The Bracelet Marlene Dietrich Received for Her Defiance

It was not a gemmy jewel, but it surely meant a lot

Marlene Dietrich disembarking from the SS Europa in 1933 wearing a suit. The French police threatened to arrest her if she wore menswear in Paris.

The NYC Pride March, which attracts millions to the city, will make its way down Fifth Avenue today. The celebration has even more significance than usual this year, as the government is in the process of aggressively dismantling many of the LGBTQIA+ community's hard-won rights, from superficial acts to seriously scary legislation. All of this has reminded me of the legacy of good trouble the community and its allies had to get into in order to win their rights in the first place.

Many years ago on The Adventurine website, I wrote the story below about how Marlene Dietrich defied a dress code for women in France. I am not exactly sure if the actress ever came out so to speak; it is well-known that she had male and female lovers.

Anyway, this isn’t just an anecdote about clothes and a Boivin jewel that enters the narrative. It’s about a win against bullies. It’s about the kind of courage and defiance by key figures during culture wars that makes bigger things happen. It’s the kind of inspirational bravery Dietrich had in spades.

In the early 1930s, when Marlene Dietrich was asked to appear in pro-Nazi propaganda films, not only did she refuse, she also called Hitler an idiot in the press and almost immediately applied for American citizenship. One of the biggest and highest-paid actresses of the period, Dietrich became among the first in Hollywood to help raise money for war bonds after the fighting began.

She performed for 18 months overseas for the troops on tour with the USO, sometimes near the front lines. The German actress recorded an anti-Nazi album in her native tongue for the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the CIA. It was played over German channels to reduce the morale of Hitler’s forces and apparently it did.

Marlene Dietrich kissing a solider arriving in New York Harbor in 1945.

Dietrich’s work for the government makes me feel pretty certain the image of her being held on soldiers’ shoulders while kissing a GI arriving in New York Harbor was staged. You know to make Germans wonder if they were fighting for the wrong side.

Whatever the case may be, the American government was grateful for all Dietrich did to help out. On November 18, 1947, she became the fourth woman to receive the Medal of Freedom, the highest American distinction for civilians that is now known as the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The actress said it was the accomplishment she was most proud of in her life.

Marlene Dietrich wearing a white suit while crossing the Atlantic on the SS Europa in 1933.

Dietrich received another jeweled gesture of gratitude, when she was fighting for another cause entirely. During the early 1930s, the actress became famous in Hollywood for wearing men’s suits on screen and on the town.