The Kindness of Strangers

by Salka Viertel, Donna Rifkind (Afterword), Lawrence Weschler (Introduction)

Salka Viertel’s autobiography tells of a brilliant, creative, and well-connected woman’s pilgrimage through the darkest years of the twentieth century, a journey that would take her from a remote province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Hollywood. The Kindness of Strangers is, to quote the New Yorker writer S. N. Behrman, “a very rich book. It provides a panorama of the dissolving civilizations of the twentieth century. In all of them the author lived at the apex of their culture and artistic aristocracies. Her childhood...is an entrancing idyll. In Berlin, in Prague, in Vienna, there appears Karl Kraus, Kafka, Rilke, Robert Musil, Schoenberg, Einstein, Alban Berg. There is the suffering and disruption of the First World War and the suffering and agony after it, which is described with such intimacy and vividness that you endure these terrible years with the author. Then comes the migration to Hollywood, where Salka’s house on Mabery Road becomes a kind of Pantheon for the gathered artists, musicians, and writers. It seems to me that no one has ever described Hollywood and the life of writers there with such verve.”

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Film, History, Biography Memoir, 20th Century

369 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Salka Viertel (1889-1978) was born Salomea Sara Steuermann in Galicia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the late 1920s, Salka and her husband, Berthold Viertel, left Berlin for Hollywood, where Berthold wrote screenplays and directed films and Salka began acting in motion pictures. There, she befriended Greta Garbo on the set of Anna Christie and co-wrote screenplays for many films. During World War II, the Viertels started a salon in their home for other émigrés. In 1942, Salka was put on an FBI watch list and later her salon was dissolved under the inquisition of the Hollywood film industry. After the war, she returned to Europe where she lived until the end of her life.

Reviews

[Sketchbook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Viertel's overly detailed bio-memoir evokes a sense of Mother Courage and a famous Bea Lillie sketch from the 1935 revue, "At Home Abroad," in which Bea played the ballerina Sonia Polanariskaya who trekked from St Petersburg to Moscow, from Moscow to Omsk, from Omsk to Pinsk. "But I am tired now, Babushka, I cannot trek anymore."

As an actress in Europe, Salka trekked from Vienna to Munich to Berlin, to Dusseldorf and Hamburg, and Dresden. Trek, trek, trek. She's tired; so is constant reader. Then after her marriage to director Berthold Viertel, there's still another trek, to America, and finally to Santa Moncia, Ca., in 1928, where she begins scripting a series of Garbo films. Salka and her husband are worldlings who must bow to the "tough, illiterate mentality of their superiors" -- the bullies from East European shtetls who are inventing the American Dream. It was, she reports, an "utterly alien" environment, and particularly hard on Berthold who eventually commutes to Europe for more satisfying work. (In the novel "Prater Violet," set in London, Isherwood fictionalizes working on a film Viertel is directing there).

After 125 pages of provincial Eur trekking, this memoir bursts w life (5 stars) when Salka arrives in America ! A valiant woman, she "looks after" too many people: tons of money is sent to her aged mother who refuses to leave Eastern Europe (the dear ol thing), and she's finally rescued - or yanked out, at great cost.

With three growing sons amid a swelling colony of Euro refugees, Salka gathers the "cream" for popular Sunday afternoon salons. She's an engaging character. Her weekly salary at MGM keeps husband Berthold and all her relatives alive. (In London or NYC, Berthold, while having affairs, repeats how much he-mmm loves her, thereby keeping the Salka checks signed!) I don't understand why she never bought their lovely home, for later she must sell it to stay afloat (and local trek, trek, trek begins anew). When Salka works at home, her dull-witted husband lets the cat out of the bag and serious studio issues result. By the late 40s she's blacklisted for associating w some "iffy" liberal causes. And, it's back to Europe: trek, trek, trek. O, Mere Courage.

Hers is a social memoir about manners: Salka's "camera" reveals southern California, Hollywood, marriages, relationships; her gallery includes moguls, intellectuals and artists. Always discreet, she alludes to her own sexual flings, usually without gardenias. The writing is often clotted; the memoir needs humor.

Her report of Eisenstein's failed Mexican movie is fascinating, and so is Salka's attempt to help get a composing job for refugee Arnold Schoenberg on "The Good Earth." This fell apart when Schoenberg told Irving Thalberg that he also wanted control of the dialogue. ~ Salka and Garbo became great friends, maybe even more, but there's nothing much here about Garbo who was very alive (and dodging photogs) in 1969 when the book was published. Salka cowrote GGs "Two-Faced Woman." What's missing is anything--anything at all--about Garbo ending her career with this movie. Garbo was always a very dear pal....

