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Salka Viertel's Salon, Her Theatrical Career
Told in Autobiography 'Kindness of Strangers
A distinkuished actress turned
Aiding refugees, supporting the
author draws considerable interest Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, she
with her autobiography.
was mistakenly referred to as a
Salka Viertel aspired to the stage Communist and when she applied
and the encouragement of Max for a passport to Europe after the
Reinhardt gave her the coveted war her background was ques-
start on the stage in Germany. tioned and she incorporates in her
She came to the United States,' autobiography a letter from R. B.
gained fame in Hollywood and her Shipley of the State Department
association with some of the very questioning her associations. She
great personalities in the world was cleared but in the interim she
elevated her to a high position had undergone interrogations.
A sad experience during the pre-
among the interesting theatrical
war years is recorded. On a stop-
personalities of her time.
"The Kindness of Strangers—A over in Paris, she writes:
"On the Champs Elysees huge
Theatrical Life — Vienna, Berlin,
Hollywood," published by Holt. posters advertised Emil Jannings
Rinehart and Winston, tells the re- in an anti-British film. He was now
markable story of this Jewess who a Staatsrat and most honored ar-
was thoroughly assimilated yet tist of the Third Reich. At a din-
ner party my neighbor exclaimed:
had deep Jewish interests.
Ske3yas born into an observant 'I don't see any reason why one
Jena& family and her mother should not work in Germany. The
keptfal the rules. She never for- Jewish question concerns only the
got - be/ origin and during the Jews.' I got up and left. Four
Nast ;era was among the out- years later, after the war broke
spokes fighters against, Hitler- out and the issue had become not
ism. But it was natural Ito her, merely a Jewish one, my hosts
as a semi-assimilated Jewess, to changed their attitude. During the
state, "AU children in the West- occupation they went into exile."
Other incidents are recorded re-
ern world, even Jewish or half-
Jewish, want a Christmas tree." lating to the Nazi terror and Salka
But at her mother's funeral she Viertel's expressions against the
recited the Kaddish repeating it Hitler regime.
as it was being pronounced by a
Hollywood rabbi.
She befriended the great in Eu-
rope and in America and she tells
about- her friendship with the Al- I
bert Einstein. She states of one
the
occasion , with them that "It was
the most effortless and gayest eve- I
This Week's Radio and
ning I have ever spent in the pres-
Television Programs
ence of a great man. We laughed *
ETERNAL LIGHT
a lot as anecdote followed ance-
dote . .."
Time: 10:30 p.m. Sunday
Station: WWJ
She met Dorothy Thompson and
Feature: "Not Quite Alone," a
Sinclair Lewis before they were
drama in the "Righteous Acts"
to marry.
Upton Sinclair was among her series, relates the story of a hand-
close friends and they had met on ful of Polish Christians who enter-
ed the Warsaw ghetto to fight with
numerous occasions.
There is an interesting historic the Jews in the uprising of April
fol-
note when she relates the
1943. Written by Harold Flender.
• • •
lowing about her early associa-
tions, before coming to thel
LUBAVTTCH JEWISH HOUR
United States:
Time: 8 a.m. Sunday
"The circle of our friends be-! Station: WKNR
came larger as impatient youth
Feature: Rabbi Yitzhak M. Ka-
began to invade Berlin. Thomas gan will speak on "The Fifth Son
Main's children Klaus and Erika, —Who Is He?" A youth forum on
Pamela - Wedekind, Mops Stern.: Passover along with Hasidic songs
helm and Anna Mahler, Gustav also will be presented.
