How Marlene Dietrich Changed Her Appearance For Hollywood
Celebrity images these days are most often touched up in Photoshop or with some other kind of image editing software, as Insider reports. For that reason, as well as advances in plastic surgery, seeing doesn't necessarily mean believing when it comes to the stars of today, according to Fortune. As far as images of classic Hollywood actors and actresses, though, we believe we see beauty that is somehow more authentic. Digital technology and plastic surgery, after all, was not what they are now in the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. Truthfully, though, old school film stars had their own beauty tricks up their sleeve, and one such beauty-improvement strategy was developed by Marlene Dietrich.
Born in 1901 in what is now Berlin, Dietrich typified an otherworldly appearance and mysterious allure all throughout her five decade career, both in movies and as a singer, according to Biography. From her notable eyebrows to her signature hairstyle, Dietrich's look remains iconic to this day. When you learn how Dietrich sustained her appearance throughout her life, however, you'll find out there's more to this classic Hollywood superstar than what meets the eye.
She had an unusual hairstyle
Time and aging, of course, took their toll on classic Hollywood stars in the early days of the industry just like they do to average men and women today. To help manage her youthful appeal as the years wore on, Marlene Dietrich turned not to plastic surgery, which was risky in those days, but to an innovative hairstyle that not only kept her timeless locks in place, but also helped smooth out her skin, as the Daily Mail explains. Her approach became known as the Croydon facelift, and here's how it worked.
Beginning in 1944, when Dietrich was only 43 years old, she developed a technique with her make-up artists. They wound her hair so tightly around hairpins it pulled back the skin on her face, as Brightside reports. Sometimes, her hair was pulled so tightly that this kind of plastic surgery with no cutting would sometimes draw blood, per Daily Mail. Dietrich's extreme beauty routine didn't stop there. She's also known to have used surgical tape and gold chains to make her natural wrinkles less visible, and although it's only a rumor, it's even said that she knocked out some molars later on in life to keep her cheeks nice and sleek. Just think of that the next time you look in the mirror (via Daily Mail).