This massive, admiring biography refutes the notion that Marlene Dietrich's femme fatale image was wholly the invention of director Josef von Sternberg. Bach, a film producer and author of Final Cut, who studied with von Sternberg, portrays the latter as a megalomaniac whose amorous frustrations with the star he had created drove him to maintain that she was a puppet who danced to his strings. Bach rejects the standard comparisons with Garbo as he plumbs Dietrich's special blend of erotic power, irony and humor and limns a strong-willed woman whose innumerable sexual affairs satisfied a simple need for companionship.