Classic Movie Legend Tribute: Marlene Dietrich

Happy Birthday to Classic Movie Legend, Marlene Dietrich, Born December 27, 1901!

Glamour. Defined in the dictionary as: an air of compelling charm, romance, and excitement, especially when delusively alluring. For me, and I am assuming for many of you, glamor is what initially attracted me to the world of classic film. From Technicolor film stock to gauze-covered lenses, movies from yesteryear rejected the aesthetics of reality in favor of a more stylized world where anything was possible and everything was glamorous. And no star represented this world of glamour and illusion more than birthday girl, Marlene Dietrich.

Dietrich’s perfect combination of world-weary sophistication, unquestionable experience and self-deprecating humor made her one of the most successful Cabaret performers Germany’s Weimar era. It was during her Cabaret days that she began crafting her now famous image of a gender-bending star that knows no sexual bounds. By rejecting the conventional gender standards of the time, Dietrich rejected the notion that glamorous must be synonyms with feminine and proved that women could look equally as dapper in a top hat and tuxedo as in an Edith Head evening gown. So, to celebrate this pioneer of gender-bending, rule breaking glamour, let us look Dietrich doing what she does best: being glamorous.

…..Marlene Dietrich making the Navy glamorous