Salka was a survivor. She carried on and lived until 1978, when she died, age 89, in Switzerland, her last stop on the international line. Garbo oft visited her there.

[KOMET · Rating 5 out of 5]

"THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS" is one of the best memoirs I've ever read.

Salka Viertel (1889-1978) I had no knowledge of who she was prior to reading her memoir. But no sooner had I begun to read the first few pages, a door had been opened to a spacious house with many rooms, corners, and closets by an old, dear friend I hadn't heard from for many moons. Salka's words became alive and I eagerly listened to her life story. A life that had begun in a bourgeois Jewish family (her father was a distinguished lawyer and also mayor of Salka's hometown) in the province of Galicia in the latter years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Salka aspired to be an actress and, after wearing down her parents' resistance, was given acting lessons. This was in the era just before the outbreak of the First World War. Salka became acquainted with some of the finest actors, artists, and musicians as she slowly ascended the ladder to a steady acting career which earned her distinction. Then the war intervenes and for a time, Salka and her younger sister Rose (who would became an actress herself) served as nurses before resuming acting in both Austria-Hungary and Germany. She led a somewhat bohemian lifestyle before making the acquaintance of the man (Berthold Viertel) who would later become her husband. Berthold was a talented poet, writer, and had extensive interest in the theatre. He would go on to become a distinguished theatre director, poet, and film maker.

The memoir then transports the reader into Salka's later life which took her from Europe to America, where she would eventually work in Hollywood, make the acquaintance of Greta Garbo (who became a close friend), become an American citizen, and helped find homes in America (Salka lived in a lovely house in Santa Monica, California, not far from the Pacific) for many of the writers, artists, actors and actresses who were lucky to escape Hitler's clutches.

Through reading "THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS", the reader is given access to 2 lost worlds spanning half of the 20th century. That is, " --- the pre-Hitler German-speaking stage and the pre-CGI Hollywood" as it was from the 1920s to the 1940s. Through all her ups and downs, Salka Viertel remained resilient, strong, tender-hearted, and full of life. I am so glad that I made her acquaintance.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jan 2019 NYRB Selection

I really don’t 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 weren’t movies that were far more interesting. So, the name Salka Viertel didn’t ring any bells.

Viertel was a very close friend of Garbo’s, 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 Austro-Hungary 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 stars, 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 you’ve heard of, but of the personal side. Viertel, for instance, writes about what today we would call post-partum 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.

[James Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Salka Viertel uses the phrase from the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire because she felt she'd always experienced exactly that wherever she lived and worked. Raised in a prominent family in what's now Ukraine, Viertel was an actress on the Austrian and German stage beginning just prior to WWI. She married the writer-director Berthold Viertel in 1918. Her story of the marriage's early years is the story of their lives in the theater of Berlin, Prague, and Vienna. Kafka, Alban Berg, Robert Musil, Rilke, Schoenberg, and Einstein drifted through their lives during the 1920s and were exposed to Salka's powers of observation.

Berthold came under contract to the American production company Fox Film in 1928. They moved to Hollywood, and this major shift in milieu from the European stage to American films is the great seam in the book dividing Salka's life into European and American halves. She brought her European sensibilities to California to meet the sensibilities of many others who'd gotten away from continental politics, particularly those in Germany. The books's perceptive of that Hollywood and informative about what it was like to work there in the 30s and 40s, but it's equally about the Europeans who were so successful and influential there. Bertolt Brecht goes in and out of the story many times. Charlie Chaplin, Thomas and Heinrich Mann were there, and so was Christopher Isherwood. They were all close to her but not as close as the one who was perhaps her greatest friend, Greta Garbo. Salka's house at that time was one of the channels for the flow of European theatrical art as expressed in the brash film industry of America. It was only near the end of her career as a screenwriter that she found all strangers aren't kind. A chance remark in a production meeting caused her to run aground on the rocks of McCarthy-era communist-hunting bureaucrats. She was blackballed and had to once again reach deep into the well of her resourcefulness to clear herself.

