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Her father was a police lieutenant and imbued in her a military attitude to life. Marlene was known in school for her "bedroom eyes" and her first affairs were at this stage in her life - a professor at the school was terminated. She entered the cabaret scene in 1920s Germany, first as a spectator then as a cabaret singer. In 1923, she married and, although she and Rudolf Sieber lived together only 5 years, they remained married until his death. She was in over a dozen silent films in increasingly important roles. In 1929, she was seen in a Berlin cabaret by Josef von Sternberg and, after a screen test, captured the role of the cabaret singer in The Blue Angel (1930) (and became von Sternberg's lover). With the success of this film, von Sternberg immediately took her to Hollywood, introducing her to the world in Morocco (1930), and signing an agreement to produce all her films. A series of successes followed, and Marlene became the highest paid actress of her time, but her later films in the mid-part of the decade were critical and popular failures. She returned to Europe at the end of the decade, with a series of affairs with former leading men (she had a reputation of romancing her co-stars), as well as other prominent artistic figures. In 1939, an offer came to star with James Stewart in a western and, after initial hesitation, she accepted. The film was Destry Rides Again (1939) - the siren of film could also be a comedienne and a remarkable comeback was reality. She toured extensively for the allied effort in WW II (she had become a United States citizen) and, after the war, limited her cinematic life. But a new career as a singer and performer appeared, with reviews and shows in Las Vegas, touring theatricals, and even Broadway. New success was accompanied by a too close acquaintance with alcohol, until falls in her performance eventually resulted in a compound fracture of the leg. Although the last 13 years of her life were spent in seclusion in her apartment in Paris, with the last 12 years in bed, she had withdrawn only from public life and maintained active telephone and correspondence contact with friends and associates.- Jilly Rizzo was born on 6 May 1917 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Year of the Dragon (1985), Eternity (1990) and Cannonball Run II (1984). He was married to Dorothy. He died on 6 May 1992 in Mission Hills, California, USA.
- Ruth Wynn Owen was born at Ericdale, Monmouth Road, Watford, Hertfordshire, England, UK to Reginald Wynn Owen and Nellie Edith Grindon.
Taught to read at an early age, Ruth read and was told old, Welsh legends long before she was really old enough to understand them; coupled with a vivid imagination she created plays which she, her brother and her sister 'starred' and they performed for family and to servants.
At the age of sixteen she went to train as an actress at the Old Vic in Waterville Road, London, where she joined the "Group Theatre" which involved Rupert Doon and Tyrone Guthrie.
Ruth met Ian William Danby In the early 1930's, during which period she was the leading lady in the Seagull Company in Yorkshire and he was a Junior Reporter for the Yorkshire Post. They married in 1936, and in July 1938 twin girls were born to them. They later adopted a son, Charles Christopher Danby (1944 - 1993).
During World War II, she and Dylan Thomas met and began an enduring friendship. In "Dylan Thomas" biographer Paul Ferris writes "Ruth was married. She fell in love with Thomas but refused to become his mistress. She found him gentle and vulnerable, inclined to boast in order to prove himself. He talked to her about his childhood. Perhaps he thought he was in love with her. But his letters are uneasy. He gave her the manuscript of a poem, and wrote her one further letter, in September 1943, from Carmarthenshire, sending her 'with all my heart, my love'. He remained very much married to his wife."
Following the War, Ruth developed heart problems which continued to trouble her for the remainder of her life, and while she largely retired from acting, she remained deeply involved with drama, as Drama Adviser to the prison service (including Wakefield Gaol) and her involvement with the West Riding Youth Drama Group. Through correspondence with Geoffrey Ost of the Sheffield Playhouse, she met and became understudy for 'Peggy Ashcroft'; they became good friends and Ruth was her understudy on several occasions.
In the late 1960's Ruth had suffered from a recurrent 'sore throat'. It was a long time before throat cancer was diagnosed. In the early 1970s, she underwent radiation treatment and in 1972 she had a laryngectomy.
Her husband, Ian died in December 1990 and Ruth died in the Royal Marsden Hospital on 6 May 1992, from severe narrowing of the arteries from which she had suffered for years, rather than throat cancer.
One of her former students, Brian Blessed, visiting her in hospital a few days before her death, gave her a stone he had brought back from Mount Everest and put a scarf that had been blessed by The Dalai Lama around her neck.
Another student, Patrick Stewart, flew in from Los Angeles too late to visit her but he spoke at her Quaker funeral where he and his daughter read the lament "Fear no more the heat o' the sun" from Shakespeare's 'Cymbeline'.
She was survived by her daughters, by the descendants of one of her twins and by her long-term partner who provided support to Ruth throughout her final illness. (Her adopted son died in 1993.)