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Marlene Dietrich: sensual screen siren, political radical, 20th-century sex symbol, and - eventually - septuagenarian cabaret star. Cabraret legend Le Gateau Chocolat, film historian Pamela Hutchinson, writer Phuong Le, and academic Lucy Bolton join Matthew Sweet to delve into a life fully lived.

From her formative collaborations with Josef von Sternberg, to entertaining the troops throughout World War II, to a late blossoming live performance career and touring as a cabaret artist into her seventies, Dietrich's life traces the line of western history throughout almost the whole twentieth century. What did she mean, and what did she become? Matthew and his guests follow the story through films including The Blue Angel, Shanghai Express, and Touch of Evil.

Pamela Hutchinson is the curator of The BFI's Marlene Dietrich: Falling in Love Again, which runs at BFI Southbank throughout December.

Le Gateau Chocolat’s work spans drag, cabaret, opera, musical theatre, children’s theatre and live art.

Lucy Bolton is the editor of Lasting Stars: Images that Fade and Personas that Endure and Reader in Film Studies at Queen Mary University London.

Phuong Le is a Paris-based film writer. She writes for publications including Music Mezzanine, Vague Visages and Film Comment magazine.

You can find Le Gateau Chocolat discussing Weimar the subversion of cabaret culture in an episode recorded at the Barbican centre /programmes/m000b7r7

And you might be interested in other discussions of film stars and directors including Billy Wilder, Cary Grant, Betty Balfour and Early Cinema and director Alice Guy-Blaché which are all available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts from the Free Thinking programme website.

Producer: Caitlin Benedict