The Kindness of Strangers

by Salka Viertel

  Lack of sleep and the endless landing procedures blurred my first impressions of New York. I retained only the memory of smells that reminded me of the ghetto in Przemysl, and of dreary, straight streets through which we drove to the hotel, a huge redbrick building near Central Park. The publicity man informed us that a famous gangster had been shot there. While we were waiting for the elevator, we heard German spoken behind us, and there was Max Reinhardt, surrounded by his Berlin staff, also waiting to go up. He was most cordial, regretted that he was leaving the same day for Hollywood and hoped to meet us there. He and the ensemble of the Deutsches Theater had been in New York, playing Schiller’s Kabale und Liebe, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and Oedipus Rex. With Reinhardt was his impresario, Dr. Kommer, “from Gzernowitz,” as was printed on his visiting card. He warned me about Hollywood and prophesied my unavoidable collapse and return to Berlin. I had not seen Max Reinhardt since the day of my first audition. He had not changed much; only his hair was turning gray and he seemed tired. “Amerika-müde,” Berthold said.

  In our overheated suite on the thirty-second floor we found flowers and, with the compliments of Mr. Sheehan, the boss of Fox, six bottles of Scotch whisky hidden in the coat closet, which suggested the high personal esteem Mr. Sheehan had for Berthold, and the strictness of Prohibition.

  Only the next day did we discover the disturbing beauty of New York. Unlike my first impressions of Venice, where everything seemed well-known, beloved and expected, New York was alien, frightening, and extremely unreal. The afternoon sun bursting in slanting rays into the deep crevices between the skyscrapers made them look like a Feininger painting.

  We had sent Dorothy Thompson’s letter of introduction to Lee Simonson, one of the directors of the Theater Guild, and he invited us to meet Theresa Helburn and Philip Moeller. Mr. and Mrs. Langner also came to greet us. Simonson and Theresa Helburn spoke a little German and were most charming, but as far as ideas about the theater were concerned, each of us had a different religion. What they admired in the German theater was for us conventional and dreary. They had a firm but biased opinion of Max Reinhardt, whom they considered an entrepreneur. It was not surprising that they had not heard of Brecht, but they were also unaware of Sternheim, Georg Kaiser and Wedekind.

  The performances we saw were not very exciting and our English, although improving, was not sufficient to make us respond acutely to the potentialities of the American theater. Still Berthold wondered: “Why can I understand the Russian actors so much better although I don’t know a word of Russian?”

  The easiest to understand were the Negroes. We were carried away by the performance of Porgy, directed by Rouben Mamoulian. We adored Negro musicals of which we saw several, but I do not remember the titles. We could not avoid an evening at the Roxy Theater, because Murnau’s Sunrise opened there, and we were amazed by the stage show which the theaters, owned by a film company, put on before the film.

  We were told that the interest of the American audiences in silent films had declined and people lined up for long stretches in front of the Warner Brothers’ Theaters, where an announcement of the Jazz Singer blazed from the marquee. Commonplace and of a sticky sentimentality, it had a tremendous impact on the audience. Berthold wondered what influence the “Talkies” would have on his contract. For a stage director and a writer, the “Talkies” could offer greater possibilities than the silent film, although Murnau looked with horror upon them. To compare the Jazz Singer with Sunrise or with King Vidor’s The Crowd was sheer blasphemy. The Crowd was a fine motion picture about man’s frightening beehive existence in big cities. The Jazz Singer had in our eyes nothing to recommend it except Al Jolson in blackface.

  We tried to pack as many impressions of New York as possible into the few weeks we spent there, but Murnau’s impatient telephone calls forced us to leave. A wonderful, fast train took us West. Everything was fabulously exciting and we reported it to our boys, our parents and friends on train stationery with the head of an Indian Chief on it.

  We loved our Negro porter and the waiters in the dining car; we were delighted by our drawing room compartment, fascinated by the landscape. New Mexico and Arizona, with the gorgeous reds and browns and the splurge of purple and ochre in the fantastic rock formations, awed us with their beauty. The train was cutting through the desert . . . The sky was higher and the nights very clear and starry, the weird Joshua trees, the pale sagebrush. . . . All day long we stared spellbound through our window, imploring the porter to wipe it clean of dust. He did it reluctantly, contemptuously repeating, “Desert, it’s nothing but desert. . . .”