Though not a huge fan of autobiography, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Its prose is perhaps a bit strudel-fed, but it's always interesting.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found out that Berthold's wife had written her autobiography via the rather awful scandalous book, Sappho in Hollywood. But reading that was worth it to have found this. It was a fascinating book covering so much of early 20th century history. It started a little slowly with her being a young aspiring actress falling in love with various older, married men. But once the first world war broke out I was hooked. It was such an insightful and personal look at life during the first half of the 20th century. Salka's family were wealither, sectarian Jews, but it was fascinating to see how being Jewish in Germany affected her and her husband so much. There were grim accounts of the first world war. Particuarly stiring accounts of the hyper inflation and the problems it caused. One part where she was taking the train with her young sons and wasn't able to continue her journey as the money she'd left with wasn't enough to buy a ticket to continue their journey and someone had to buy a 3rd class tickets and peasants shared their food with her.
In contrast to this was her life in Hollywood, She moved there in the early 30s when her husband had been offered film work. He ended up not staying long in Hollywood, but Salka became a script writer for Hollywood. She became friends with Greta Garbo and wrote scripts for her. She was making the huge sum of $1000 a week, most of which she spent helping friends and relatives who were stuck in Europe, vast sums went to help her mother get out of Russia once war broke out.
After the war she became active in the civil rights movement, offering her spare room to an inter-racial couple.
She met Beatrix, who her husband was living with at that point (all quite amicably), and the two got on really well. It was very refreshing to read about people who were born at the turn of the 20th century who had such "modern" views towards marriage and relationships. They all seemed like people I would totally hang out with. Now I wish my German was better so I could read,
Ich liebe dich. Für immer: Greta Garbo und Salka Viertel by Nicole Nottelmann. In the biography Salka mentions the men she was having "affairs" with, but with Greta there wasn't a hint any romance in her autobiography. (Though knowing her husband was having an affair with another notorious bisexual I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it was true).

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are professions, such as orchestra conducting, directing, film producing and even teaching, which spoil one's character, for it is dangerous always to know better.

I longed for a respite from people who considered themselves superior only because they were overpaid.

They say that, with age, comes wisdom. I've found that the equation can vary, depending on how often times of little money was able to cultivate comradery rather than be consigned to drug abuse, or how often times of great financial acquisition has calcified compassion instead of inspired magnanimity. Is there art in your life? How about hard work? When you meet a person, do you align with their familiar valuing of family, food, and coming together, or do you perk up your ears at what your country tells you is cost effective and put up your nose when the other's demographic isn't financially lucrative? How are you with labels? With creeds? Have you ever watched Jew and Gentile, Black and White come together without a state pitting one against another? Have you ever witnessed out of work bigots be conscripted by an opportunistic capitalist so that they may open fire on workers' strikes and consider themselves 'heroes of the state' for wiping out the communists, the anarchists, the foreigners and the parasites? For what I've found in my pursuit of literature in the USA of all places is how much time and money my country has spent on carving the heart out of itself, coupling intimacy to disease, creativity to suspicion, and life to the highest bidder, to the point that finding any piece of writing that's not only willing to talk about such, but get published to such an extent that a dabbler like me can afford a copy is the task of digging up a grain of francium in the entire known universe. Viertel won't satisfy any follower of those leaders that, regardless of political persuasion, view critical thinking as the enemy, or those who have been raised on the vacuity of "American" literature with the most paltry, gutless scatterings of "European" literature deemed safe for supplement, or those who see an op-ed on replacing libraries with Amazon bookstores and nod along in self-satisfied accord. She does, however, satisfy me, however little that is worth.

Night after night we were sold out, only to see in the morning papers that we were just as broke as ever. And in the audience sat foreigners who lived like kings on ten dollars a week.

A Transylvanian from another compartment opened the door and announced that we were approaching the German frontier. They all got up, crossed themselves, knelt down facing the window and prayed aloud that the new earth would receive them with friendliness. I often thought of them during the Hitler years.

If I had to choose a period and a place that exerts the highest degree of fascination for me compared to any other, I would have to choose the Weimar Republic. Such a choice admittedly cuts down on such inane follow up remarks on wishing to live there, but my interest is far more for the existence of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft and what sort of social climate must have existed to bring to life that sort of publicly accessible intellectual initiative. It's the sort of topic that is ripe for interpretive exposition of modern day creative adaptors, but the confluence of worker's movements, a Russia that still remembered the oppressive stain of serfdom, and the direct line of progress between the gouging, or dare I say colonizing, of the Versailles Treaty, and the rise of fascism makes it an awkward topic for typical writers who wish to draw the advertising eye but not disinvite themselves from the apolitical 'in' crowd. This makes Viertel's position as well educated enough to be artistically "rebellious" and actually reap (some of) the rewards, benefited enough to be able to escape but not to stay in one place, community-minded enough to not only hobnob with the big names but welcome Black, disabled, and other capitalistically disenfranchised types in her life a tremendous boon.

