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The most exotic actress of the 1930s and '40s, Marlene Dietrich performed her cabaret act around the world and recorded for Decca, Columbia and Capitol in the post-war period, after her film career had slowed. A thick German accent and her odd sung-spoken vocal style proved no barrier to international popular success and adoration. Born near Berlin in 1901, she began studying acting as a teenager, and auditioned with director Max Reinhardt several times before entering his drama school. She worked in the German theater and film world during the 1920s, gradually assuming star status until her international breakout at the end of the decade, when she appeared in The Blue Angel, directed by American Josef von Sternberg. The film's success led directly to Hollywood, where she became one of the major female stars of the 1930s, in such films as Song of Songs, The Scarlet Empress, Knight Without Armour and Destry Rides Again. Because of her German heritage, the newly American citizen made a ...