  I was learning by heart the names of the places we were passing: Peabody, Joliet, Independence, Topeka, Amarillo, Santa Fe and Emporia (which I thought must be a good city because in German empor means “upward.”)

  Then, on the fifth day, when we woke up we saw endless orange groves. The sweet smell of orange blossoms pervaded our compartment. We were in California. In Pasadena, Herman Bing, Berthold’s new secretary, and an unavoidable publicity man waited for us with a big, black, chauffeur-driven automobile.

  22

  I EXPECTED CALIFORNIA TO BE all sunshine and flowers but, just as we were robbed of the skyline view when we approached New York, so we found Los Angeles cold and overcast, with the sun, against which we had been so emphatically warned, invisible. While we were driving along Sunset Boulevard I noticed that there were no sidewalks in front of the uniform, clapboard houses and bungalows. An extraordinary fantasy was displayed in roof styling: some roofs were like mushrooms, many imitated Irish thatch and the shape of others was inspired by Hansel and Gretel’s gingerbread house. Ice cream was sold in the gaping mouth of a huge frog, or inside a rabbit; a restaurant was called “The Brown Derby” and looked like one. The buses we passed offered SERVICE WITH A SMILE, and during our whole ride Berthold was busy writing in his notebook the slogans on stores, buildings and billboards:

  “Hillside Homes of Happiness—your servants will enjoy working as you will enjoy living in an Outpost Home.”

  “Toilet seats shaped to conform to nature’s laws.”

  “How easy it is to shave when you control hydrolysis.”

  “Less hair in the comb, more hair on your head.”

  “Don’t fool yourself! Halitosis makes you unpopular.”

  “Teeth may shine like tinted pearls, still pyorrhea attacks four out of five.”

  To avoid the downtown traffic, our chauffeur did not drive through the city, which on the first fleeting glimpse was uninviting and ugly. JESUS SAVES, read a sign, towering over a large building, and Mr. Bing explained that this was Aimée Semple McPherson’s Temple. We had never heard of Aimée Semple McPherson and wanted to know who she was. Our companions perked up and eagerly told us the gossip, and much of it appeared to be true, about the lady preacher. Aimée had brought romance and glamor to religion, joy to the poor, and her Temple rivaled the Roxy in showmanship. It sounded fascinating and we were determined to attend her services as soon as possible.

  Our suite at the Roosevelt was almost identical with the one in our New York hotel, and just as overheated. There was a big bouquet of red roses for me and a case of whisky for Berthold, this time in the bathtub. The roses were from Murnau, the whisky a welcome from the studio.

  “They must think we are alcoholics,” I said to Bing.

  He sighed: “In our profession one needs a drink rather often.” I offered him one immediately.

  Quite heavy, quite tall and still quite young, probably in his thirties, the son of German-Jewish immigrants, Bing had come to Hollywood as an actor. “I was a comedian,” he said with a resigned smile. “I was not bad . . . not bad at all . . . I could be very funny.”

  After we were installed in our rooms he said good-bye, asking Berthold to call whenever he needed him and saying that he would report our arrvial to Mr. Murnau. In the car I had already noticed that when he mentioned Murnau he seemed to be terrified by his grandeur. It did not fail to i
rritate Berthold.

  The telephone rang and I answered. It was Murnau, happy that we had arrived at last. I thanked him for the roses and said that Berthold was taking a shower and would call later.

  “Just tell him I don’t need him today. I am shooting tests,” said Murnau. “Only wanted to say hello.”

  Berthold was furious when I gave him the message. Murnau’s “I don’t need him” was sheer Prussian arrogance. Although I explained that Murnau did not sound overbearing, the jarring note was a prelude to the many clashes in their odd friendship.

  The German journalist Arnold Hoellriegel, who was also staying in the Roosevelt, wanted us to have lunch with him. Coming downstairs we heard a cacophony of shrill voices as if from an enormous, excited poultry yard. The lobby was packed with women of whom the youngest could not have been less than seventy. About a hundred of them tottered around on high heels, in bright, flowered-chiffon dresses, orchid or gardenia corsages pinned to their bosoms. We wanted to know the purpose of the gathering but were told only that the ladies were Republicans. Hoellriegel’s traveling companion and photographer, Max Goldschmidt, was not permitted to take pictures. After lunch Hoellriegel suggested that we take a look at the studios, but I pleaded that we drive first to the ocean.

