Paltrow to play Dietrich

Actress Gwyneth Paltrow will produce and star in a feature film about German screen siren Marlene Dietrich, Variety reported in its Thursday edition. DreamWorks optioned the memoir Marlene Dietrich, written by Dietrich's daughter, Maria Riva. Dietrich's estate has also pledged its cooperation, the paper said. Paltrow's involvement has received the thumbs-up from Dietrich's grandson, Peter Riva, who was quoted as saying the young actress "has the stillness required in an aristocrat and the ability to plumb the depths of character without too much emotion, which was Marlene's trademark." The bisexual Dietrich, who died in 1992 at age 90, was the highest-paid actress in prewar Hollywood thanks to such films as The Blue Angel. During World War II, she directed all her energies into fighting the Nazis and even traveled to the front. She made her final movie in 1979, the critically panned David Bowie film Just a Gigolo. A start date has not yet been named for the biopic. Paltrow has just given birth to a daughter, Apple, with her husband, Chris Martin of British band Coldplay. Paltrow, who won an Academy Award for the romantic comedy Shakespeare in Love, was most recently in movie theaters with the box office bombs Sylvia and View From the Top.