Fetch The Kindness Of Strangers: A Theatrical Life Penned By Salka Viertel Presented As Copy

is a wonderful memoir about a woman who crossed the paths of many of theth Century theater intellectuals in both Europe and the United States.
She experienced both World Wars I in Europe and II in California, married, separated, gave birth to three sons and became close friends with Greta Garbo.
This has just been reissued by NYRB but I read a yellowed hardcover from my library, JanNYRB Selection

I really dont know much about Greta Garbo, I know the “gossip” of her lesbianism or bisexuality, I enjoyed Queen Christiana and I few other movies, Like Marlene Dietrich in many ways it was what she did doing the years of World War II that werent movies that were far more interesting.
So, the name Salka Viertel didnt ring any bells,

Viertel was a very close friend of Garbos, but she was also a screenwriter, working on quite few Garbo movies in fact, their creative collaboration seems to have started with Queen Christian, mostly because both women found the queen fascinating.


Viertel was born in Sambor which at the time of her birth was part of the AustroHungary empire.
She was Jewish and lived to see both World Wars, She worked first as an actress until a journey to America, where she and her husband went to work in the film industry.


The selling point that seems to be used for the book is whom she knows in Hollywood.
There are stories about various Hollywood, and Viertel seems to have known a great many people, including various family writers, such as the Manns.


The most interesting aspects of the memoir are not the stories of people youve heard of, but of the personal side.
Viertel, for instance, writes about what today we would call postpartum depression, There are passages about relationships,

Not much about Garbo, The friendship takes a back seat in the memoir,

At times there is a frustrating vagueness that could be eased with some footnotes such as the tragedy that is used in reference to her relationship with her niece.


Yet, it is a very modern memoir that gives insight to times of the past.

It didn't take long for me to become a big fan of Salka, She's a character, and I know I would've loved to meet her or hang out at her Salon in Santa Monica, but the book isn't great.
I'm not sure who it's written for, It feels far too full of "who"'s to be riveting for anyone but the closest observer of a very specific age of German theater, or the closest observer of a very specific age of Hollywood.
On the other hand, while she has a talent for setting a great scene, I feel it comes out far too seldom, and she's much too coy and demure about details of the lives of the interesting people around her for the book to be an insider's tale.
For instance, she takes a longtime lover late in life, and it took me til it concluded to even realized it was going on.
She mentions it when it starts, but I couldn't figure which of a few possible men it was.
Maybe that's my fault, but I found myself struggling to finish the book, Additionally, I just got really tired of her life in Europe, and couldn't wait to get to the parts in America during World War II.
I looked forward to the perspective of a jew becoming a U, S. Citizen, basically a german refugee, and she partly delivers on that promise, But at one point I looked down and realized I wasthrough the book and it was still the late 's.
The only thing that kept me going, is that as boring as I found the topics at times, Salka is a great writer who lived an incredibly interesting life.
I just constantly found myself wishing she'd show me more of it, What an extraordinary life actress and screenwriter Salka Viertel lived! I had to read this book with Wikipedia open next to me, because Veirtels career intersected with so manythcentury notables in Europe and the U.
S. I could have wished the NYRB had invested in some footnotes, but OK they rescued this fascinating book from obscurity.
Born Jewish in Ukraine in, her life was shaped by all the dislocations one could imagine: two World Wars and the resulting poverty, famine, and destruction antisemitism and American McCarthyism.
But she also had her art, her family, and her friends, which together formed a solid center around which all the troubles swirled.
For me the story really took off when she and husband Berthold Viertel settled in Santa Monica in, thinking theyll return to Berlin or Vienna or Switzerland after making a nest egg in Hollywood.


Hitler rearranged those plans, and the longer Salka remained in California, the stronger her ties became, Bertholds roving eye and restless intellect was another story, Her home became a center of exiled artists, writers, and intellectuals, while she fought for a fair writing deal from MGM and Warners.
Her simpatico with Greta Garbo made her the goto gatekeeper for any producer who wanted to work with Garbo, and their friendship endured until the end of Viertels life.
The wartime treatment of actors and writers by studios alone is worth the read, Viertels matteroffact writing style sometimes makes it difficult for the reader to discern what was important in her life, but perhaps it all was it wouldnt surprise me if this remarkable woman dedicated the same passion to everyone in her life.
A life tossed through history from birth in the AustroHungarian Empire to acting on the the stages of Weimar Germany to escaping Hitler's Reich to writing screenplays in Hollywood and hosting an exiled galaxy of talented intellectuals and artists.
Occasionally falls down the rabbit hole of too many details, or conversely not enough explanation of this or that figure in a passing story, but generally a wonderful memoir by a person who seems absolutely lovely, going from pre WWI Austria and Germany to Hollywood in the middle of theth Century.
I cant rate this book as my reading of it was too personal: The Santa Monica home Viertel lived in was later owned by my sister for many years.
I knew some of its history but reading this, particularly after recently finishing The Magician, was a treat for me.
Bittersweet memoir of Golden Age Hollywood screenwriter Salka Viertel, Beautifully written,