It is impossible for me to mourn empires and cathedrals. I mourn only the people, confused, misled and apostatical as the human race might be. If the entire so-called culture would become one huge heap of rubble and a new world, cleansed of the Nazi pest, would emerge, my days would end in complete happiness.
-Berthold Viertel

For all those traits, I didn't truly appreciate the magnitude of them until the venue switched from the far more instinctively intriguing European landscapes to the humdrum roadways of California, complete with much reference to Los Angeles and even a few to UCLA, those locations much benighted by my school years. For Viertel reminded me of the human commonality between literature, the theatre, and the movies, and while her rocky negotiations with the many over-moneyed hydra heads of Hollywood didn't make for comfortably voyeuristic reading, her genuine desire to create masterful works combined with the acknowledgement of the need to make money so as to help a whole city of others made her tribulations at times heartrending, but also far more sympathetic than they would have been in far more stable circumstances. And, like a true narrative craftswoman, she takes us through her life and leaves us at the doorstep of what may not be fame, success, and riches forevermore, but another link in the chain of her being, where what has been lost is used to grow what has been found. Lord knows I sometimes didn't know four out of five of the referenced names, and I had to admit that I understood where the less imaginative types that Viertel mildly excoriated on occasion were coming from when it came to disparate social classes of Jewish folks, but this record is nothing more and nothing less than the odyssey of one who loved and was loved in return, who gave and lost and gave some more, and had no patience for political hegemonies that considered the slightest thought of truly equitable mutual aid networks as tantamount to terrorism (something that applies to Stalin, McCarthy, and any nosy neighborhood decrier of "those types"). It's not the kind of book oriented towards self-help or get-rich-quick (indeed, Viertel might leave you feeling even more confusedly bereft if you go in believing that reading this will allow you to decrease your alienation and leave all your economic greed in tact), but it does show types like me that the void that they see and that they feel in their "land of the free and home of the brave" isn't all in their head (or at least isn't entirely their brain chemistry), and as a result how necessary it is to ground the appreciation of the self in the actualization of the other. Of course, you could enjoy it all just fine by latching onto Greta Garbo or Thomas Mann any other of the adulated names that Viertel (likely consciously, but I won't begrudge her a single dime for doing so) lets slip over the years of her reminiscence, but you'll be getting so much more along with it, so long as you're willing to receive it.

I have often been asked, usually by young women: "when and where have you been happiest in your life?" It was impossible to answer. Happiness demands a special kind of selfishness, never lasting, seldom approved, and you have to pay for each minute of it, usually too dearly. There are people of such harmonious, Apollonian disposition, of such well-balanced desires and temperament, that they never abandon the prudent domain of self-control. I belonged to a more reckless race.

To say that this year, for me, has been one of great positive changes and promises to bring even greater ones before it closes is rather an understatement. It would be no surprise to anyone, much less myself, if that had a noticeable impact on my reading and reviewing, especially in the final evaluations involving stars and other, more simplistic means of quick appraisal. Still, while the number of five stars and favorites I accrue to my name during the course of 2022 has already outweighed the skimpy pastures of 2018 and is a few steps away from gaining on 2021 and 2020, the favored books of today don't look very different from their vaunted predecessors. The benefit of less empty stress and more rewarding productivity, then, may be my ability to take on books that I come to for rather trite reasons (NYRB Classics cover, work of 50+ years by a woman, promises of far off landscapes and literary salons) and invest as much effort as they deserve, rather than what I assumed to be required. It's devastating work when your memoirist is a Jewish woman who was born in Galicia (Ukraine) in 1888, was heavily involved in the theatre scene of 1920s Germany and movie scene of 1930s-1950s (non-blacklisted) USA, and died in Klosters, Switzerland, 1978, nine years after this memoir was published and twenty-four years after the memoir's last recorded events. But it's real work, and the reward is that of giving me a real picture of what the future could, will, must look like. That's certainly not something you can say every day.

