Salka Viertel was an Austrian Jewishactress and Hollywoodscreenwriter. While under contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1933 to 1937, Viertel co-wrote the scripts for many movies, particularly those starring her close friend Greta Garbo, including Queen Christina and Anna Karenina. She also played opposite Garbo in MGM's German-language version of Anna Christie in 1930.
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, but today is in western Ukraine. Her father, Joseph Steuermann, was a lawyer and the mayor of Sambor before antisemitism forced him to renounce his office. Her mother, Auguste Steuermann, died in 1952 at Viertel's home in Santa Monica. Her siblings were the composer and pianist Eduard Steuermann; Rosa, married from 1922 until her death to the actor ; and the Polish national football playerZygmunt Steuermann. After debuting as Salome Steuermann at the Pressburg Stadttheater, Viertel had engagements in typical spas of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1911 she played briefly under Max Reinhardt in Berlin, whereupon she followed an offer in 1913 to go toVienna to work on the New Vienna stage. There she met her husband, author and director Berthold Viertel, and they married in 1918. They raised three sons—Hans, Peter, and Thomas—before divorcing in 1947. In 1920, Salka Viertel went to Hamburg to the Great Theater, later to Düsseldorf. Her husband worked from 1920 in Berlin, where he founded the collective theatre "Die Troupe" and worked for UFA, the major German film production company. The Viertels were part of “Hitler’s gift to America,” according to one biographer, since so many film artists throughout Europe and the German-speaking artistic community in particular fled his regime, including, notably, fellow Austrian writer Vicki Baum. As was the case with US universities in the 1930s, Saunders notes that Hollywood studios could be so selective "that the list of emigres reads almost as a who's who of Weimar production"; he places Berthold Viertel as "only marginally less significant" than other emigres whom he considers "without peer." In 1928, at FW Murnau's instigation, the family went to Hollywood, where Berthold Viertel received a contract with Fox Film Corporation as a director and writer. Despite her success on German and Austrian stages, Salka Viertel was only modestly successful as an actor in movies. Agreeing with Max Reinhardt, whom the Viertels ran into in New York on their way to Los Angeles, Viertel herself said she was "neither pretty nor young enough" for a career in film. One of her most successful roles was Marthy in the German version of Anna Christie, which she took over at the request of Garbo. She became a mentor and friend to Greta Garbo and contributed to scripts for the famous actress for such films as Queen Christina, Anna Karenina, and Two-Faced Woman. However, the plan to write a commercial script for Hollywood together with Bertolt Brecht, who also lived in exile in the United States, failed.
After her divorce in 1947, Salka lived in Brentwood, Southern California. In 1953 she left the U.S. and settled in Klosters in Switzerland, where later her son Peter and his second wife, actress Deborah Kerr, lived. In 1969, her autobiography, The Kindness of Strangers, was published. Salka Viertel died in Klosters, Switzerland, on 20 October 1978, aged 89.
