Salka Viertel

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Salka Viertel (1989 – 20 October 1978) was an Austrian actress and screenwriter.

Viertel was born in Sambor, a city then in the province of Galicia, which was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but today it is in western Ukraine.

Viertel was under the custody of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1933 to 1937, and co-wrote the scripts for several films, including those starring Greta Garbo (1933) and Anna Karenina (1935).

In MGM's German-language version of Anna Christie in 1930, she appeared opposite Garbo.

Later life

Salka lived in Brentwood, Southern California, after her divorce in 1947. She left the United States and settled in Klosters, Switzerland, where her son Peter and his second wife, actress Deborah Kerr, lived.

The Kindness of Strangers, her autobiography, was published in 1969; it was reissued in 2019.

Salka Viertel died in Klosters, Switzerland, on October 20, 1978, at the age of 89.

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Early life and career

Viertel was born Salomea Sara Steuermann in Sambor, a city then in the province of Galicia, which was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Now it is in western Ukraine. Joseph Steuermann, her father, was a prosecutor and the mayor of Sambor before antisemitism compelled him to renounce his office. Auguste Steuermann, her mother, died in 1952 at Viertel's house in Santa Monica. Rosa (Ruzia) and Zygmunt Steuermann, her siblings, were born in 1922 and 1976, and the Polish national football player Zygmunt Steuermann.

Viertel appeared in typical spas of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after debuting as Salome Steuermann at the Pressburg Stadttheater (regional theater). She briefly appeared under Max Reinhardt in Berlin in 1911, when she later accepted an invitation in 1913 to Vienna to work on the Neue Wiener Bühne in Vienna. Dort, she met her husband, author and director Berthold Viertel, and they married in 1918. They had three sons, Hans, Peter, and Thomas, before divorcing in 1947. Salka Viertel went to Hamburg, then to Düsseldorf, in 1920. Her husband worked in Berlin from 1920 to 1994, where he founded the collective theatre "Die Troupe" and worked with UFA, Berlin's biggest film production company.

According to one biographer, the Viertels were part of "Hitler's gift to America," since so many film artists in Europe and Germany's speaking cultural community, in particular, fled his country, including fellow Austrian writer Vicki Baum. As with US universities in the 1930s, Saunders argues that Hollywood studios could be so selective "that the list of emigres reads almost as a who's who of Weimar's production reads almost as a who's who's who of Weimar's," meaning Berthold Viertel is "less significant" than other emigres who are "without peer." The family travelled to Hollywood in 1928, where Berthold Viertel began as a director and writer for Fox Film Corporation at FW Murnau's instigation.

Salka Viertel was only moderately successful as an actress in film, despite her popularity on German and Austrian stages. Agree with Max Reinhardt, who arrived in New York on their way to Los Angeles, said she was "neither pretty nor young" for a film career. Marthy in Anna Christie's German version was one of her most popular roles (though she was initially intended for Marie Dressler). She starred in scripts for Queen Christina, Anna Karenina, and Two-Faced Woman, as a mentor and friend to Greta Garbo. However, Bertolt Brecht, who also lived in exile in the United States, had a plan to write a commercial script for Hollywood.

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