(On 'Hearings of the U.S. Congressional Committee Regarding the Communists' Infiltration of the Motion Picture Industry") Thomas Mann was cheered when he addressed a meeting, saying: "I have the honor to expose myself as a hostile witness...As an American citizen of German birth I finally testify that I am painfully familiar with certain political trends. Spiritual intolerance, political inquisitions, and declining legal security, and all this in the name of an alleged 'state of emergency'...That is how it started in Germany."

The introduction claims that Viertel made the wrong choice for her memoir filled with a sizable number of wonderful vignettes illustrating exactly "the kindness of strangers", and that she should have instead went with the last three words of her text, "my incorrigible heart." I remind these omniscient hypercritics that, when a newly made friend advised Viertel to use the time, in which she was stuck in the middle of nowhere, Arizona whilst the broken down Chevrolet that she was transporting from LA to NY for a friend, to begin writing her memoirs, she put down, and I repeat, "I thought he had overestimated my egocentricity." What a shame for all the would be Ozymandiases; what privilege, what joy for the rest of us.

In Munich the actors' meetings were bitter and acrimonious. I participated in the discussion about a new Equity contract. The old one had, among other obsolete articles, an atrocious paragraph granting the director the right to dismiss immediately, without financial compensation, any actor who had tuberculosis or syphilis. In the case of tuberculosis all my colleagues agreed that it should be treated like any other affliction, with a paid leave for so-and-so many weeks, etc., etc., but syphilis was a disgraceful sickness, acquired from an immoral life and therefore not deserving any benefits. I had so far refrained from making any speeches, but this time I got up. it was the first and only speech I ever made at a public gathering, but it made an impression and immediately labeled me a Bolshevik, although I only said that syphilis was a sickness like any other, that the war had increased is dangers of spreading, and that it happened in the best families (the Brieux play had made me an expert on that topic).

May we all live to grow so wise.

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Epic memoir of a screenwriter (mostly at and for MGM) during the golden era of Hollywood, as well as being with the great European intellectuals of the 20th-century. Sort of the roots or foundation for parts of "City of Nets."

[Chr*s Browning · Rating 4 out of 5]

January 2019 NYRB Book Club Selection
For the first 200 pages or so, I was enjoying Viertel's memoir but felt she relied far too heavily on name-dropping. I care very little for old Hollywood and know absolutely nothing about European theater of the early 20th 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 early 20th 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 phone-only relationship with her Western Union telegram reader, the anecdote of Norman, a young worker who went head-to-head 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 live 24 more years) would be fleeting, but in the moment, her overwhelming joy does not fail to touch me (the last line is perfect).

[Paulina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant, detailed, invigorating.

I was not unhappy. I was exhausted, impatient, frustrated, often desperate, overworked; but my life still had moments of joy, of sensuous and intellectual pleasures. Even getting old was no threat. I never had the temperament nor the leisure to become aware of it.

<...>

Shortly after Hans left, Brecht drove up one morning in his battered Ford and said that it was utterly ridiculous to have financial worries, when he and I could put our brains together and invent a saleable film story. I was very flattered that he considered my brain good enough to be “put together” with his, but he was not joking; he suggested that we work two hours a day and write a strictly commercial story. We were to commit ourselves to abide by the rules and respect Hollywood taboos which, after my years at MGM, I thoroughly knew. “Why shouldn’t we be able to do as well as any Hollywood hack?” he asked.

“Because what the producers want is an original but familiar, unusual but popular, moralistic but sexy, true but improbable, tender but violent, slick but highbrow masterpiece. When they have that, then they can ‘work on it’ and make it ‘commercial,’ to justify their high salaries.”

Brecht bit into his cigar and assured me that we could write our story in such a way that they would not notice what a highbrow masterpiece it was. But we had to proceed scientifically, soberly and objectively.

[Prooost Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I might simply say that The Kindness of Strangers is the best book I've ever read about Hollywood, but Salka Viertel's memoir is much bigger than that. The author was born in the 19th Century in what is now Ukraine, but the borders have changed a lot over the years.

The memoir covers Viertel's childhood, and her career as a stage actress in Europe up until 1928, when her husband was offered work as a writer in Hollywood. The story is about Hollywood, war, family, hospitality, generosity, and life. Everybody, from Louis B. Mayer, to Greta Garbo, to Albert Einstein, is in it.

I've been glued to The Kindness of Strangers for over a week, and I can't say enough about it.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 the 20th Century.

[Daniel Polansky]

I read this book.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Memoir of the Polish/Jewish screenwriter and friend of Greta Garbo who fortunately left Eastern Europe before the rise of Nazi Germany and moved to Santa Monica. A lot of name dropping - she seemed to know just about every European artist and author from the early to mid-20th century. I did not find the first part of the book (pre-Hollywood) particularly interesting, but it picked up afterward, with interesting segments on Hollywood dealings, Sergei Eisenstein's abortive Mexico movie, and the blacklist. Unfortunately, the book ended abruptly with a visit to Switzerland. I wish this edition had an introduction or afterward that filled in the rest of her life.

I listened to this on the Audible Plus collection. I have concluded that "Plus" often means bad narration. The narrator kept a Central European accent throughout, unless she was imitating Americans. I eventually got used to the accent but at times comprehension was lost. The most annoying thing was when the narrator was reading letters from Salka's husband or other males, the narrator dropped her voice IN VOLUME. I suspect this was recorded before audiobooks became popular. The average person today listens to audiobooks while driving, at the gym, or performing mindless chores--activities that involve background noise. In these situations, clarity of narration and consistency of volume are essential. This narration falls short.

[Steve Wojciechowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Kindness of Strangers follows Ms. Viertel on her journey of emigration through Europe and America, and her stops along the way. At each point, however, you can feel an interminable flow towards some ultimate destination. Perhaps the saddest thing about the book is revealed only in the afterward - she was never able to find that place. Her story is typical of the emigrant in European literature of the 20th century, and reminds me substantively, if not stylistically, of W. G. Sebald. Nevertheless, this autobiography reveals a person whose generosity, humility and amicability are unmatched. Her stories of life, in Europe and America, are humbling for the reader and full of wisdom and empathy.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A moving memoir that combines experiences of Europe before and between the world wars, Hollywood before and after the Second World War, the heyday of the studio system, family life, friendship with Greta Garbo, the passage of countless emigres through California (Brecht! various Manns! Adorno makes a brief appearance! a cast of hundreds!), and reflections on being an actress, writer, wife, mother, daughter, and engaged citizen of the world in a time of chaos and upheaval. As Salka Viertel wrote: “even lionesses become dead tired.”

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Salka Viertel was born in Ukraine, became a theater actress in Europe, primarily in Germany, and eventually emigrated to the US, settling in Santa Monica, where she became a Hollywood screenwriter and a close friend of Greta Garbo. Her husband was a writer and theater director. Her memoir covers some 60+ years of her life, omitting the last twenty years, which were marked by a considerable amount of personal heartbreak and financial insecurity.

For a while, I wasn't sure how I felt about this book, never having any particular interest in the European theater scene. But the story eventually won me over. The author had a tremendous zest for life and a warm and generous spirit. During her years in Hollywood, she welcomed many other European artists - poets, novelists, theater directors and actors - into her home, making them welcome in America, which she had grown to love. There is a lot of name-dropping in the book, but not in an offensive way. Rather, she was excited to talk about the many interesting and talented people she met during the course of her life.

The book is also a somewhat unconventional love story, as much of it describes the author's relationship with her husband. After affairs and periods of separation, they eventually divorced, but remained devoted to one another, even when others entered their lives. The author's description of their relationship, which includes extensive excerpts from letters they wrote to one another, is touching and ultimately heart-breaking.

The book also describes world events, including the rise of Naziism and World War II, which had a profound effect on the author's family and friends, in part because they were Jewish. Later, the author was forced to deal with the anti-Communist hysteria of the 1950s.

There is a lot here - theater, Hollywood studio insider memoir, immigrant story, war, divorce, child-rearing, Garbo, and a big shaggy dog named Timmy. Even when things were difficult, the author always retained her positive outlook and great warmth toward her family and friends. Her story is inspiring, powerful and touching, and should be read by many.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 late 1920s 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 Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto in the 1940s). 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 Salka’s 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.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an extraordinary life actress and screenwriter Salka Viertel lived! I had to read this book with Wikipedia open next to me, because Veirtel’s career intersected with so many 20th-century 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 1889, her life was shaped by all the dislocations one could imagine: two World Wars and the resulting poverty, famine, and destruction; anti-semitism; 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 1928, thinking they’ll 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. (Berthold’s 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 Warner’s. Her simpatico with Greta Garbo made her the go-to gatekeeper for any producer who wanted to work with Garbo, and their friendship endured until the end of Viertel’s life. The wartime treatment of actors and writers by studios alone is worth the read. Viertel’s matter-of-fact writing style sometimes makes it difficult for the reader to discern what was important in her life, but perhaps it *all* was; it wouldn’t surprise me if this remarkable woman dedicated the same passion to everyone in her life.

