MARLENE DIETRICH & GRETA GARBO Inside Their LIFELONG RIVALRY

THESE GOLDEN-AGE GODDESSES SHARED INTENSE FEELINGS ABOUT EACH OTHER

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They were two of the Golden Age’s most beautiful, exotic and mysterious actresses. Coolly sophisticated Marlene Dietrich, a Berlin-born cabaret performer, became an international sensation in 1930’s The Blue Angel. Meanwhile, Sweden’s Greta Garbo broke hearts playing tragic heroines in films like Anna Christie and Anna Karenina.

Long before the world knew who they were, the actresses appeared together in The Joyless Street, a 1925 German silent film. In it, Greta had the second lead, playing a prostitute fallen on hard times. Marlene was an extra — something she denied for many years before admitting it to her biographer. “Yes, and in the end, I killed the butcher,” she said of her desperate character.