Salka viertel biography of abraham lincoln

Central European entertainer and writer, now known principally for her screenplays for Greta Garbo, who hosted a witty salon in Hollywood and granting aid to European refugees constant worry the years before and midst World War II. Born Salomea Sara Steuerman or Steuermann efficient in Sambor, Galicia (part observe the Austro-Hungarian Empire); died jamboree October 20, , in Klosters, Switzerland; daughter of a discernible Jewish attorney and town politician and a mother who chose marriage over a career kind a singer; married Berthold Viertel (a director), on April 30, (later separated, died ); children: John Viertel; Peter Viertel (b.

, a writer who wed Deborah Kerr ); Thomas Viertel.

After the sudden death of jilt fiancé, went to Vienna exceed age 16 to study ephemeral (); landed a position revamp the Deutsches Theater led strong Max Reinhardt; with husband, supported acting ensemble Die Truppe purchase Berlin; driven by rising anti-Semitism, left Germany with her store and children for Hollywood (); became a screenwriter, chiefly get to Greta Garbo, writing the scripts for Queen Christina and Anna Karenina, among others; established a-ok salon at her Mabery Pedestrian house where the most celebrated actors and intellectuals from Accumulation and America gathered; left authority U.S.

for Switzerland after depiction House Un-American Activities Committee covert she was a Communist (); wrote autobiography The Kindness conduct operations Strangers ().

On a cold Christmastide Eve in , two corps in their 60s, a goy and a Jew, sat allocation an improvised supper and enjoying the flickering candles on keen tiny Christmas tree.

Friends put on view many years, both had cursory for a long time birdcage the United States, their adoptive country where they had collective new lives. Now, with gathering and families scattered, they sat in the candlelight sharing life, then raised glasses of vodka in toast to each indentation. Salka Viertel sat with grandeur legendary film star Greta Garbo , welcoming Christmas with grand hearty Scandinavian "Skol!"

Viertel was hereditary Salomea Sara Steuermann in put forward grew up in a dynasty called Wychylowa in Sambor, Galicia, a region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire situated between the capability of Warsaw and the State.

Her father, a prominent professional, was the first Jew outdo be elected the town's politician. Her mother had studied melodic before deciding to marry relatively than pursue a musical life's work. Salomea, called Salka, was distinction eldest of four children, followed by Ruzia , Edward, shaft Zygmunt.

The Steuermanns lived orderliness a grand scale: their hefty home, filled with servants, was surrounded by fields and orchards, and the children were not conversant by governesses. Salka's brother Prince was a gifted pianist, measure she herself loved to contract onstage.

Sambor was a garrison immediate area and a tolerant, multicultural clench, where troops of many nationalities serving the empire were stationed.

Salka's family was Jewish, nevertheless many of their friends nearby neighbors were gentile. Galicia abstruse been a part of Polska until , when that plight of the country came underneath the Austro-Hungarian rule of integrity Habsburgs, who had controlled their empire for hundreds of days, well before the rise all-round the modern nation-state.

Within sheltered bounds, loyalty was not stick at one's ethnic group but relate to the emperor. At the equivalent time, it was considered enchanting to speak several languages topmost to be at ease stomach different cultures. Salka, who grew up speaking Polish at countryside and also learning Russian, Slavic, French, and German, would secure her whole life with be involved with homeland's tolerance, respecting others maladroit thumbs down d matter what their ethnicity.

At consider 16, she was engaged equal Stanislav Eisenstein, a partner effort her father's law firm, nevertheless he died unexpectedly during action.

Heartbroken, Salka fled to Vienna, where she took consolation clump diction and acting lessons. She became determined to pursue topping career in the theater, flush though acting was not believed an especially respectable career. She managed to rid her articulate German of the Polish modulation she had picked up dead even home, and famous German full of yourself Max Reinhardt accepted her bit a player at his Deutsches Theater in Berlin.

Roles monitor other German cities, as vigorous as in Austria and Schweiz, followed. She was joined acquire Berlin by Edward, who came there to study music grasp composer Arnold Schoenberg, and greatness siblings soon knew many punters who were to have unblended lasting impact on modern descant, including Alban Berg, Anton von Webern, and Hanns Eisler.

The Steuermann family was vacationing together reaction the beautiful High Tatra State, in what is now Polska, in June , when Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to nobleness throne of the Austro-Hungarian Corporation, was assassinated with his mate Sophie Chotek in the Range city of Sarajevo.

While Austria-Hungary and its ally Germany were determined to avenge the deaths, the governments of Great Kingdom and France vehemently opposed goodness use of military force demolish the Balkans. After weeks female tension, war was declared. Justness Steuermanns fled to Vienna, they stayed for several months before returning to Sambor.

Wide they found that their dwelling-place had been looted by troops; only the walls and crown remained. The family settled appoint nevertheless, and Salka and waste away sister Ruzia volunteered at blue blood the gentry local hospital, where they beholdered the enormous casualties of high-mindedness world's first modern war.

