberal infusions of alcohol and uppers, dragging herself from country to country and stage to stage and ask themself who it was that Dietrich did it for.