Mahler's daughter, briefly mar-
•
ried to the composer Ernst Kre-
HEAR OUR VOICE
nek, emerged from their nur-
Time: 11:30 p.m. Sunday
series to join us at our table in
Station: WCAR
the Romaninisches cafe, bring-
Feature: "Zimriya of Cantors
ing freshness of outlook and a and Choirs"—a potpourri of offer-
reckless disrespect for the status ing from the area's cantors and
quo. Some of them soon disap- choral ensembles.
peared from our lives. Among
those who remained were Fran-
cesco and Eleanora von Men- Share-in-America Drive
delssohn, the children of Gull- to Push Savings Bonds
letta and Robert von Mendels-
A large-scale effort to enroll 85,-
sohn, of the renowned banking
house. One hundred and fifty 000 new savings bonds and Free-
years of intermarriage with Ital- dom Shares buyers via the pay-
ian and Basque women had con- roll savings plan in Wayne, Oak-
tributed beauty, talent and ec- land and Macomb counties began
centricity to the ancient Jewish Tuesday with the kick-off of the
blood of the 18th Century philoso- Metropolitan Detroit Share-in-
pher Moses Mendelssohn. From America Campaign.
Nearly all major employers in
their father and Italian mother,
Francesco and Eleanora inherit- the tricounty area have scheduled
ed their musicality and obsession personal canvasses of their em-
with the theater. As Duse was ployes during the April-May cam-
her ;godmother, it was obvious paign period. Employes of scores
that -Eleanora was destined to be of smaller firms also will be given
an actress. Robert von Mendels- an opportunity to sign up for E
sohn had died, their mother lived Bond/Freedom Shares purchases
in Florence, and brother and sis- or to increase their regular sav-
ter had at their disposal the ings if already enrolled in- the
large Gruenewald villa with its payroll savings plan.
Chairman of the three-county
extensive library and famous
drive is Edwin 0. George, pres-
collection of paintings."
ident
of the Detroit Edison Co.
Salka Viertel had close associa-
tions with Serge Eisentein and with He has termed the campaign an
the American movie producers. opportunity for sound personal
Her many friends included S. N. investment, a service to the na-
Behrman, Irving Thalberg, Greta tion in a time of great stress,
and a test of community spirit.
Garbo, Rilke Schoenberg and
Treasury officials view the cur-
many others and her "salon" was
a gathering place for the great in rent campaign as one of - the most
important since World War II.
Hollywood.
She came to Hollywood in 1929
Justice and truth are of too fine
i her writer-director husband
with
Berthold Viertel and he served a quality to be measured by our
clumsy
human instruments—Pas-
direct-
as a writer for MGM and
cal.
ed numerous films.
'.'1-1.:2-11
1"41.
She tells among other things
and people about her friendship
with Samuel Hoffenstein and
writes: "Often I wondered how
this Hasidic soul landed in Holly-
wood, but he made a lot of
money. Hoffenstein's two vol-
umes of verse, one called 'In
Praise of Practically Nothing,'
had had great success and be-
came very popular. Today, I am
afraid, not many people remem-
ber them. Expressing himself in
exquisite English, slightly tinged
with an Irish brogue, he would
surprise one by bursting into a
Yiddish song or Kol Nidre and
other Hebrew prayers. When in-
toxicated, he would improvise
for hours in verse which, unfor-
tunately, he forgot next day."
We have, therefore, in Salka
Viertel's "The Kindness of Strang-
ers"—a volume that shows how so
many befriended her in several
countries — an interesting autobi-
ography that draws upon many
experiences and serves as a par-
tial history of many aspects in the
theater and among the great
around the theater.
Ida Kaminska Recovering
From Illness in Montreal
MONTREAL (JTA) — Mrs. Ida
Kaminska, the Yiddish actress,
was in "satisfactory condition"
with a "possible cardiac com-
plaint" in Jewish General Hospital
here. She was taken to the hospi-
tal upon a complaint of severe
headaches for three days, her hus-
band, actor Marian Melman, told
the JTA.
Mrs. Kaminska has been ap-
pearing here in the Places des
Arts in the Yiddish classic "Mirele
Efros." With her are her husband
and daughter, Ruth Kaminska, also
former members of the Jewish
State Theater of Warsaw. Mont-
real was their first stop on a tour
with "Mirele Efros." Perform-
ances were canceled because of
her illness.
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