Maria Riva at 90

Happy birthday to Maria Riva, who turns 90 on Saturday!

Marlene Dietrich's FBI File

Take a gander at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) file on Marlene Dietrich here.* You've heard and read it all before from many other sources, but this is over 150 pages of declassified information. I'd venture to guess J. Edgar Hoover went into a tizzy after he couldn't squeeze himself into Dietrich's Blonde Venus hot pants and concocted this cockamamie X-27 drama. Actually, it seems that most of WWII-era investigation stems from anonymous letters from xenophobic Americans. Other inquiries address Dietrich as a victim of extortion attempts.

*Note: If the link doesn't take you directly to the page, it should at least show you some Dietrich-related page links. Click on one of those, preferably the one with the file icon. The webmaster should consider using underscores in URLs!

In summary: