Luli Deste on AllMovie

Columbia Pictures' entry in the Garbo/Dietrich wannabe contest, Viennese Luli Deste (born Van Hohenberg) had appeared in a couple of European productions -- including the British My Friend the King (1931) -- prior to making her Hollywood debut in 1937. Unfortunately, Deste was wasted in potboilers at both Columbia and Universal, and ended her brief screen career playing Queen Fria in Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940) and a mysterious desert femme fatale in the 1941 Hopalong Cassidy "Eastern" Outlaws of the Desert.