Marlene Dietrich
The Life
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Marlene Dietrich
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Narrated by:
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Christa Lewis
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By:
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Maria Riva
About this listen
With intimate detail, author Maria Riva reveals the rich life of her mother, Marlene Dietrich, the charismatic star of stage and screen whose career spanned much of the 20th century. Opening with Dietrich's childhood in Schöneberg, Riva's biography introduces us to an energetic, disciplined, and ambitious young actress whose own mother equated show business with a world of vagabonds and thieves.
Dietrich would quickly rise to stardom on the Berlin stage in the 1920s with her sharp wit and bisexual mystique, and wearing the top hat and tails that revolutionized our concept of beauty and femininity. She comes alive in these pages in all her incarnations: muse, collaborator, bona fide movie star, box-office poison, lover, wife, and mother.
During World War II, Dietrich would stand up to the Nazis and galvanize American troops, eventually earning the Congressional Medal of Freedom. There were her artistic relationships with Josef von Sternberg (The Blue Angel, Morocco, Shanghai Express), Colette, Erich Maria Remarque, Noël Coward, and Cole Porter, as well as her heady romances. And in her final years, Dietrich would make herself visibly invisible, devoting herself to the immortality of her legend.
©2017 Maria Riva (P)2020 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 53
In her short decade in Hollywood, Jean Harlow created a new genre of movie star - her fans idolized her for her peerless image, her beautiful body, and her gorgeous façade. Harlow in Hollywood is the story of how a town and an industry created her, a story that's never been told before. In this book, renowned Harlow expert Darrell Rooney and Hollywood historian Mark Vieira team up to present the most beautiful - and accurate - book on Harlow ever produced.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A quick listen
- By Michelle on 07-26-22
By: Darrell Rooney, and others
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Tragic Hollywood, Beautiful, Glamorous And Dead
- By: Jackie Ganiy
- Narrated by: Virtual Voice
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 24
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Performance3.5 out of 5 stars 22
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Story4 out of 5 stars 22
Have you always been fascinated by the morbid side of Hollywood? Did you cut your teeth on books like Hollywood Babylon, and shows like Mysteries And Scandals? This book promises to deliver all the salacious details about the stars you remember, not for their films, but for their tragic short lives. What really happened to Natalie Wood aboard The Splendor that cold November night? Was Jayne Mansfield really decapitated? Just how decadent were the days of the silent movies? Maybe you think you've heard it all? Trust me, you haven't! Chock full of new details, shocking photos and even a ...
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3 out of 5 stars
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Stories were interesting
- By Karmen King on 03-28-25
By: Jackie Ganiy
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Hank and Jim
- The Fifty-Year Friendship of Henry Fonda and James Stewart
- By: Scott Eyman
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 211
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 178
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 177
Henry Fonda and James Stewart were two of the biggest stars in Hollywood for 40 years. They became friends and then roommates as stage actors in New York, and when they began making films in Hollywood, they roomed together again. Between them they made such memorable films as The Grapes of Wrath, Mister Roberts, Twelve Angry Men, and On Golden Pond; and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Destry Rides Again, The Philadelphia Story, It's a Wonderful Life, Vertigo, and Rear Window.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating look into these two actors' lives
- By MPAMIN on 06-25-18
By: Scott Eyman
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Confidential Confidential
- The Inside Story of Hollywood's Notorious Scandal Magazine
- By: Samantha Barbas
- Narrated by: Donna Postel
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 69
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 59
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Story4 out of 5 stars 60
In the 1950s, Confidential magazine, America's first celebrity scandal magazine, revealed Hollywood stars' secrets, misdeeds, and transgressions in gritty, unvarnished detail. Deploying a vast network of tipsters to root out stars' sexual affairs, drug use, and sexuality, publisher Robert Harrison destroyed celebrities' carefully constructed images and built a media empire. Confidential became the best-selling magazine on American newsstands in the 1950s, surpassing Time, Life, and the Saturday Evening Post. Confidential's spectacular rise was followed by an equally spectacular fall.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating! Painstaking Research & Documentation
- By A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. on 05-22-19
By: Samantha Barbas
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Goddess
- The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe
- By: Anthony Summers
- Narrated by: Donna Postel
- Length: 19 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 224
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 203
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 202
