Dita Parlo was born on 4 September 1908 in Stettin, Pomerania, then in the German Empire.

[5][6][7][8] Parlo made her first film appearance in Homecoming (Heimkehr) in 1928 and quickly became a popular actress in Germany.

In the late 1930s, she was scheduled to appear in the Orson Welles production of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness for RKO Radio Pictures, but the project was abandoned.

She was deported to Germany as an enemy alien during World War II, but returned to France in 1949.

Musician Steve Adey has a song called "Dita Parlo" on his 2012 studio album The Tower of Silence.