Life of the Rathbone Party, 1937

A Marlene Dietrich LIFE Bibliography at Your Fingertips!

Years ago, I blogged about LIFE magazine's photo archive hitting Google Images. Let me update this information by reporting that past LIFE magazine issues are now available in their entirety through Google Books. There are many ways to retrieve Marlene Dietrich-related LIFE issues, so report them here if your way is more efficient than mine. For those of us who can survive without physical copies of these issues and can happily view them online, follow my visual instructions below the cut.

The Dress That Jamie Lee Snipped?

Marlene gave Jamie Lee Curtis one of her old evening dresses to wear to the 1983 or 1984 (sources differ) Academy Awards. Curtis was at the time engaged to one of Dietrich's grandsons.

Apparently, the gown had originally been made for Marlene to wear in 1942's The Lady is Willing; for the Oscars, Curtis had the gown altered and shortened.

Is this the dress?

The shortened version of the gown was sold by Christie's in 1999 for $ 9 200. The auction house credited it as a Jean Louis creation. Jean Louis only started to work at Columbia Pictures in 1944.

In the film, Dietrich's gowns are credited to Irene.

HQ Dietrich photos in the LIFE online archive

I ought to have mentioned this earlier, but a large portion of LIFE magazine's photo archive is now online, with the help of its host site Google. Search for "Marlene Dietrich" and feast your eyes on the glory.
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