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Through the Eyes of a Star

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In analyzing Dietrich’s 1989 memoir, we can further see the impact that Dietrich’s American identity had on her life story. There are far more occurrences mentioning Hollywood and New York than any other place in Europe. Her memoir seems littered with references to Southern California with only occasional references to European cities. However, the specificity in references to American cities may be more demonstrative of the fame and prominence of cities like Los Angeles and New York City versus that of German cities. They are also hubs for her career as a film star so obviously references will seem quite frequent. 
Looking at references to “america*” and “german*” in her memoir elicits much more similar frequencies. Although Dietrich mentions Germany just about as many times as America (129 and 151 counts respectively), it can be noted that references to America are fairly evenly distributed throughout the memoir whereas references to Germany are more clustered towards the first half of the book. This can show that although Germany was pivotal in Dietrich’s early life, it becomes less essential once she moves to America and forges an identity as a Hollywood star. Perhaps even more fascinating, Dietrich mentions "von Sternberg" 161 times throughout her memoir making the legendary director's name one of the top ten terms used most frequently throughout the text. From this, we can gather that of her start in Germany it seems that Josef von Sternberg was by and large the most impactful figure from this time. 

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