Viertel describes a halycon childhood in the waning days of AustroHungarian Galicia as the beloved daughter of the mayor of a small but not too small town.
She was from a rather cosmopolitan and talented Jewish family that was well connected with the cultural world of central Europe.
An early commitment to Theatre brought her marriage to a brilliant German producer and director, Berthold Viertel, and to valuable experiences in the Germanlanguage stages in Zurich, Vienna, and Berlin.


But for me, and I imagine for most readers, the really interesting section of the memoir only really gets started when the Viertels moved to southern California in the lates, to become part of the burgeoning immigrant community of creative artists from all over the world.
In thes ands, Salka created an artistic haven for creative minds and spirits in her residence near the ocean in bucolic Santa Monica.
"The Kindness of Strangers" is replete with interesting encounters and anecdotes of such luminaries as Arnold Schoenberg, Bertold Brecht, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood.
And perhaps most interestingly, Salka offers glimpses into the private world of her most reclusive friend, Greta Garbo.
Viertel worked on several of Garbo's most interesting films, including "Queen Christina," "The Conquest," and "TwoHearted Woman.
" I am fascinated by moments in history when unexpected groups of people find themselves in the same place, pursuing their individual and collective artistic goals.
Los Angeles, CA was one of the places where such a constellation of people came together, from the lates through the Second World War.
During that time, with the invention of “the Talkies,” movie studios set out to manufacture the official mythology of the American dream.
Interestingly, the movie studios found it useful to bring in creative people from Europe to enhance this process, and England, France and particularly Germany sent artists to LA to pursue work.
Among those immigrants was Salome Sara aka Salka Viertel, née Steuermann, who brought considerable connections with her.
She was the older sister of pianist and composer Edward Steuermann, who was an early champion of the music of Arnold Schoenberg he would give the world premiere of Schoenbergs Piano Concerto in thes.
Her sister Rose married a conductor, and became the mother of composer and conductor Michael Gielen, Salka had a career in the theater, and her connections to German and Austrian writers and actors and playwrights is remarkable.
Her home in LA was host to Greta Garbo, Christopher Isherwood, Berthold Brecht, Thomas and Heinrich Mann, and an amazing list of people.
Yet in some ways, what is most compelling in this memoir is Salkas struggles as a woman writer with Hollywood studios that consistently underpaid her, or questioned her abilities, saddling her with clueless “collaborators” who would “understand what Americans wanted.
” I was constantly amazed at the generosity and good grace that Salka showed to people who took advantage of her.
Anyone interested in the history of Hollywood should read this, but as someone who is fascinated by the European “diaspora” that happened between the two World Wars, I find it an amazing record of how individuals are shaped by culture, and in turn exert influence on that culture.
JanuaryNYRB Book Club Selection
For the firstpages or so, I was enjoying Viertel's memoir but felt she relied far too heavily on namedropping.
I care very little for old Hollywood and know absolutely nothing about European theater of the earlyth century, so many of the names fell on deaf ears.
Granted, this is more a statement of where I'm coming from than a criticism, and I'll admit that some of the names and the startling connections between Hollywood and Viertel to almost every luminary of the earlyth century, film or literary, is often surprising and exceedingly interesting to explore.
It's also a testament to just how closely Viertel maintained her diaries, Ultimately, however, she won me over, not with her connection to celebrities I know nothing of Greta Garbo, so that connection is meaningless to me, and I don't care to speculate as to the nature of the relationship between the two, but with her descriptions of both the working world of a Hollywood studio decidedly unglamorous and resulting in more than a number of shelved projects and the human interest of a life lived across continents and connected to so many others.
There are a numbers of sections that especially stick with me her phoneonly relationship with her Western Union telegram reader, the anecdote of Norman, a young worker who went headtohead with Aldous Huxley at a dinner, and, more than anything else, the absolute beauty of the last couple pages and her meeting with her first granddaughter.
At the time of the writing as described by the afterword, she already knew that the happiness found at the conclusion of this memoir after which she would livemore years would be fleeting, but in the moment, her overwhelming joy does not fail to touch me the last line is perfect.
.