The Kindness of Strangers

by Salka Viertel

  •

  I had to spend long hours in the studio, then many evenings with the indefatigable and painstaking Mamoulian who, after a hard day’s work on the set and in the projection room, rushed through dinner to come to my house and go over new problems, prodding, correcting again and again, saying No to every suggestion, sure that only he himself could find the solution. Around midnight Berthold would emerge from his room, where he had been working or talking with his new secretary, a pale, blond young man, one of the first refugees to reach Hollywood. Gottfried, whom Berthold liked very much, came often, to bemoan the hideous events in Germany. Then, exhausted, we all had a night-cap together.

  Ironically, just after they had built a large house with a tennis court in Pacific Palisades, Oliver and Louise were drawing apart. Louise went to Hawaii, when she returned she asked for a divorce.

  •

  It is the melancholy privilege of age to smile wonderingly upon the “cold embers of former passions.” However, for me time could not extinguish their warm glow. The differences which existed between me and Oliver may have been one of the reasons for our mutual attraction. I had been in love with his manliness and his zest for life, his protest against the hero worship of our time, his firm belief in democracy, but I was often carried away with enthusiasms which I later reconsidered. Oliver’s sober criticism of my passionate beliefs made me angry. From the beginning his feelings were stronger than mine, because for me my life with Berthold was always predominant. As long as his own marriage appeared secure Oliver accepted this, at least theoretically, but once Louise asked for a divorce he wanted me to marry him. This I could never do.

  The days of Berthold’s stay in Santa Monica were numbered. Again I packed his suitcases, wrote out his diet, although I knew he would often ignore it. I was glad that in spite of all the inner turmoil, his “home leave” had been beneficial to his health—he looked refreshed and well. Now the wanderer was off again. With a heavy heart and the knowledge that it was a mistake, I had to let him go. And so one evening Hans, Peter, Gottfried and I stood again in front of a Pullman car; all except Tommy, who could not bear to see his father leave. The two big boys envied Berthold. Gottfried tried to be cheerful, and I was in tears.

  Leaning out of the window Berthold reached for my hand and held it until the train began to move. I ran beside it as long as I could, then Gottfried caught up with me and led me back. We got into the car, all of us aware of a sudden great emptiness.

  From The Chief—eastbound:

  Salka, you will never regret that you have confided in me so completely. Nothing better and more beautiful could have happened between us. I am proud that I have been of some help to you; even if I often appear to be a swaying reed, my roots are strong and firm. And remember, never do anything out of your mad generosity. Don’t jump head-on into decisions you might later regret. Cable me, phone me, and never give up loving me. Do you hear, never! As for me, only death can cure my addiction to you.

  29

  I BEGGED MY MOTHER to come to America and to live with me. After I had become an American citizen I would bring Dusko and Viktoria over. But she refused: “It is difficult at my age to get used to completely new surroundings. I would adore to come for a visit, but to leave Europe forever and renounce seeing my other three children, abandon everything, even the burial place next to Papa’s which the city has given me—no, I cannot accept this thought.”

  In spite of the growing anti-semitism under Pilsudski, the Jews were participating in Poland’s cultural life; Edward had his master class in Lwow and gave concerts in Krakow and Warsaw. This was important at a time when many of his Viennese pupils were leaving Austria. “Milimetternich,” as they called the little Chancellor Dollfuss, had brutally suppressed the socialist opposition with artillery fire and was holding onto power with the help of Mussolini. Italian troops at the border prevented or rather postponed Hitler’s annexation of Austria. “The Last Days of Mankind” were still not its last; they were merely a curtain raiser to a tragedy which soon transcended Karl Kraus’s apocalyptic visions.

  While it was possible for Jews and opponents of the regime to flee to Prague, Paris, England, Moscow or, like Bertolt Brecht, to the Scandinavian countries, the Gielens were tied to Dresden by Josef’s contract and their financial situation. The Dresden State Theater was completely nazified but Josef was an “Aryan,” and so successful that the Ministry of Culture did not dare to dismiss him despite his Jewish wife.

