The Sun and Her Stars: Salka Viertel and Hitler's Exiles in the Golden Age of Hollywood

 

The Sun and Her Stars: Salka Viertel and Hitler's Exiles in the Golden Age of Hollywood  by Donna Rifkind   560 pages

 

I don’t often read biographies, unless they are exceptionally well-written and often in the genre of narrative nonfiction.  However, I am always eager to hear the tales of Old Hollywood, that time from the 1930s and ‘40s. I don’t recall ever hearing of Salka Viertel. She wrote five of Greta Garbo’s movies (including “Anna Karenina” and “Queen Christina”) and was her BFF.  Fascinating woman. This is a well-researched story of one of the forgotten people who worked hard, made movie magic, yet never received an Oscar.

 

I loved reading about the salons that she would host in her Santa Monica on Sunday afternoons, the variety of people who would show up and the conversations about everything under the sun.

 

The first two lines in the introduction hooked me: “The look, the sound, and the speech of Hollywood’s Golden Age did not originate in Hollywood. Much of it came from Europe, through the workd of successive waves of immigrants during the first half of the twentieth century.”  Viertel was under contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1933 to 1937.

 

An immigrant from in what today is in western Ukraine, Viertel came with her parents to America in 1928. The plan was to stay for four years, but Hitler’s rise caused them to stay. Viertel was under contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1933 to 1937.

 

In some places the story was dry and hard to follow because of all the names I did not know.  But when I did recognize such names as Charlie Cahplin and Garbo, my interest was piqued.  

 

It’s been a couple of weeks since I finished this book, and honestly I can’t recall a single antedote or passage, but I enjoyed learning about this woman. “The Sun and Her Stars: Salka Viertel and Hitler's Exiles in the Golden Age of Hollywood” receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.