The Kindness of Strangers

(price-clipped) [nice tight sound copy, light dust-soiling to top of text block, slight discoloration to half-title page; jacket in very nice condition, faint wear to extremities, would rate Near Fine but for the price-clipping]. (B&W photo frontispiece) Fascinating memoir by the screenwriter whose Santa Monica Canyon home served as a gathering spot for the cultural and intellectual crme de la crme of European migrs in Southern California during the 1930s and 1940s -- fascinating not least because of our knowledge (from other sources) that some of the most interesting parts of the author's life, e.g. her intimate friendships with Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo (especially her role as confidante/advisor to the latter), couldn't actually be told, since both ladies were still living at the time of its publication. (Author Diana McLellan characterized this book as "like Salka, charming, articulate, and untruthful.") Nevertheless, it's an absorbing first-hand account of an era in which such legendary figures as Garbo, Sergei Eisenstein, Thomas Mann, Franz Werfel, Berthold Brecht, Arnold Schoenberg, Ernst Lubitsch, Irving Thalberg, S.N. Behrman, Christopher Isherwood, and Fred Zinnemann -- all of whom make significant appearances in these pages -- were at the forefront of artistic, literary and cinematic creativity. "Many came [from Europe] to the United States, and it was from these giants that the American film industry and the golden age of Hollywood were born. Salka Viertel, actress and writer, was one of the rare talents at the center of this creative storm, and its migration."

Product Info

ISBN: 003076470X

ISBN-13: 9780030764707

Publisher: Holt, Rinehart and Winston

Year: (c.1969)

Type: Used

Binding: Hardcover

First Edition

Seller Info

ReadInk

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Country: United States