  Rose withdrew from all social life, and not to hear the “Heil Hitler,” she ceased even to go to the theater. We could not correspond directly any longer because the Gestapo searched their apartment from time to time and it was dangerous to receive letters from me.

  “Dearest Salomé,” wrote Edward, who always addressed me as in the days of our French governesses, “isn’t it possible for you to come to Europe before it completely becomes a Fascist wilderness?” From year to year, from month to month, I had been promising to visit them, but the uncertainty of Berthold’s future, and concern for the children, did not permit me to ask for a leave of absence. That weekly check—I was now getting five hundred and fifty dollars—had become of utmost importance, as more and more people depended on it. The exodus from Germany had begun; there was not a day that I did not get letters asking for help, and I besieged my American friends for affidavits. Not only individuals, but also causes needed financial support, and Hollywood was leading in generosity and helpfulness.

  It is terrifying how suddenly fate becomes invincible and how unsuspectingly we accept it. “When our marriage breaks up, I shall cease to exist,” Berthold once said. But in spite of all the things binding us, all the tenderness and love we had for each other, our marriage was not a marriage anymore. Torn and inconsistent, Odysseus resented bitterly that Penelope had not waited patiently for his return, though he himself had not renounced the Nausicaa’s.

  “Don’t jump head-on into anything you may later regret,” he warned me before he left. Much against my wish and my will I did not jump, but slid into a love affair, which to many people appeared quite insane. However, this “insanity” gave me ten years of happiness and became a very serious commitment.

  He was unusually mature, which made me rely, perhaps too much, on his advice and judgment, and also on his great kindness and protectiveness and on his patience.

  “But what did your sons say?” I was asked by a woman, who had herself sacrificed her love, with the result that her children thought her a frustrated and embittered bore. I answered that my two older sons were now adolescents; they understood that I had the right to some happiness. The youngest simply returned Berthold’s and my love. I was closer to them than their father, who was so often away, but his visits were always a joyful and happy event. Psychoanalysts are convinced that children want good, simple, conventional moms and dads, preferably sexless; however, I am sure that my sons were not unduly disturbed by the fact that their parents had a complicated relationship.

  Hans and Peter were fifteen and fourteen, ages when boys are supposed to be especially obnoxious and rebellious. I would not say that my first-born was a good student. Considering his extraordinary intelligence and the opportunities he had, he could have done much better in school. Peter got his A and B grades without any visible effort. At home they were considerate, amiable and stimulating company. From time to time I would get angry with one or the other but never for serious reasons.

  All three had very different personalities. The eldest, thin and tall, was an avid reader, but undisciplined and moody. Peter, a mixture of precociousness and boyish charm, appeared more interested in sports than in literature. His good grades always amazed me, as I had the impression that he spent most of his time on the tennis courts and in stables. Thomas, awed by his brothers, clung to the dream world of childhood, expressing it in sweet poems, and trying bravely to grasp the reality of school.

  Queen Christina was finished and previewed with great success. Now, thirty years lat
er, it is still acclaimed by audiences, and strangers write me bemoaning the fact that such films are not made anymore. The success was mainly due to Garbo and her unique personality, talent and beauty, but the film survives also on its own merits.

  Meanwhile Berthold’s assimilation into the British film world was making slow progress. The Viennese novel, about a little girl whose parents were getting a divorce, created different problems in England than it would have in America. Also the phlegmatic tempo of the studio, with the long decision-delaying weekends and tea breaks, got on his nerves. But he was very fond of his co-workers, especially the young writer Christopher Isherwood.

  Many refugees began to settle in Los Angeles. Arnold Schoenberg, who had returned to Judaism because of Hitler, arrived with his wife Gertrud and their adorable four-year-old daughter Nuria, to try to build a new existence. University professors and doctors were doing odd jobs while studying English, to pass the required examinations. One of Vienna’s great orthopedic surgeons established himself as a masseur.

