Falling in love again and again: Marlene Dietrich and the iconization of non-native English

Icons are those stars who have become widely established and circulated as enduring international cult figures. Numbered among these is Marlene Dietrich, one of a class of international performers who present in English although not native speakers. Her performances can be theorized as Referee Design, by which speakers target linguistic codes other than their own. Dietrich came to stardom in the 1930 German-made film, The Blue Angel, which provided her career-long signature tune, Falling in love again. Analysis of her pronunciation shows her English as markedly non-native. Her subsequent Hollywood films crafted Dietrich's image, enregistering her non-native accent and baritone quality as the first and lasting voice of the femme fatale. For three decades from the 1940s Dietrich toured a live show renowned for her stunning costumes. Comparison of a 1964 stage performance of Falling in love again reveals her English as much more native but still retaining a hearably different accent, which is now valorized as her distinctive voice. Dietrich's decades of repeated performances established her iconicity, and her appearance and vocal style both its timbre and pronunciation were widely circulated, referenced, imitated, and occasionally parodied. Living the femme fatale persona in her own life, and cultivating her image with extreme reflexivity, Marlene Dietrich achieved the ultimate ingroup identification. In language and appearance, she became her own referee.