[Jeff Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best autobiographies of the twentieth century when it comes to describing the arts of Germanic Europe and, later, Hollywood. As a young stage actor and wife of an up-and-coming playwright in Vienna in the 1920s, Viertel meets everyone from Kafka to Brecht, and gives a powerful account of the end of the Austro-Hungarian empire. But the book is especially poignant when Viertel, fleeing Germany after Hitler takes power, recounts her life in the United States. She paints a very vivid portrait of Hollywood in the thirties, and forties, and the difficulty so many European artists had in using their talents. It's both a little funny and a little sad to see lions of culture like Max Reinhart, Arnold Schoenberg, and Thomas Mann attempt to find respect and work in southern California. For the reader who might be interested in the author's friend, Greta Garbo, Viertel's Greta comes off as an intelligent and passionate artist. The portrait rings true, but it is limited, and Garbo remains an enigmatic figure. But for the reader who wants to know more about the stage, film, and literary artists of the Austria and Germany of a century ago, and the migration to America, and the impact those artists had on culture in the United States, this memoir is invaluable. Viertel is a good writer. Aside from the inevitable confusion of trying to keep track of so many people that appear, disappear, and re-appear in her narrative, it's an enjoyable read.

[Luann Ritsema · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I enjoyed this glimpse into the prewar European theater and arts communities I knew little about, and the transition to Hollywood with its expat name dropping was entertaining. But in the end it didn’t deliver the substance or insight or story I was hoping to discover. As I’m so easily distracted these days I can’t always be certain if the flaw is in the book or in me, so I would err on the side of generosity here. Still, what we got to see of the characters held my interest.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful memoir about a woman who crossed the paths of many of the 20th 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.

[Andy Balicki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enjoyed reading about her acting career in Berlin and her transition to Hollywood, but then the pace slowed to a screeching halt. Her career was not that interesting, nor her marriage and family, making the second half of the book a chore to read. The war provided a rich vein to tap, but not enough to lift the work. While the diction is lovely at times, I am walking away empty-handed.

[Earl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an eventful life! From the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to rise of Hollywood, Viertel and her community of European émigrés are fascinating company. It's valuable to re-visit McCarthyism and to be reminded how poorly America consistently treats its progressive citizens.

[David Partikian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Salka Viertel’s The Kindness of Strangers can both enchant and annoy. At its best, it is a tale of a bygone world of an upper middle-class Jewish family in Galicia where the children are blessed with artistic inclinations and talent. One brother becomes a concert pianist and acolyte of Arnold Schoenberg. Another brother becomes a European football star. The two daughters become actresses with Salka marrying the Austrian writer/director Berthold Viertel where she helped found an avant-garde repertory theater troupe.

The early chapters of the memoir enchant, giving a modern reader a glimpse into a pre-Holocaust Eastern European world that no longer exists along with glimpses into Weimar era theater and the loose mores that accompany it (an actor or actress could be released without any further remuneration for contracting syphilis); in this respect the memoir is invaluable. the memoir really gains legs when her husband is offered a position in Hollywood and Salka Viertel accompanies him, but soon becomes independent as a scriptwriter and confidant of Greta Garbo, who remains inscrutable throughout the book, described as “Greta” and nothing more; Viertel works on many of the Hollywood scripts that feature Garbo.

Within a couple of years, fascist winds are blowing strong, and Viertel finds herself separated from her husband; they had a “modern” marriage before it was a thing. She becomes something of an early German speaking pioneer in Santa Monica and helps later German emigrees, or rather refugees, gain a foothold in Hollywood. Many readers will love these chapters with anecdotes concerning famous Europeans in Hollywood like Ernst Lubich and Sergei Eisenstein. Others will find the tales humdrum and bordering on name dropping, especially when interspersed with long descriptions of dated movies and scripts that may or may not have been filmed. I found myself skimming over paragraphs where a script from some long-forgotten movie is discussed in detail.


Unfortunately, the minute details continue with tales of parenthood, verbatim reprintings of letters from abroad, and haggling over scripts and pay. A lot of the information might only be of use to a film historian, or someone interested in the day- to-day life of German refugees in Hollywood. What remains fascinating is that all these details are interspersed with news of World War II and the coalescing of the German intelligentsia in Los Angeles during the Hitler years. There are many pearls of wisdom and astute observations buried in the humdrum details of daily life.