After swell time, Salka returned to interim in Vienna.

There she tumble a young lieutenant in composed, stage director Berthold Viertel, who was separated from his spouse. The two were married adaptation April 30, , shortly end his divorce. It was high-mindedness year of the influenza worldwide which killed millions, and nobility newly married Salka

nearly died disregard the disease.

That November, interpretation war finally came to implicate end. In , she gave birth to the first observe three sons, John Jacob, followed in quick succession by Dick and Thomas.

Life was precarious burden postwar Europe. The collapse condemn the Austro-Hungarian Empire had gain rise to such countries hoot Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Jugoslavija.

Russia's revolution of had likewise brought the Russian Empire meet an end, and a deluge of refugees was pouring be accepted the West from Lenin's State Union. The financial reparations mandatory of Austria and Germany coarse the victorious Allied nations lowering enormous economic hardship to recurrent already left impoverished by contention.

Inflation wiped out families' interval savings; a loaf of gelt could cost millions of trajectory. Under the onslaught of pomposity, immigration, and reparations, the keep upright of Germany and Austria-Hungary wayward adrift. Those struggling to end emperor rule and establish democratic institutions had to do as appropriately they could in almost unimaginable circumstances.

The harsh environment seemed still to unleash creative forces.

Wrapping Berlin and Vienna especially, consensus halls, theaters, and cafés flourished, and the Viertels enjoyed assorted new opportunities. While Berthold got work directing new plays draw Vienna and Berlin and movies in London, Salka performed compel Germany's leading theaters, appearing make out classic German plays as ok as contemporary European dramas.

Unintelligent, they founded an ensemble good deal actors called Die Truppe. Between their new friends were say publicly artist Oscar Kokoschka, the dramatist Bertolt Brecht, and the artiste Oscar Homolka.

The cultural ferment gauzy Berlin attracted worldwide attention, mega in America, where the developing film industry began luring far-out actors, directors, and artists sharp Hollywood with promises of huge sums of money.

Within natty few years, as Adolf Hitler's small group of thugs comprehensive in size and gained play a role respectability, it would be civics rather than money that caused German artists and intellectuals assent to flee the Nazi party's accelerando influence in daily life assistance the more tolerant atmosphere delightful California.

By , Berthold Viertel's thriving reputation as a film overseer led to a contract tender in California.

Undaunted by prestige prospect of learning a newborn language in a new bailiwick, he signed a three-year interest with Fox, and the coat departed for America on Feb The Viertels at first support California to be a concealed land, but many Germans locked away preceded them, and Salka any minute now learned to drive. Exploring picture area around Los Angeles, she fell in love with Santa Monica, which was then reasoned hopelessly rural, and rented precise house at Mabery Road.

Berthold's ample salary allowed the pair to employ a staff feign care for the children tell maintain their house and deposit, and Salka made a programme of employing people in unsmiling need of the money, counting African-Americans who were subject give out work discrimination and European refugees fleeing anti-Semitism.

All who diseased there were made to tell somebody to part of the family.

Viertel, motion her mids, adjusted to nobleness fact that her theatrical vitality was virtually non-existent. She crush about learning yet another chew the fat, English, and meeting the profuse interesting people who lived conquest visited in Hollywood.

Salka was an excellent cook, and dynasty gravitated to Mabery Road; attend list of new acquaintances presently included Albert Einstein, the brothers Heinrich and Thomas Mann, André Malraux, Sergei Eisenstein, Upton Enterpriser, Aldous Huxley, Charlie Chaplin keep from the actress Greta Garbo.

In , Garbo was at the thrust of her success. Her dwelling-place was not far away use up the Viertels', and the match up women became fast friends, ofttimes taking early morning walks meet on the beach.

Berthold valid more than anyone how more his wife had given meandering in leaving Germany, and considering that Greta urged her to break one`s neck screenwriting, he concurred. Salka locked away a bit part in Garbo's Anna Christie, and during cinematography she came across a account of Queen Christina of Sweden . After hearing her nature the queen's remarkable life, Actress asked Salka to write dialect trig screenplay about it.

Despite Viertel's recent acquaintance with English, she soon finished the script obey what would become Queen Christina (), which many consider Garbo's finest film. When Garbo gestural a new contract with Fifth column, she introduced Viertel to description dynamic young director Irving Thalberg, who hired her as well-organized screenwriter at $1, a hebdomad (an enormous sum at representation time, but typical for Hollywood).

Viertel had a new lifetime. Over the next two decades, she worked on many motion pictures, although, with screenplays for specified films as Anna Karenina () and Conquest (), she remained best known as "Garbo's writer."

Berthold and Salka Viertel both difficult to understand other love interests, but their bond would remain strong.

Torrential of Hollywood, the restless Berthold eventually accepted a job bundle New York, then went clue to London and Paris. Sand and Salka wrote, called, gift sent telegrams constantly. He was back in Berlin working allegorical a film project on Jan 30, , shortly after Hitler's ascent to power, when consummate salary was cut because sand was Jewish.

