Salka district

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Salka Viertel , née Salomea Sara Steuermann , also Mea Steuermann (born June 15, 1889 in Sambor , Austria-Hungary , † October 20, 1978 in Klosters , Switzerland ), was an Austrian - American actress and screenwriter .

Life

Salka Viertel's father, Joseph Steuermann, was a Jewish lawyer and mayor of Sambor for a long time before the burgeoning anti-Semitism forced him to resign. Her mother Auguste Steuermann died in 1952 at Salka in Santa Monica . Her siblings were the composer and pianist Eduard Steuermann , Rosa (Ruzia, married to Josef Gielen since 1922 , † 1973) and the Polish national soccer player Zygmunt Steuermann .

Salka Viertel made her debut as Salome Steuermann at the Bratislava City Theater. This was followed by several engagements in typical health resorts of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. In 1911 she played briefly under Max Reinhardt in Berlin, whereupon she accepted an offer to Vienna in 1913 at the Neue Wiener Bühne . In Vienna she also met her future husband, the author and director Berthold Viertel . The two married in 1918; In 1947 the marriage was divorced, from which the three sons Hans, Peter and Thomas (* 1925) came. In 1920 Salka went to the Great Theater in Hamburg, and later to Düsseldorf. Berthold worked in Berlin from 1920, where he founded the collective theater “Die Truppe” and worked for UFA. In 1928 the family went to Hollywood, where Berthold Viertel was given a contract as a director and writer at Fox Film Corporation at the instigation of FW Murnau . Originally only a three-year stay in the USA was planned. Because of the insecure situation in Germany , where they had previously worked, they decided in 1932 to remain in exile.

Salka Viertel appeared in a few films with little success. She herself said she was "neither beautiful nor young enough" to have a career in film. One of her most successful films was the German version of Anna Christie , in which, at the request of her friend Greta Garbo, she took on the role of Marty, which was originally played by Marie Dressler .

In the following years she was a kind of unofficial mentor for Greta Garbo and worked on some of the actress's scripts, including Queen Christine , Anna Karenina and The Woman with Two Faces . The plan to write a “commercial script” for Hollywood together with Bertolt Brecht, who also lived in exile in America, failed, however.

In Los Angeles, the neighborhoods initially lived on Fairfax Avenue, then rented a house on Mabery Road, Santa Monica , which they eventually bought. After their divorce and before their return to Europe, Salka lived in Brentwood , Southern California. Viertel had a salon in Hollywood, which has been frequented by many exiles and celebrities over the years . In addition to Sergej Eisenstein and Charlie Chaplin , her guests over the years have also included Arnold Schönberg , Christopher Isherwood , Hanns Eisler , Bertolt Brecht , Max Reinhardt and Thomas Mann . In the 1930s and 40s she was involved in the fight against National Socialism . She was involved in the establishment of the " European Film Fund ", which brokered contracts with the major Hollywood studios. This gave z. B. Leonhard Frank , Heinrich Mann , Alfred Polgar , Walter Mehring and Friedrich Torberg received life-saving "emergency visas" and were able to escape the Nazis. With the onset of the Cold War in the McCarthy era , Viertel was suspected of being a communist and was therefore no longer able to work in Hollywood.

In 1953 she left the USA and settled in Klosters in Switzerland, where her son Peter and his wife Deborah Kerr later also lived. In 1969 her autobiography was published, The Unteachable Heart .

Filmography

Actress (selection)

  • 1929: Seven Faces
  • 1930: The mask falls
  • 1930: Anna Christie
  • 1931: The sacred flame

Screenplay (selection)

Fonts

  • The Kindness of Strangers. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York 1969.
  • The incorrigible heart. Claassen, Hamburg / Düsseldorf 1970. (Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1987, ISBN 3-499-12102-6 )

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Detlev Claussen : Theodor W. Adorno. One last genius . Frankfurt am Main 2005, p. 205.
personal data
SURNAME Quarter, Salka
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Helmsman, Salomea Sara (maiden name); Helmsman, Mea
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian-American actress and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Sambor , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH October 20, 1978
Place of death Klosters , Switzerland