I had no desire to be an film actress, to always play somebody else, to be always beautiful with somebody constantly straightening out your every eyelash. It was always a big bother to me.

She returned to Paramount to make another romantic comedy Angel (directed by Ernst Lubitsch): reception to the film was so lukewarm that Paramount bought out the remainder of Dietrich's contract. It was in musicals and revues such as Broadway Es Liegt in der Luft and Zwei Krawatten however that Marlene Dietrich attracted the most attention. She refused their offers and applied for US citizenship in 1937.

In the Berlin of the 1920s Marlene Dietrich acted on the stage and in silent films. Although Marlene Dietrich still made occasional films in the post-war years Dietrich spent most of the 1950s to the 1970s touring the world as a successful show performer. Her performance as "Lola-Lola" in The Blue Angel directed by Josef von Sternberg brought her international fame and provided her a contract with Paramount Pictures in the US.