  The French playwright Marcel Achard arrived to work on Maurice Chevalier films. Francesco and Eleonora Mendelssohn had told him to look me up. Dark, short, the near-sighted eyes hidden by enormous black-rimmed glasses—the biggest I have ever seen—Marcel conquered us all in the first second. My sons, Gottfried, my friends, the whole household surrendered to his warmth, his inexhaustible vitality and gaiety. Our affection included his wife Juliette. The Sundays in Mabery Road became a sacred rite for Marcel and no invitation from glamorous stars would tempt him away from the Ping-Pong matches and our various friends. They ranged from Johnny Weissmuller, then at the peak of his Tarzan fame—always involved in long conversations with the entranced Tommy—the “enfant terrible,” Oscar Levant, Clemence Dane, Miriam Hopkins the actress, the MGM musicians Dimitri Tiomkin and Bronislaw Kaper from Warsaw and Lola his wife, both very Polish and nostalgic. Schoenberg and his wife would come, and Otto Klemperer, the conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and Oliver would bring his new Hungarian wife, Ilonka. Gallantly forgiving my desertion, he had traveled in Europe for several months, met Ilonka in Budapest and married her. Though she was hard to beat in a Ping-Pong match, the marriage was a mistake and did not last.

  Political discussions, verging on personal bitterness, were unavoidable among the Europeans and amazed the Americans. Gottfried participated in them as passionately and prominently as in Ping-Pong. Then, silver-haired and charming, Max Reinhardt arrived to stage A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Hollywood Bowl, and as a film for Warner Brothers. First, however, he went to Reno to get a divorce from Else Heims, the mother of his two sons, Gottfried and Wolfgang. Unfortunately the newspaper announced that he was establishing residence in Nevada, and this brought, with amazing speed, his wife Else to Los Angeles. Her unparalleled energy had succeeded for eighteen years in thwarting Reinhardt’s attempts to divorce her and to marry Helene Thimig. Again Else was determined to win her fight. She was a strong and handsome woman, although the years of impassioned lawsuits had marred her beauty and embittered her life, while Reinhardt’s success and world fame were hardly touched by them. The sons were devoted to both parents and wished their mother would face the inevitable. Gottfried implored her to agree to the divorce. Finally Else gave in, but he had to spend weeks haggling with lawyers and pleading with both sides.

  •

  Queen Christina was one of the last American films shown in the Third Reich. Friends and strangers wrote to me praising it for its pacifist tendency and “abdication of power.”

  I have repressed the memories of The Painted Veil; I only recall that the producer, wanting to stress the Chinese background, insisted on scenes with a statue of Confucius under a tree. For some strange reason he always called him “Vesuvius.”

  After The Painted Veil I had the good luck to be assigned to David Selznick, who was now at Metro and was to produce the next Garbo film. It did not take us long to hit upon the obvious: Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. David wanted me to collaborate with the English authoress Clemence Dane, a tall, heavy woman with classic features and dark hair tied in a Grecian knot. Her real name was Winifred Ashton. She wore long, trailing, chiffon dresses, had never been married and told me that she had never had a love affair. “So we shall rely on your experience, my dear Salka,” she announced when we began to work on the script. “I have very little understanding for Anna Karenina. What does she want? Her husband is a perfect gentleman; she has a social position, an adorable child—but, of course, the poor thing is Russian!”

  Dear Winifred, how “Russian” must I have seemed to her. But she was fond of me. I made her laugh and she listened to me, though she had the exasperating habit of stopping me in my tracks by correcting my syntax or insisting that I say “I shall” when I was convinced it should be “I will.”

  Hans and Peter thought that Winifred was “great” and Tommy adored her. They had long conversations because “he had the soul of a poet,” and she gave him a marionette theater as a Christmas present. He immediately informed his father that he was writing a play about Adam and Eve and that the costumes would come from our fig tree.

  Selznick found the screenplay we delivered much too long, the scenes Victorian, the dialogue too stilted, and he wanted changes. But Winifred in her impatience to leave thought it was perfect. She had a play in rehearsal in London and as Sam Behrman was between plays, David asked him to write the final script. It was wonderful to have Sam back, intense, moody and chain-smoking.