Salka Viertel was a survivor. She survived and witnessed WWI as well as the decline of the Hapsburg Empire afterwards. She literally beat the rush and was an emigree, not a refugee. The descriptions of discovering what happened to friends and relatives in Europe under Hitler is heartbreaking and a firm reminder to those of us in the internet age that there was once an era where it took months to receive a letter with bad news and when the closest thing to “instant” was a telegram. . .also usually bearing bad news.

As if escaping fascism were not enough, Viertel, before finally leaving the USA, had to answer to charges of being a communist or communist sympathizer during the McCarthy era; she was friendly with Bertold Brecht and many other known communists. She led a charmed life that was not without trial and tribulation.

Her memoir is recommended for those who want to evoke the bygone world of Galicia, Weimar era Berlin and Vienna, perhaps to someone who reads Gregor von Rezzori. It also works for those interested in the German ex-Patriate community and the Red Scare that came afterward, though the latter is covered in only a couple of brief chapters. However, while the writing is eloquent, there are just too many day-to-day details that haven’t aged well. While the book is deservedly back in print thanks to the NYRB imprint, it is best enjoyed by a reader interested in the above, and even then, the reader might start skimming and trying to remember who all the minor characters are. Viertel relies on a straight chronological narrative, which is great if one reads the book as a reference source, but less so for stylistic value.

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 long-time 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 was 80% through the book and it was still the late '30s. 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.

[Yooperprof · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bittersweet memoir of Golden Age Hollywood screenwriter Salka Viertel, Beautifully written.

Viertel describes a halycon childhood in the waning days of Austro-Hungarian 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 German-language 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 late 1920s, to become part of the burgeoning immigrant community of creative artists from all over the world. In the 1930s and 40s, 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 "Two-Hearted Woman."

[Tim Engle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a hard one to finish. I was reading through some reviews of this book stating that the second half was more of a slog, and wow were they right. Here’s the hard truth: I don’t think Salka Viertel is as interesting as she thinks she is. This account felt like listening to someone’s dream or reading someone’s unfiltered daily log- it just doesn’t feel very personal and really hard to care after a while.

What I think carries the book is the juxtaposition of living between the West Coast of America and Austro-Hungarian Europe, and living in the new glittering realm of Hollywood while the horrors and atrocities of WW2 were happening in Europe. If the book had focused more on that, I think it would have been a better and more insightful read. I just didn’t find myself caring about random details of unknown projects she was working on in Hollywood.

Also, the ending was so random. She could have easily wrote more on her life and edited this to be a more streamlined and focused book.

So yeah - a bit of a mess. But at times, very insightful.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating memoir, covering the first half of the twentieth century, starting in rural Central Europe, Sambor (now Ukraine, but then part of the Dual monarchy). Going through 2 world wars, the German Weimar Republic and inflation, to Hollywood.
We meet an endless array of writers,musicians, actors etc... from both the old European (Zweig, Rolland) to the Brits (Huxley, Chaplin, Isherwood) to Hollywood (Garbo, Warner, Mayer) and the exiles: Thomas Mann, Schoenberg, Klemperer, Bruno Walter, Einstein.
But this isn’t a name dropping book, as the title implies, these people are strangers but become friends and often live with Salka in her hill house in Santa Monica. The charm and kindness of people in the face of war, poverty, destitution, Nazism, McCarthy is what brings it alive.

A wonderful book

[Cooper Renner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superb memoir by a writer and actor I don’t remember ever having heard of: moving from her childhood and youth in a Jewish family in the Austrian empire, into pre-Nazi Germany and on to the United States, where Viertel became an intimate of Greta Garbo and friends with dozens of actors and writers of the period. She and her three siblings were an amazing pool of talent—one of her brothers was the primary pianist who promoted the “modern” work of Schoenberg and Webern; another was a noted Polish soccer player who died at the hands of the Nazis. Her husband Berthold Viertel was a notes poet and stage director. An amazing life, smartly told.

[Harald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein wunderbares Stück Zeitgeschichte, die Kindheit in Galizien, Theaterkarriere in Österreich und Deutschland, Hollywood und der Übergang vom Stummfilm zum Tonfilm, Drehbuchautorin für die Garbo, Deutsche Künstler im Exil und politische Schwierigkeiten in der McCarthy-Ära. Das alles aus einem sehr persönlichen Blickwinkel heraus erzählt, ohne sich nur auf das Anekdotische oder auf Namedroping zu beschränken.