Marilyn Monroe, born to deprivation and a series of foster homes, became an acting legend of the 20th century. She married famous men, Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller, and her many lovers included President John F. Kennedy. Her death, at 36, is a mystery that remains unsolved to this day. Anthony Summers interviewed 600 people for this book, which reveals unknown truths, some funny, some very sad, about this brilliant but troubled woman. First to gain access to the files of Monroe's last psychiatrist, he throws light on Monroe's troubled psyche.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating and very plausible
- By Theresa on 10-23-17
By: Anthony Summers
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Don Rickles
- The Merchant of Venom
- By: Michael Seth Starr
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
The Merchant of Venom traces Don Rickles's career from his rise in the 1950s to a late-in-life resurgence thanks to the Toy Story franchise, his role in Martin Scorsese's Casino, and scores of TV appearances from Carson to Seth Meyers. In the intervening decades, Rickles conquered every medium he worked in, including film, television, and on stage. He was idolized by a generation of younger comedians including Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, and Jay Leno, and performed in the shadow of a shocking open secret: he was the nicest man in town.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful book!
- By EJ on 09-30-24
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Jimmy Stewart
- The Truth Behind the Legend
- By: Michael Munn
- Narrated by: Mark Whitten
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 780
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 706
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 703
In this definitive biography of one of Hollywood's most beloved stars, Michael Munn reveals the truth behind the diffident, earnest and kindly persona of Jimmy Stewart. Drawn from the author's formal interviews and informal meetings with the star and his friendship with Stewart's wife, Gloria, is this portrait of a man who came from the Presbyterian traditions of Pennsylvania to become one of the silver screen's enduring legends.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Don't waste your money
- By Deann on 09-01-21
By: Michael Munn
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City of Nets
- A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940's
- By: Otto Friedrich, Glen David Gold - foreword
- Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
- Length: 25 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 30
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
In 1939, 50 million Americans went to the movies every week, Louis B. Mayer was the highest-paid man in the country, and Hollywood produced 530 feature films a year. One decade and five thousand movies later, the studios were faltering....
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2 out of 5 stars
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Disjointed and flawed
- By A. N. Onymous on 01-18-22
By: Otto Friedrich, and others
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Testimony of a Death
- Thelma Todd: Mystery, Media and Myth in 1935 Los Angeles
- By: Patrick Jenning, Marshall Croddy
- Narrated by: Virtual Voice
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 5
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Performance3 out of 5 stars 5
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 5
On a chilly Monday morning in 1935, a young maid opened the garage door of a Southern California seaside villa onto a grim scene. Her employer, a popular motion picture comedienne, lay dead in the front seat of her expensive automobile. Within hours, the news of Thelma Todd’s death was making headlines throughout the nation. Was it murder, suicide, or accident? Cast against the background of Hollywood and Los Angeles, the film industry and the growing metropolis, her death baffled both the public and the investigating authorities. After numerous attempts to solve the mystery over the last...
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5 out of 5 stars
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Facts
- By Anonymous User on 01-03-25
By: Patrick Jenning, and others
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Madness Under the Royal Palms
- Love and Death Behind the Gates of Palm Beach
- By: Laurence Leamer
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 128
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 78
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Story4 out of 5 stars 79
In March 1999, a Palm Beach matron and her socially ambitious husband invited the elite of the island for a dinner dance honoring Prince Edward. Among those dancing to the string orchestra that evening would be those accused of murder and spousal abuse, and others who would suffer fates both unseemly and unspeakable. Among the outer circle there would be murders, suicides, and fatal fires.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Just what I've been waiting for
- By kk on 09-29-09
By: Laurence Leamer
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Capote
- A Biography
- By: Gerald Clarke
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 25 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 93
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 72
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 72
First published in 1988 - just four years after Capote's death - Clarke paints a vivid behind-the-scenes picture of the author's life, based on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with the man himself and the people close to him. From the glittering heights of notoriety and parties with the rich and famous to his later struggles with addiction, Capote emerges as a richly multidimensional person - both brilliant and flawed.
