By DCist contributor Marsha Dubrow
Marlene Dietrich: Dressed for the Image, opening today at the National Portrait Gallery, is the first American exhibit devoted to the legendary actress, showcasing her incandescent beauty, boundary-busting sexuality, and her patriotism.
Glamorous images from classic films such as The Blue Angel (1930) and Morocco (1930) mingle with stunning portraits by renowned photographers such as Irving Penn. But many of the images that really bring her to life are by unidentified photographers who captured candid moments with the icon.
Also featured are film clips, a love letter to Dietrich, and a 1955 tabloid article “outing” the famously “out” bisexual. Instead of suing, she commented, “Sex in America is an obsession; in other parts of the world, it’s a fact.”
The superstar is shown dressed in her signature top hat, white tie, and tails; in military garb as well as a sequined gown entertaining GIs; and in an elegant Dior coat. Penn framed her exquisite face in an expression of wisdom and understanding, but in a portrait by Milton Greene, her wavy blonde hair obscures her face, leaving her famous legs exposed instead.
“I dress for the image. Not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men,” Dietrich told Britain’s The Observer in 1960.
That self-assurance ensured not only glamour, but a then-astonishing, fiercely independent behavior off screen. She didn’t just push boundaries, she smashed them. Her approach to sex and gender made her “a symbol of androgyny and a hero of the LGBTQ community,” says exhibit curator Kate C. Lemay, a National Portrait Gallery historian.
When a 1933 photo of Dietrich in a chic white pants suit reached Paris, the city’s police chief threatened to arrest her if she wore such clothing in the French capital. Her response? As Lemay explains, Dietrich donned, “her most mannish tweed coat, her hair slicked back under a beret and wears sunglasses with circular lenses like monocles, the hidden signal of lesbianism.”
The police chief apologized and sent her a bracelet.
Dietrich began wearing a top hat and tuxedo in her 1930 films The Blue Angel and Morocco, the first film she made in America—and the first in which she kissed a woman. The exhibit highlights a candid photo by an unidentified photographer who captured Dietrich passionately kissing French singer Edith Piaf, one of her many famed lovers.
The actress was frequently photographed with a cigarette dangling from sultry lips. Lemay explains that she chose these images because, “in the 1920s and ’30s, [cigarettes] were a man’s item, a symbol of power. It was not acceptable for women to smoke. Marlene was pioneering in so many ways. By smoking, she showed that women could be feminine and also powerful … and achieve what men can achieve.”
But she was not just a symbol of Hollywood glamour—she was also something of a war hero.
Contrary to rumors, the Berlin-born actress was not a Nazi sympathizer (the FBI monitored her for years), and refused Nazi officials’ pressure to star in their propaganda films. Instead, she created propaganda for the CIA-precursor OSS, raised huge amounts of money for U.S. war bonds, and in the mid-’40s gave more than 500 USO performances across Europe, often on the front lines.
A naturalized U.S. citizen, Dietrich was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1947 as well as the French equivalent, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. In a George Horton photo dated March 1945, just two months before the war in Europe ended, Dietrich stands proudly against a background of parachutists descending like confetti from the sky. Her investment in the cause can be seen in a photo by Irving Haberman in which she enthusiastically kisses a GI returning from the war.
But wait! No film clip or still of the movie queen stripping from her King Kong costume in Blonde Venus (1932) as she warbles “Hot Voodoo”? Lemay explains, “I regret not being able to show it, due to space limitations.”
The exhibit opening is especially timely during LGBT Pride Month, and just weeks after the 25th anniversary of Dietrich’s death at age 90. The show’s closing, on April 15, 2018, marks another milestone: the National Portrait Gallery’s 50th anniversary. Perfect for this timeless, ageless role model.
Marlene Dietrich: Dressed for the Image is on view June 16 through April 15, 2018 at the National Portrait Gallery, 8th and F Sts NW. Free. Gallery hours are 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day except Christmas Day.
