Marlene Dietrich

Berlin is marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Germany's first worldwide star Marlene Dietrich. The screen icon died ten years ago, hating her home town of Berlin because many there had treated her as a traitor. But the city has still pulled out all the stops to mark what would have been her 100th birthday today, December 27, 2001. Musical galas, film tributes and television documentaries all honor the sultry star who enchanted film, theatre and nightclub audiences in career spanning more than 40 years. Berlin's Film Museum is staging a special exhibition on the diva, titled "Forever Young" - and showing never-before-seen private films of the late star. The effort is echoed by other Dietrich shows at the Schoeneberg district hall and the city's Gay Museum. On Friday, stars including German chanteuse Ute Lemper will perform personal interpretations of Dietrich classics at the Friedrichstadtpalast show hall. Wreaths from President Johannes Rau and the city government were laid in a ceremony at Dietrich's grave in the Friedenau cemetery in the German capital, where she was born named Maria Magdalene von Losch in 1901. Rau sent a message stressing her commitment to "democracy and freedom in Germany" during the Nazi era. The Berlin mayor's chief of staff Andre Schmitz marked the anniversary by asking forgiveness for a hostile reception Dietrich received in 1960, reflecting bitterness at the star's support for the Allies during World War II and her failure to return home after the war. Bomb threats, picket signs reading "Marlene Go Home" and editorials calling her a "traitor" led the actress to swear she would never return to Germany. The actress began her career in the 1920s, singing in local theatres and performing as a small time actress, forming her style in Berlin's decadent pre-nazi film and theatre scene. Her breakthrough came in 1930 with Josef von Sternberg's film 'Der Blaue Engel' (The Blue Angel). The vampish role as cabaret singer Lola-Lola, shot in English and German, is considered her signature performance, and launched her career. A move to Hollywood followed, where her husky voice, high cheekbones and long legs made her famous and lit up cinema screens for decades. She became a worldwide star in the film 'Morocco', playing opposite Gary Cooper. Other films of her heydey include 'Shanghai Express', 'Blonde Venus', 'The Song of Songs', 'The Devil is a Woman', 'Desire' and 'Destry Rides Again' - all honing an exotic style now adored by drag acts and female impersonators. Dietrich became a U.S. citizen in the late 1930s, and consistently refused urges by Hitler's Nazis to return to Germany. She sang for American troops as they fought her countrymen. "She didn't betray the real Germany by doing that," Schmitz said. Dietrich only went back to Germany twice after the war - once in 1947, then again in 1960 for a concert tour. On the second visit, she was met with scattered protests, with some demonstrators spitting at her, and calling her a slut. The star became a recluse in the last decades of her life, dying in Paris in 1992 aged 90. She was buried in Berlin next to the grave of her mother, Josefine. The ceremony was marked by controversy and an official civic ceremony was cancelled because of the lingering resentment. Dietrich's grave has been desecrated at times by vandals. Still, the bittersweet relationship between Dietrich and Berlin - whose tourist office now describes her as "perhaps the most famous Berliner" - didn't end with her death. Only after years of debate did city officials in 1997 approve a plan to name a square after her. The Marlene-Dietrich-Platz, in the new Potsdamer Platz complex, was named after the actress's native Schoeneberg neighborhood failed in a five-year struggle to agree on a suitable site. Some Schoeneberg residents, still bitter over Dietrich's support for the Allies in World War II, had opposed any recognition for her in Berlin. Businesses on the proposed street also didn't want the costs of changing their mailing address.