Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
Audiobook12 hours
The Sun and Her Stars: Salka Viertel and Hitler's Exiles in the Golden Age of Hollywood
Written by Donna Rifkind
Narrated by Heather Henderson
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this audiobook
The little-known story of screenwriter Salka Viertel, whose salons in 1930s and 40s Hollywood created a refuge for a multitude of famous figures who had escaped the horrors of World War II.
Hollywood was created by its “others”; that is, by women, Jews, and immigrants. Salka Viertel was all three and so much more. She was the screenwriter for five of Greta Garbo’s movies and also her most intimate friend. At one point during the Irving Thalberg years, Viertel was the highest-paid writer on the MGM lot. Meanwhile, at her house in Santa Monica she opened her door on Sunday afternoons to scores of European émigrés who had fled from Hitler—such as Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, and Arnold Schoenberg—along with every kind of Hollywood star, from Charlie Chaplin to Shelley Winters. In Viertel’s living room (the only one in town with comfortable armchairs, said one Hollywood insider), countless cinematic, theatrical, and musical partnerships were born.
Viertel combined a modern-before-her-time sensibility with the Old-World advantages of a classical European education and fluency in eight languages. She united great worldliness and great warmth. She was a true bohemian with a complicated erotic life, and at the same time a universal mother figure. A vital presence in the golden age of Hollywood, Salka Viertel is long overdue for her own moment in the spotlight.
Hollywood was created by its “others”; that is, by women, Jews, and immigrants. Salka Viertel was all three and so much more. She was the screenwriter for five of Greta Garbo’s movies and also her most intimate friend. At one point during the Irving Thalberg years, Viertel was the highest-paid writer on the MGM lot. Meanwhile, at her house in Santa Monica she opened her door on Sunday afternoons to scores of European émigrés who had fled from Hitler—such as Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, and Arnold Schoenberg—along with every kind of Hollywood star, from Charlie Chaplin to Shelley Winters. In Viertel’s living room (the only one in town with comfortable armchairs, said one Hollywood insider), countless cinematic, theatrical, and musical partnerships were born.
Viertel combined a modern-before-her-time sensibility with the Old-World advantages of a classical European education and fluency in eight languages. She united great worldliness and great warmth. She was a true bohemian with a complicated erotic life, and at the same time a universal mother figure. A vital presence in the golden age of Hollywood, Salka Viertel is long overdue for her own moment in the spotlight.
Editor's Note
VIP access…
For a period of time in the 1930s and ’40s, one of Hollywood’s top screenwriters was the incredible Salka Viertel, a Jewish woman and recent immigrant. She and her director husband became well-known for their infamous Sunday parties which attracted countless other entertainment luminaries, particularly those who, like Salka, escaped Germany as Hitler rose to power. Donna Rifkind’s debut book is like an invitation to these rollicking parties and a VIP look at the tumultuous and scandalous world its guests inhabited.
Author
Donna Rifkind
Donna Rifkind’s reviews appear frequently in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times Book Review. She has also been a contributor to the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Times Literary Supplement, American Scholar, and other publications. In 2006 she was a finalist for the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing from the National Book Critics Circle.
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Reviews for The Sun and Her Stars
Rating: 4.159090909090909 out of 5 stars
4/5
44 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Very interesting book about Screenwriter Salka Vierten, so little remembered today, who supported and gave refuge in Los Angeles to so many exiles during WWII, and who brought together at her famous salons and parties, artistic and entertainment luminaries.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Interesting. I love old movies and I ended up watching a few from the book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a very well written story, and the author is obviously very talented, If you have some great stories like this one, you can publish it on Novel Star, just submit your story to hardy@novelstar.top or joye@novelstar.top
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5If I could give it a zero stars I would. If I wanted to hear all about current politics, I would rather watch the news.