Marlene Dietrich at Home: 10 Photos of the Legendary Leading Lady’s Opulent LA Life

Marlene Dietrich developed a penchant for nomadism over the course of her life as an entertainer. Born in Germany in 1901, the Oscar-nominated actor made herself at home all around the world with residences in Berlin, Paris, and New York City. Her most famous and well-photographed pads, though, were the sprawling mansions that she rented from friends in Beverly Hills.

Still, wherever the Scarlet Empress star lived, she wrote as if her world revolved around her daughter, Maria. “A home without a child is not a home,” Dietrich said in her 1979 memoir Marlene. “I was convinced of this even before I had a child. It belongs to the mysterious intuition that a young and ignorant soul possesses.”

Below, we’ve rounded up 10 glamorous snapshots of Dietrich’s West Coast abodes—including an ornate mansion that she rented from a legendary socialite.

Art Deco palace

In this 1931 photo, Dietrich is pictured with her daughter Maria Riva, whom she shared with her husband, Rudolf Sieber. Dietrich and Sieber were married from 1923 until his death in 1976. In Riva’s 1992 biography of her mother, Marlene Dietrich: The Life, she included the above photo, captioned: “In California, we posed by the Art Deco pool of our first rented ‘Palace’ in sunny Beverly Hills.” The home was picked out for Dietrich by the filmmaker Josef von Sternberg, who directed her in several movies, including Morocco, which earned her an Oscar nod. The house was surrounded by cypress and banana trees. “Our new home was real 1930s Art Deco,” Riva wrote. “Elegant, cold, like an Erté illustration, all fluid detachment—to exist in, not to live in.”

A lush garden

The Beverly Hills “palace” also featured a verdant garden. “I took possession of this wonder immediately, even before von Sternberg announced: ‘And here is the garden for the child, with her own swimming pool,’” Riva wrote in Marlene Dietrich: The Life. The Olympic pool featured mosaic tiles and the surface “sparkled in the strong sunlight like a million diamonds, and that made all the difference,” per the star’s daughter. Because Dietrich moved often, Riva began to associate each home with the films her mother was making at the time—as well as the lovers she had. “As I always mentally filed my childhood memories by the places we inhabited, my mother’s films, her lovers, and special events; this first Hollywood house became the one of Shanghai Express, Blonde Venus, [and] Maurice Chevalier.”

Courtesy of the Countess

In the mid-1930s, Dietrich rented the Beverly Hills dwelling of socialite Countess Dorothy di Frasso. The star is shown at the home in this 1935 photo. In Marlene Dietrich: The Life, Riva explained how the rental came into their lives. “The Countess di Frasso decided to return to Europe and rented her house, her English butler, her cook, her ladies’ maids, her housemaids, and her dog to her girlfriend Marlene.” Just like their first Beverly Hills abode, the home was complete with resort-like grounds. “Outside, gardenia bushes continuously in full bloom bordered a meandering garden path that ended at the aquamarine swimming pool and its mandatory pool house. Sheltered by a wall of thick conifers lay the tennis court, in red clay and white-chalked splendor.”

Mansion of murals and mirrors

Countess di Frasso’s eight-bedroom residence was decorated by interior designer Elsie de Wolfe. Her design sensibilities were as ornate as her title of nobility would imply, with hand-painted murals among the dwelling’s statement features. According to Vogue, on display in the sunroom (presumably where Dietrich is pictured here) was a piece called Zebra and Black Panther With Cacti, signed by the artist Charles Baskerville. “If a wall didn’t have mirrors glued to it, it was covered with tropical birds looking exotic, perched amongst silver-leafed branches,” Riva wrote of the home in Marlene Dietrich: The Life. “Tables were mirrored, so were lamps and every single door frame.” The dining room, which seated 20, was also full of mirrored tables and chairs. Di Frasso’s home also featured “hairy white” carpet throughout, lacquered black flooring, and a game room with backgammon tables that included playing pieces made from jade and agate. “The whole place oozed decoration, exaggeration, and ‘money is no object,’” Riva wrote.

Extravagant inventory

The di Frasso home also came with a big inventory book where everything was itemized and recorded. “My mother hated inventories,” Riva wrote in Marlene Dietrich: The Life. “She figured living in a house made it hers—everything in it her personal property.” The sprawling and luxurious inventory lists included: “eight complete dinner services for fifty, six separate lunch and tea services, all of bone china, dozens and dozens of crystal goblets, and linen enough to stock Buckingham Palace.” The house also included 14-karat gold cutlery and sterling silver. “Such luxuries never impressed my mother,” Riva wrote. “She accepted all trappings of wealth as the normal accompaniments to fame. So when I ate my soup with a solid gold spoon, following my mother’s lead, I thought nothing of it.”

American housewife

It was important to Dietrich that her daughter, who was born in Germany in 1924, enjoyed the American life the star was able to provide for her. “Maria loved America from the very start, above all California,” Dietrich wrote in her memoir Marlene. “She practically lived outdoors, and she was happy. During the day I worked on my film, then I came home, cooked, and read her bedtime stories like every mother. It was a pleasant life for all of us. I took care of the cooking and everything was as it should be.”

Host with the most

While living in di Frasso’s “Beverly Hills Oz,” as Riva put it, Dietrich threw extravagant parties. “Guest lists, engraved invitations, place cards, even finger bowls,” Riva wrote in Marlene Dietrich: The Life. Famous houseguests included Clara Bow, Dolores del Río, C. Aubrey Smith, Ronald Colman, and Clifton Webb. Many even believed that Dietrich owned the home. “Because of its ‘fan fantasy’ interiors, she also permitted the first at home photo sessions for the fan magazines, who all believed it was her own decor,” Riva wrote. “That house was probably ‘overdone ghastly,’ but my mother and I thought it very glamorous.”

High tea in the garden

The lawn of di Frasso’s estate was also designed for croquet matches and English high tea. “Circular wrought-iron tables, shaded by that symbol of success, the large, scalloped-edged, cotton-fringed garden umbrella, stood waiting, always ready,” Riva wrote in Marlene Dietrich: The Life. The tea offerings were, of course, listed on the lengthy inventory. “Our two-hundred-page inventory listed so many tea services and ‘covered crumpet dishes,’ we could have lent some to the Queen of England for her annual Garden Party and never missed them,” Riva joked.

Yes, chef!

Cooking was one of Dietrich’s favorite hobbies. She wrote about her love of food in her memoir, Marlene. The actor studied cookbooks to practice her skills, and one of her specialties was the French dish pot-au-feu. “It was a kind of therapy for me and filled out the many idle hours in my California paradise,” she wrote. “Sometimes I made only one film a year, and at that time shooting schedules were shorter than today.” She even became known for her cooking in her social circles. “My reputation as an excellent cook spread in Hollywood. I think I was prouder of this fame than of the legendary image so zealously created by the studio.”

A long-lasting literary friendship

In this 1951 photo, Dietrich is pictured in her living room in front of a photograph of author Ernest Hemingway, which is signed “With love, Papa.” The pair were very close friends, though some speculated that they were romantic. In Marlene Dietrich: The Life, though, Riva shut down the rumors. “That Dietrich and Hemingway were real pals, that is true,” she wrote. “That she called him Papa and he referred to her as The Kraut or Daughter, as he often called those adoring ladies of his inner charmed circle, is also true. That they were ever physical lovers, that is not true. That he liked the world to think the opposite and that she wasn’t angry at him for doing so—that’s true.” Hemingway died 10 years after this photo was taken; Dietrich died three decades later, in 1992, at her home in Paris on 12 Avenue Montaigne.