  The filming started while we were still rewriting, but as we were always a few days ahead of the production everything moved smoothly. The director, Clarence Brown, was pleased, Garbo gave a wonderful performance, the atmosphere in the Selznick unit was harmonious and the rushes excellent.

  When Sam asked me to dictate to the secretary the shots of Anna’s suicide, I truly regretted that this was the last scene of the film. Walking up and down I described the night train approaching relentlessly—the lights from the carriage windows on Anna’s face—her running down the embankment and throwing herself between the cars, then—a prostrated figure on the rails—the train disappearing in darkness—and last, a woman’s handbag on the embankment.

  “And that’s what’s left of a human being,” I concluded, almost in tears, and turned to Sam who burst into roars of laughter. For years these words remained our special code. We signed telegrams and letters with: “What’s left of a human being. . . .” They were our ultimate in Galgenhumor.

  During all the editing of the film I stayed with Selznick. After Anna Karenina he left Metro, and formed his own company. Thalberg had returned, not as head of the studio but with his own unit, and future Garbo films were on his program. As I was considered a Garbo specialist I moved to the newly built Thalberg bungalow.

  Meanwhile more and more Europeans were drawn to California. One afternoon Gottfried brought for tea Friedrich Ledebur and Iris Tree, daughter of Herbert Beerbohm-Tree, a colorfully attired couple. Friedrich wore blue jeans, boots, red shirt, silver buttons on his Loden jacket: a happy mixture of a cowboy and an Austrian count. Iris was in a short red skirt and blouse, Indian beads around her neck and bracelets on her wrists, and a huge cowboy hat on the back of her head. Her very blonde hair was cut in a fringe over the eyebrows; with her blue eyes she was very lovely. Friedrich was the tallest man I have ever seen and the most handsome. Their six-year-old son Christian was in England in the care of his grandmother, Lady Beerbohm-Tree.

  I immediately succumbed to Friedrich’s unaffected old-world gallantry, his knight-errant charm, and Iris’s impish sense of humor, her very special kind of poetic whimsy. The boys were enormously impressed that the Ledeburs traveled in a trailer, which looked like an Indian tent with rugs and skins and saddles and boots and God knows what. It was parked opposite the house and our new friends stayed with us two months and returned frequently ever after.

  •

  The atmosphere in the Thalberg bungalow was different from that in t
he rest of the MGM lot. Downstairs was his office and a reception hall, where the secretaries ruled. Upstairs were offices for the writers. On the third floor was a kitchen, a pantry and Thalberg’s dining room. In the afternoon a Negro butler would knock at the doors to inquire who wanted tea or a highball. Thalberg’s office was a long, wood-paneled room with a huge desk near the windows. Along the walls stood comfortable chairs and couches. One had to cross the full length of the room to reach the frail, small figure behind the desk, usually holding the telephone receiver in one hand while the other was jingling coins in his trouser pocket. After his long vacation and the trip to Europe, Thalberg had gained weight, looked healthier and was in a much better mood than I had ever seen him.

  I had told him of an idea which I had for Garbo: Marie Walewska’s love for Napoleon. He thought the political background too complicated for American audiences, but became interested after I had suggested Charles Boyer to play Napoleon. Still, Marie Walewska had an illegitimate child by Napoleon, and before he decided to go on with the project, Thalberg wanted me to tell the story to the censors of the Breen Office. We met in the Thalberg bungalow, and when I was halfway through, the two gentlemen began shaking their heads. There was not only an illegitimate child but also double adultery.

  Adultery was nothing new to the Breen Office. They had condoned it in other films. They also agreed that Thalberg had never offended “good taste”; however, this time they would not okay the story. “Then I’ll go ahead without your okay,” Thalberg said coldly. “This is a great love story and I am determined to produce it.” It amused me to observe how the strong objections voiced by the censors had dispelled his doubts. The Breen Office retreated: “Only because it is you, Irving, we say go ahead with the script, but that does not mean that we will say ‘yes’ to the picture.”