Dietrich is the launch title of a series of concise biographies called Life & Times, intended by its publisher as “an essential reference library for students, and everyone with an interest in modern history, politics, science, music, women’s issues and literature”. Yet she nestles somewhat uneasily in a list that embraces Churchill, Beethoven, Marie Curie and Oscar Wilde, since her achievement was not an outpouring of genius so much as a triumph of the will.

From a bourgeois Prussian background, she became the quintessential Weimar woman: independent of mind, sexually liberated, but still respectful towards male authority figures. She liked being a screen goddess because that betokened erotic control, but she liked just as much to exercise domestic control as the ultimate hausfrau. Her marriage to Rudi Sieber, by whom she had a daughter, lasted from 1923 until his death in 1976, and it was a curiously conservative arrangement, for “whilst having one affair after another, she had never stopped loving her husband and she never publicly humiliated him”. Nonetheless, they spent long periods apart and Sieber had a mistress. Dietrich was not a cruel mother in the Joan Crawford sense, but she regarded her daughter Maria as a handmaiden, an annex to her own persona. “From the age of eight onwards,” says Malene Sheppard Skærved, “Maria took on the role of special assistant to Dietrich.”

Dietrich could be witty and she could be obnoxious. She was not empty-headed, as she had been schooled in European culture in her childhood and remained of a bookish disposition throughout her life. Her iconic reputation depends on the six films in which she was directed by Josef von Sternberg, who became her lover and helped fashion the Dietrich image of an aloof seductress who uses men and ruthlessly disposes of them.

This book has been exquisitely designed and printed on shiny art quality paper, with well-chosen photographs that are stylishly integrated into the text. Also set into the text and printed in red type are short passages in Dietrich’s own words. Yet quite why the text needs to be interspersed with potted chronologies of the first world war or the Rise of Fascism in Europe is a mystery. This is a beginner’s guide to Dietrich, but is it also for those whose general knowledge is barely adequate?

Skærved, who teaches screenwriting at Birkbeck College in London, is a Dane, but her written English is refreshingly crisp and I have no quarrel with her ability to convey the narrative of Dietrich’s life with energy. However, I was puzzled by some of her omissions or choices of emphasis. Take, for example, the matter of Dietrich’s lovers. Skærved tells us about several of these liaisons, but seems unaware of Dietrich’s affair with Gary Cooper when they were making Morocco, her first Hollywood film.

The chapter on Dietrich’s contribution to the Allied war effort (she entertained GIs with shows that mixed songs, performances on the musical saw, and sexual innuendo) mentions that she attached herself to General George Patton’s Third Army. “No doubt the flamboyant Patton was thrilled at having her along,” writes Skærved. This must qualify as either sheer ignorance or irony too opaque for its own good, since Dietrich and Patton are known to have had a passionate affair that lasted several months — he once bestowed on her the official codename “Cheesecake”.

Other things that galled me are perhaps as much the publish- er’s responsibility as the author’s. Several names are misspelt (B P Schulberg is rendered as “Schuleberg”, Sidney Guilaroff as “Guilleroff”, John Carradine as “Caradine”, and Edward Knoblock as “Knobloch”), and in some instances words are missing, an unpardonable oversight in a book of such brevity.

It is in keeping with her iconic status that Dietrich’s presumed nymphomania should have been a form of narcissism and control. “She did not care much for the actual sex,” explains Skærved, “only the wooing that preceded it and the devoted gratitude afterwards.” There were plenty of film-star lovers (James Stewart, Jean Gabin, Michael Wilding, Yul Brynner, Frank Sinatra, Kirk Douglas), but Dietrich was nothing if not eclectic. Her other conquests included producers Mike Todd and Sam Spiegel; broadcaster Ed Murrow; America’s ambassador to the UN Adlai Stevenson; her musical arranger Burt Bacharach (when in her sixties) — even the French songstress Edith Piaf.

The theme that ran through her life was that of control. She famously directed her directors (apart from von Sternberg) as to how she should be photographed, and every nuance of her life was calculated to conform to an image that was half of her own making and half the projection of her mass audience. Dietrich was much decorated for her brave war work (the Third Reich placed a price on her head) and her post-war cabaret career was a marvel of stagecraft and stage presence, but “her control of her persona and career” was the “extraordinary feat” that justifies her inclusion in this biographical series.

Available at the Books Direct price of £10.39 plus £1.95 p&p on 0870 165 8585

Explore Books

• Book Extracts

• Book Reviews

• Books Group

• Audio Books

Times Recommends

• Superfreakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner
• The Times picks the 50 best paperbacks of 2009
• Vincent van Gogh’s letters show the soul of the artist