Inside Marlene Dietrich's Rented Beverly Hills 'Palaces'

By Elena Vasquez

Marlene Dietrich rented every one of her famous Beverly Hills homes. A new photo retrospective of 10 images documents the Oscar-nominated actor's West Coast residences, including an eight-bedroom mansion leased from socialite Countess Dorothy di Frasso in the mid-1930s.

Born in Germany in 1901, Dietrich kept residences in Berlin, Paris and New York City across her life. Her most photographed addresses were the sprawling mansions she rented from friends in Beverly Hills.

Her daughter, Maria Riva, published the definitive account in her 1992 biography, Marlene Dietrich: The Life. Riva was born in Germany in 1924; Dietrich and her husband, Rudolf Sieber, married in 1923 and remained so until his death in 1976.

Who chose the first 'palace'?

Filmmaker Josef von Sternberg picked out Dietrich's first Beverly Hills rental. Von Sternberg directed her in several films, including Morocco, which earned her the Oscar nomination. A 1931 photograph shows Dietrich with young Maria beside the house's Art Deco pool.

"In California, we posed by the Art Deco pool of our first rented 'Palace' in sunny Beverly Hills," Riva captioned the image.

"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."

The garden held an Olympic pool with mosaic tiles that "sparkled in the strong sunlight like a million diamonds," per Riva. Because Dietrich moved often, Riva filed childhood memories by house, film and lover: that first house became "the one of Shanghai Express, Blonde Venus, [and] Maurice Chevalier."

What came with the Countess's house?

In the mid-1930s, Dietrich rented Countess di Frasso's Beverly Hills dwelling complete with staff. A 1935 photograph shows the star at the property.

"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," Riva wrote.

The grounds included gardenia bushes, an aquamarine pool with pool house, and a red-clay tennis court sheltered by conifers.

The interiors matched. Interior designer Elsie de Wolfe decorated the eight-bedroom house with hand-painted murals. According to Vogue, the sunroom displayed a piece titled Zebra and Black Panther With Cacti, signed by artist Charles Baskerville.

The details, per Riva's memoir:

• Mirrored tables, lamps, every door frame and a 20-seat dining room of mirrored furniture
• "Hairy white" carpet and lacquered black flooring
• A game room with backgammon pieces made of jade and agate
• 14-karat gold cutlery and sterling silver
• Eight dinner services for 50, plus six lunch and tea services in bone china
• "Linen enough to stock Buckingham Palace"

"The whole place oozed decoration, exaggeration, and 'money is no object,'" Riva wrote.

The 200-page inventory book itemized everything. "My mother hated inventories," Riva wrote. "She figured living in a house made it hers—everything in it her personal property."

"Such luxuries never impressed my mother," Riva added. "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."

How did Dietrich live there?

The actor made the house a family base. "Maria loved America from the very start, above all California," Dietrich wrote in her 1979 memoir, Marlene. "During the day I worked on my film, then I came home, cooked, and read her bedtime stories like every mother."

Cooking became a reputation of its own. Dietrich studied cookbooks and specialized in the French dish pot-au-feu. "My reputation as an excellent cook spread in Hollywood," she wrote. "I think I was prouder of this fame than of the legendary image so zealously created by the studio."

She worked little by Hollywood standards: "Sometimes I made only one film a year, and at that time shooting schedules were shorter than today."

The di Frasso house, which Riva called a "Beverly Hills Oz," also hosted parties with engraved invitations and finger bowls. Guests included Clara Bow, Dolores del Río, C. Aubrey Smith, Ronald Colman and Clifton Webb. Fan magazines photographed Dietrich there and "all believed it was her own decor," Riva wrote. "That house was probably 'overdone ghastly,' but my mother and I thought it very glamorous."

What about Hemingway?

A 1951 photograph shows Dietrich in her living room beneath a picture of Ernest Hemingway, signed "With love, Papa." Riva addressed the rumors directly: "That Dietrich and Hemingway were real pals, that is true... That they were ever physical lovers, that is not true."

Hemingway died in 1961. Dietrich died in 1992 at her home at 12 Avenue Montaigne, Paris — the final address in a life of rented and owned residences spanning three countries.