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5 out of 5 stars
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the brightest stars can self destruct
- By Placeholder on 09-22-21
By: Gerald Clarke
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My Autobiography
- By: Charles Chaplin, David Robinson - introduction
- Narrated by: Steve John Shepherd
- Length: 19 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 84
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 72
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 72
Take an unforgettable journey with the man George Bernard Shaw called "the only genius to come out of the movie industry" as he moves from his impoverished South London childhood to the heights of Hollywood wealth and fame; from the McCarthy-era investigations to his founding of United Artists to his "reverse migration" back to Europe.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Finally Chaplin’s auto is available!
- By Ryan Baumbach on 04-28-22
By: Charles Chaplin, and others
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Diamonds and Deadlines
- A Tale of Greed, Deceit, and a Female Tycoon in the Gilded Age
- By: Betsy Prioleau
- Narrated by: Beth Hicks
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 37
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
Among the fabled tycoons of the Gilded Age—Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt—is a forgotten figure: Mrs. Frank Leslie. For twenty years she ran the country’s largest publishing company, Frank Leslie Publishing, which chronicled postbellum America in dozens of weeklies and monthlies. A pioneer in an all-male industry, she made a fortune and became a national celebrity and tastemaker in the process. Diamonds and Deadlines reveals the unknown, sensational life of the brilliant and brazen “empress of journalism”.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful biography of forgotten gilded age publishing icon
- By Amazon Customer on 03-24-24
By: Betsy Prioleau
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Tramp
- The Life of Charlie Chaplin
- By: Joyce Milton
- Narrated by: Clinton Wade
- Length: 19 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 122
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 107
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Story4 out of 5 stars 105
Charlie Chaplin made an amazing 71 films by the time he was only 33 years old. He was not only known as the world’s first international movie star, but as a comedian, film director, and a man ripe with scandal, accused of plagiarism, communism, pacifism, liberalism, and anti-Americanism. He seduced young women, marrying four different times, each time to a woman younger than the next. In this animated biography of Chaplin, Joyce Milton reveals to us a life riddled with gossip and a struggle to rise from an impoverished London childhood to the life of a successful American film star.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Narrator ruined what should have been a great book
- By Debra Gaskill on 07-27-21
By: Joyce Milton
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In Black and White
- The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr.
- By: Wil Haygood
- Narrated by: Kevin Free
- Length: 23 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 136
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 90
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 90
This biography of entertainment legend Sammy Davis, Jr. is an enthralling portrait of one of the most recognizable figures from the golden age of American show business. Davis, a guarded man who protected his private life with great vigor, lived an extraordinary life in the limelight, while also forging new uncharted paths across racial lines.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Sammy Plus
- By James Gordon on 07-02-06
By: Wil Haygood
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A Very Private Woman
- The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer
- By: Nina Burleigh
- Narrated by: Siiri Scott
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 32
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 24
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 25
In 1964, Mary Pinchot Meyer, the beautiful, rebellious, and intelligent ex-wife of a top CIA official, was killed on a quiet Georgetown towpath near her home. Mary Meyer was a secret mistress of President John F. Kennedy, whom she had known since private school days, and after her death, reports that she had kept a diary set off a tense search by her brother-in-law, newsman Ben Bradlee, and CIA spymaster James Jesus Angleton. But the only suspect in her murder was acquitted, and today her life and death are still a source of intense speculation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Easier to listen to than to read
- By Cheaton on 06-05-20
By: Nina Burleigh
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Lies My Mother Told Me
- The World According to Joan
- By: Melissa Rivers
- Narrated by: Melissa Rivers