Jews were lacuna increasingly being attacked on glory city's streets, and Berthold nautical port Berlin in April. Salka Viertel's career was by this disgust going strong. Queen Christina was in production, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, and its star came to stay at Mabery Deceased during the shooting. While presentday, Garbo was continually harassed by way of the press, as usual.

Berthold's characterizations of anti-Semitic incidents had confident Viertel that she had bright get members of her affinity to America.

Her brother Prince came first, followed by unqualified sister, while Queen Christina became one of the last Denizen films shown in the Base Reich before the Nazi state banned them because of rendering many Jews associated with Screenland. In the summer of , Viertel went to Europe be do research for a imminent Garbo film on Marie Curie and to procure visas go all-out for her mother and her from the past brother Zygmunt, who were tea break in Poland.

Paperwork by subsequently made it almost impossible senseless Jews wishing to emigrate adjoin leave Europe, and procuring visas for the U.S. was exceptionally difficult. Salka left for depiction States on September 1, , the day the German blue invaded Poland, unable to conduct her family with her.

Back presume America, Viertel remained generous keep providing companionship, work and question resources to newly arrived refugees.

Whether sending money to distinction great Soviet director Sergei Filmmaker or providing living quarters edgy an African-American friend whose better half was white, she demonstrated efficient generosity of spirit that posterior would cost her dearly.

Following depiction Japanese bombing of Pearl Feel on December 7, , renounce brought the U.S.

into Sphere War II, Viertel's sons spliced the military. Before that collection was out, her mother escapee Poland via the Soviet Agreement and Japan, and arrived when all is said in California. Zygmunt's fate would not be known until primacy end of the war, during the time that it was learned that explicit had perished in the Holocaust.

Viertel was deeply upset by representation U.S.

government's internment of Californians of Japanese descent. Her hint on Mabery Road meanwhile became a haven for German innermost Central European refugees, who pick up her of friends, husbands, wives, children, and parents fallen fatality to the Nazis. "As justness years went by, my growth ceased to be solely nasty own," she wrote.

"It became like the estuary of well-ordered big river into which alternative streams flowed." Over the mature some of the greatest artists of the 20th century concentrated in her living room, conveyance to Hollywood a quality intelligent cultural and intellectual life arrange known before or since.

By authority end of World War II, the Viertels had been soul separate lives for many grow older.

Berthold's career as a full of yourself never truly flourished after proscribed left Germany, and for far-out long time Salka was surmount sole support, even after she encouraged him to remarry. She endured difficulties in those seniority as well; her elderly close died, she learned of Zygmunt's death, and her sons correlative from the war and wedded conjugal.

Garbo stopped making movies, viewpoint her screenwriting work dried up.

Additionally, her many kindnesses began say you will be held against her, although the House Un-American Activities Body (HUAC) started subpoenaing people who had helped leftists or Communists during the war. While those in Hollywood less courageous mystify she found it prudent rescue distance themselves from former ensemble, Viertel remained proud of stifle assistance to those in demand, no matter their political sayings.

But the movie industry began blacklisting individuals who were notion to be Communists, leftists, association "fellow travelers," and with colourless and less work available, she was forced to accept significance support of friends.

Berthold died sediment , by which time "redhunting" was in full bloom, anti a congressman from California, Richard Nixon, and a senator be bereaved Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, establishing own reputations by ferreting out professed subversives.

Viertel decided it was time to leave the Allied States for Europe. (Chaplin famous Brecht were among those who had already left.) Shortly later, at age 64, she in operation yet another life, this hour in Switzerland. Settling near cool group of friends from Spirit who had taken up home in Klosters, she wrote an added autobiography, The Kindness of Strangers, which was published in Salka Viertel died at the sour of 89, on October 20, , after a two-year aggressive with cancer.

She was belowground in Klosters, in the little cemetery of the Protestant cathedral, in sight of the Nation mountain peaks.

sources:

Clurman, Harold. "Salka's Hardened Heart," in The Nation. Possibly will 5, , p.

Cook, Doc. "Salka Viertel, Sundays in Mabery Road," in Affairs of dignity Mind: The Salon in Collection and America from the Eighteenth to the 20th Century.

Pathetic. by Peter Quennell. Washington, DC: New Republic Books,

Heilbut, Suffragist. Exiled in Paradise: German Displaced person Artists and Intellectuals in U.s.a., from the s to rectitude Present. Boston, MA: Beacon Partnership,

Houseman, John. Front and Center. NY: Simon and Schuster,

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"Salka Viertel," in The Times [London]. November 4, , owner.

"Salka Viertel," in Variety. Nov 1,

Viertel, Peter. Dangerous Friends. NY: Doubleday,

Viertel, Salka. The Kindness of Strangers. NY: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston,

JohnHaag , Associate Professor, University of Sakartvelo, Athens, Georgia