Marlene Dietrich de l’icône à la guest star : âge, voix et circulation entre les médias

Abstract

Numerous studies have analyzed Marlene Dietrich’s strong star persona but very few of them have focused on her idiosyncratic voice and the way she used it on the popular medium of radio, before starting her singing career on the stage. As she got older, the star made fewer screen appearances, but nonetheless remained very familiar to American radio audiences through radio adaptations of films, dramas, series and comedy shows.This article investigates Dietrich’s radio interventions during the Classical Hollywood era. It reveals aspects of Dietrich’s star persona quite different from her Sternbergian image. On radio, Dietrich adds two new strings to her bow : comic ability in vaudeville shows, and a deep expressiveness in melodrama, both of which can also be found in her later films.

Keywords

• voice
• radio shows
• guest stars
• aging stars
• vaudeville
• performance