- Length: 6 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 101
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 88
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Story4 out of 5 stars 88
If you think Joan Rivers said funny, outrageous, and ridiculous things onstage, wait 'til you hear the funny, outrageous, and ridiculous things she said offstage...things that will make you laugh out loud...and keep Melissa in therapy for the foreseeable future. The only thing my mother loved more than making people laugh was lying...or as she'd say, "embellishing." Her motto was: "Why let the truth ruin a good story?" This book contains some of those stories.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Could not finish this audio book
- By Fla on 05-10-22
By: Melissa Rivers
What listeners say about Marlene Dietrich
Highly rated for:
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 08-05-21
An Amazing Biography
Not only probably the best biography of a Hollywood star but a biography of the 20th century. How things moved, felt and how it all ultimately falls apart. Sad and beautiful. Only someone who lived it could bring this story to life as Maria Riva did and does.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 04-21-21
What a Character, What a Saintly Patient & Intelligent Daughter
Maria Riva deserves not only a Medal of Honor for surviving her self-absorbed, tornado-of-destruction of a mother, but also should be lauded for her incredible talent as a writer. Throughout the highly-entertaining book, I found myself wanting to jot down some of her beautifully worded prose, to revisit and soak in at a later time.
More than anything, I was impressed with Riva’s keen, razor-sharp sense of humor and appreciation of the absurd - both qualities she clearly inherited from her mother. Riva’s, however, is manifested with humanity and class, without the cruel, downright meanness (and lack of respect and graciousness) of the vapid legend.
Excellent audio performance on this one, as well. The actor really captured the tone and personalities of both mother and daughter. Highly recommended!. Please write more, Ms. Riva!
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Leann S. Baptista
- 07-05-22
A very detailed lengthy story of an icon
I enjoyed this book. Towards the end it seemed a bit too long. SO much detail. I do feel I have a glimpse of this icon. Very interesting as it spoke of many celebrities, presidents, the Queen Mary, (early 1900-90’s.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Domenick Naccarato
- 09-24-23
Unbelievably Great !!!
Just written so well and your totally involved with the story. Just try it, trust me !!!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Lori Breit
- 11-06-24
Fantastic!
This book was absolutely amazing. I loved hearing about her mother, Marlene Dietrich; however, Madame Riva’s life story is the real story here and I walked away from this book feeling a bit gutted as it resembled my own childhood on some levels. Having a self-absorbed, narcissistic mother who, while she did many great things, really hurt the people closest to her in her wake and Madame Riva never had her own childhood. I applaud her courage for speaking her truth and sharing her story!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Juliane Price
- 04-17-25
Brava, Maria Riva!!!
What an amazing summary of a legend! Stardom, choices, diva beyond behavior and tragedy are present throughout this journey! Brava, Maria Riva!!!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- CGSparky
- 08-17-22
Wonderful
what an amazing life. what an amazing story. have listened to this audiobook numerous times and they have actually read the book. love it!
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Skeeter1
- 08-24-21
Fascinating and Frustrating
Dietrich’s daughter, Maria Riva, shares her view of her mother’s extraordinary life in vivid detail. I found it compelling and learned a lot about this iconic figure. Overall it held my attention with just a few minor lags. My two issues are (1) although the narrator has a lovely voice, there wasn’t enough variation of accent or tone between characters, which often left me momentarily confused as to who was speaking. (2) I wanted to scream at the people in Dietrich’s life, especially her daughter, as they continually enabled her seriously dysfunctional behavior. Otherwise, a fascinating listen.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- RRobinR
- 08-01-22
beautifully written
doubt this story would have been more descriptive or revealing if it has been related by the beautiful start herself. nicely done.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 08-02-23
Breathtaking experience!⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Excellent reading - such a great exploration of the life of the great Dietrich. I might not fully stand by some of the events, and I might say that sometimes the book went towards being exploitative: in alltogether, well worth the time. Highly recommended!
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1 person found this helpful