  The afternoon was gray and chilly, a mist hanging over Santa Monica. We drove along Pico Boulevard, a long, straight highway leading to the ocean. Again we saw shabby bungalows, occasional palm trees, gasoline stations, nurseries, markets and endless “lots for sale.” Then the highway rose to a hilltop and we could see a bright, silvery glimmer, which changed into a wide strip of an iridescent, mother-of-pearl hue. We passed a lovely cemetery shaded by trees, like those in the “old country.” It was called Woodland. Turning right we stopped in front of a rambling hotel surrounded by an old, beautiful garden with enormous gum trees, sycamores and cypresses.

  Having crossed the street and the well-kept lawn of an esplanade, shaded by eucalyptus trees and tall palms, we found ourselves on the rim of a cliff. Below was a highway, with automobiles flitting by; beach houses and clubs turned their backs to the road and the glassed-in front porches faced the ocean. To our right was the little bay of Santa Monica Canyon, surrounded by hills covered with shrubs, trees, and scattered houses. On our left was a pier, whose wooden pillars reached far out into the ocean. We drove to its entrance. A gaudy, yellow building with a tower-like superstructure harbored a merry-go-round. It had the most magnificent, fierce horses, carved in wood and painted by a real artist. They looked like the steeds on the monuments of great generals. The loud orchestrion was playing old-fashioned music. At each end of the long pier were fishmarkets, between them ice cream stalls and little shops renting fishing rods and selling bait, dusty abalone shells, starfish, coral beads and chewing gum, and a shack where a Filipino lady in a sequined costume was telling fortunes. Men and women in sunbleached jeans, and of all ages, were fishing from the pier. Boats were tied up below and one could go sailing outside the little bay. Everything was so lovely and peaceful: the people on the pier and the merry-go-round and the swaying boats. I begged Berthold to let us live in Santa Monica.

  When Berthold mentioned this in the studio, people were horrified: Santa Monica! Everybody who lived there became rheumatic, had chronic bronchitis and gout. “Then why would all the rich people have houses there?” I argued. I was told that those houses were air-conditioned and sound-proofed; their owners had the means to protect themselves from ocean air and the pounding surf. Only Herman Bing’s objection made some sense: living in Santa Monica, Berthold would have to get up half an hour earlier to be on time at the studio. My vision of the mad daily rush made me resign myself to a house in Hollywood.

  Emil and Gussy Jannings gave a party for us. Emil, a lusty character-actor, had the gross and expansive sense of humor one calls “Rabelaisian.” His wife Gussy, blond and very chic, had once been a cabaret singer, a well-known diseuse, and had become a stoical, imperturbable, though sharp-tongued consort. Invited with us were Conrad Veidt, lanky and handsome, and short cigar-smoking Ernst Lubitsch, now a celebrated film maker, but who had not changed since our Judith days. Both had uninteresting pretty wives. A successful German director, Ludwig Berger, was also there. Paramount had signed him because of his European fame, but they did not know what to do with him. Max Reinhardt appeared after dinner, with young Raimund von Hoffmansthal, son of the Austrian poet. He said that he had fallen in love with California, which Jannings, who hardly knew it, detested.

  All those who had been some time in Hollywood seemed starved for new faces and, as I soon discovered, irritated with the old.

  The Jannings lived in a grand-style Hollywood mansion, which they rented from the millionaire Josef Schenk, one of “filmdom’s pioneers.” Situated in the center of Hollywood Boulevard, it had a large garden, swimming pool, tennis court, and a huge living room with a multitude of lamps. The diversity of lamps and especially the extraordinary shapes of the lampshades, struck me as a speciality of Hollywood interiors.

