Dietrich’s war effort

Berlin Director J. David Riva’s documentary on Marlene Dietrich tells the story of a woman who turned her back on her homeland.

“Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Story” focuses on her hatred of the Nazis and her passion for the Allied effort to defeat Hitler’s Third Reich.

Germans have long seen Dietrich, who died in 1992, as either a symbol of resistance to Hitler or a traitor.

A star in pre-Nazi Germany, the beautiful blonde whose father was a Prussian general symbolized the Nazi ideal of the “Aryan” woman. Her decision to become a U.S. citizen and work in Hollywood after the Nazis took power in 1933 was a blow to Hitler and his propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels.

Playing for charity

Ann Arbor, Mich. Actor Robert Urich will donate winnings from his appearance on a celebrity version of the game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” to a fund at the University of Michigan, where he was treated for cancer.

Urich underwent chemotherapy, radiation treatments and two operations in the mid-1990s for synovial cell sarcoma, which is one of a group of cancers that attack muscles, cartilage, tendons and bones.

He and his wife established the Heather and Robert Urich Fund for Sarcoma Research at the university to accelerate the pace of research into sarcoma.

The television show winnings will be added to the more than $100,000 raised for the fund last fall at the first Robert Urich Golf Classic, the university said in a statement.

Details, details

Madison, Wis. Celebrated novelist Gore Vidal is taking his papers to the Ivy League.

The author of “Burr,” “Lincoln” and “The Last Empire” is moving his papers from the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Film and Theater Research to Harvard University.

The papers landed in Wisconsin in 1966, when Vidal sent them there as a screen, stage and television writer.

Vidal decided to move the papers because they were not catalogued with as much detail as the author would have liked, center director Ben Brewster said.

Quality-of-lif issues

Grand Rapids, Mich. Actor Christopher Reeve, paralyzed in a 1995 horse-riding accident, stressed the importance of improving the quality of life for people with disabilities during a surprise visit.

Reeve, who played the man of steel in “Superman,” spoke at an American Business Clubs banquet on Saturday.

He has been active in urging neuroscientists to conquer diseases of the brain and central nervous system.