Peter Viertel (16 November 1920 – 4 November 2007) was an author and screenwriter.

Biography

Viertel was born to Jewish parents in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

, Germany, the writer and actress

Salka Viertel Salka Viertel (15 June 1889 – 20 October 1978) was an Austrian Jewish actress and Hollywood screenwriter. While under contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1933 to 1937, Viertel co-wrote the scripts for many movies, particularly those starr ...

and the writer

Berthold Viertel Berthold Viertel (28 June 1885 – 24 September 1953) was an Austrian screenwriter and film director, known for his work in Germany, the UK and the US. Early career Viertel was born in Vienna, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but later ...

. In 1928, his parents moved to

Santa Monica Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, where Viertel grew up with his brothers, Hans and Thomas. The home in

Santa Monica Canyon The western border of Santa Monica, California, is the 3-mile (4.8 km) stretch of Santa Monica Bay. On its other sides, the city is bordered by various districts of Los Angeles: the northwestern border is Pacific Palisades, the eastern border ...

was the site of salons and meetings of the Hollywood

intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the in ...

and the

émigré An ''émigré'' () is a person who has emigrated, often with a connotation of political or social self-exile. The word is the past participle of the French ''émigrer'', "to emigrate". French Huguenots Many French Huguenots fled France followi ...

community of European intellectuals, particularly at the Sunday night tea parties given by Viertel's mother. However, Viertel identified more with Southern California youth culture than with the European milieu he was exposed to by his family. "The physical aspect of European intellectuals was so totally different from what an American kid wants to be," he told the ''International Herald Tribune'' in 1992. "I knew

Bert Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

was close to being a genius, but he was a funny-looking man to me." Viertel graduated from

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

in 1941. He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps as a private, but after being assigned office work in California (in his memoirs he joked he was a "Remington Raider" in reference to the typewriters they used), he applied for officer training and eventually was accepted by the OSS, the predecessor of the CIA, where his recruiters were impressed that he had already published at 19 the highly acclaimed novel ''The Canyon'' (1940), and had written a screenplay for

Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featur ...

, ''

Saboteur Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening a polity, effort, or organization through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. One who engages in sabotage is a ''saboteur''. Saboteurs typically try to conceal their identitie ...

'' (1942), as well as the script for '' The Hard Way'' (1943). His obvious high intelligence, native German language skills, good looks and athleticism were useful in Nazi-controlled Europe. He finished the war as a second lieutenant where he served with the

Seventh United States Army The Seventh Army was a United States army created during World War II that evolved into the United States Army Europe (USAREUR) during the 1950s and 1960s. It served in North Africa and Italy in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations and Fran ...

in Southern France where he recruited several female agents. Based on his experiences, Viertel wrote the play ''The Survivors'' with his friend

Irwin Shaw Irwin Shaw (February 27, 1913 – May 16, 1984) was an American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best known for two of his novels: ''The Young Lions'' ( ...

. It premiered in New York City in 1948, and was turned into an episode for the US Studio One TV series in 1950, and a

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

Biography

Films

Books

Play

Footnotes

References

External links