  Throughout the evening the main topic of conversation was the catastrophic impact of the talking films upon the careers of foreign stars, until the exuberant entrance of the precocious “Mann children,” Erika and Klaus, brightened the atmosphere. They had just arrived in Hollywood on their journey around the world. Very young and attractive, they were refreshingly irreverent and adventurous. They brought with them the atmosphere of Berlin’s night life which electrified the party. It was very late when we left with them, discussing the evening on our way back to the hotel. Berthold was fascinated by Jannings’s impersonation of “Jannings in real life,” an amalgamation of his monstrous egotism with roles he had played: Harpagon, Henry VIII, with glimpses of the good-natured, straightforward Deutscher Michel. We agreed that it was a great performance; that Conny Veidt was most handsome and a darling; Lubitsch inscrutable but worth knowing better; and Ludwig Berger’s fate a warning to European directors.

  •

  I had rented the least expensive house I could find. It was on Fairfax Avenue, near the hills of Laurel Canyon, unpretentious but pleasant.

  As soon as we moved in I asked Bing to help me choose a car and teach me how to drive. Half an hour later we returned in a Buick. Berthold was doubtful that a good car could be bought so quickly. I sat behind the wheel, death-defying Bing next to me. Nonchalantly I released the brakes, shifted into first gear and drove around the block. At least one of our problems was solved.

  Had Berthold had any sense of direction, had he been less absent-minded and more interested in mechanical things, and had he been able to remember the difference between the brake and the accelerator, he also would have learned to drive. Under the circumstances, it was lucky that he stalled the car as soon as he touched the gearshift. After smashing a bumper and tearing off two fenders, he conceded defeat and De Witt Fuller joined our household as chauffeur. Bing could now devote himself entirely to typing, translating Berthold’s script and giving him English lessons. We also engaged Emma, a Negro housekeeper, although Jannings threatened never to have a meal in our house. Now we were set, and certain that we would stay for a while in America.

  At the end of May, in suffocating heat, I traveled across the continent again, to meet the Albert Ballin, which was bringing my sons to New York. Although they found the four days in the train most interesting, the children were glad when the trip came to an end. They admired the house and the garden, and adored Emma and De Witt, who reciprocated with great warmth. Nena was less pleased with “die Schwarzen,” but after my strict and firm appeal to her common sense (often so exasperating!) and her Christian principles, she became friendly and polite.

  We were settling down. A German-American teacher prepared Hans and Peter for school. I went shopping, had my English lesson and wrote endless letters. On weekends I drove the children to the beach or to the Santa Monica Pier and my beloved merry-go-round.

  The Fox executives began to invite us to parties at which the ritual separ
ation of the sexes brought me in closer contact with their ladies. To do them justice, they were often much nicer than their husbands, and more intelligent. I liked the warm-hearted Marion Wurtzel, wife of Berthold’s producer, the incredibly boorish Sol Wurtzel. She was born in Poland in a small Jewish community and used to invite me with other studio wives for lunch, always suggesting that we go shopping afterward. In no time she would spend three or four hundred dollars with the disarming explanation: “When I was a little girl I had to share one pair of shoes with my sister. Now I can afford things I don’t need.”

  The Feyders arrived and were going through the stage when everything seemed “très amusant” and “tordant.” But slowly the lunches and parties were getting me down. Françoise suggested that we play golf, but soon she also became convinced that golf did not answer all our needs. We were professional women and to survive in Hollywood we had to work.

  Wonderingly I mused about Berthold’s “pilgrim’s progress.” Although regarded as an eccentric, he was liked and respected. The executives asked his opinion on stories and scenarios, and took his advice on films which needed “doctoring.” With his extraordinary inventiveness he averted many calamities. For someone to whom the tough, illiterate mentality of his “superiors” was so utterly alien, this was quite a feat, but from the very beginning the originality of his mind and his talent were wasted on Sol Wurtzel. Murnau also was under great strain and had many difficulties. Indecisions in casting, and disagreement about the story The Daily Bread, a silent film, had created a delay in shooting an essential part, the wheat harvest, and only in the last days of August were the crew and the cast finally ready to leave for Pendleton, Oregon, where the wheat was still uncut.

  Berthold wrote:

  Imagine a Sambor without Jews. There is only one Jewish shopkeeper here, born in Austria, who came to Pendleton in 1878. You cannot believe how idiotic that man has become, but he is happy. An old, grey, smiling “easy-taker.” The other inhabitants drive back and forth on the main street, uninterruptedly and relentlessly honking the horns and letting the engines roar and howl to split your ears.