Peter Viertel Novelist and screenwriter Date of Birth: 16.11.1920 Country: Spain

1. Early Life and Education
2. Youth in Santa Monica
3. Military Service and OSS
4. Writing and Collaboration
5. Hollywood Career
6. Personal Life

Early Life and Education

Peter Viertel was born in Dresden, Germany, on November 16, 1920, to a Jewish family. His parents were Salka Viertel, an actress, and Berthold Viertel, a writer. In 1928, Viertel moved with his family to Santa Monica, California, where he grew up alongside his brothers, Hans and Thomas.

Youth in Santa Monica

Viertel's home in Santa Monica Canyon became a hub for Hollywood intellectuals and a community of exiled European intellectuals, particularly during his mother's Sunday night tea parties. However, Viertel gravitated towards the youth culture of Southern California. "The physical aspect of the European intellectuals was so different from what an American kid wanted to be," Viertel later reflected to the International Herald Tribune in 1992. "I knew Bert Brecht [the German playwright] was practically a genius, but he was just a joke to me."

Military Service and OSS

Viertel graduated from Dartmouth College in 1941. During World War II, he served in the United States Marine Corps in the South Pacific. After landing a desk job in California, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).

Writing and Collaboration

Viertel co-authored the play "The Survivors" with writer Irwin Shaw, based on their experiences during the war. As a novelist, he is best known for "White Hunter, Black Heart," which was adapted into a film by Clint Eastwood in 1990. Viertel acknowledged that the novel was an account of his time working on the screenplay for the Oscar-winning war drama "The African Queen," featuring a thinly veiled character named Peter Verrill (a pseudonym for Viertel).

Hollywood Career

Viertel worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood, seeing it primarily as a source of income to support his novel writing. Although he collaborated with esteemed filmmakers like Billy Wilder and John Huston, he felt that it often stifled his true creativity.

Personal Life

Viertel married Virginia Ray Schulberg, the former wife of novelist and screenwriter Budd Schulberg. Viertel left Ray while she was pregnant with their daughter, Christina, and lived with a fashion model. He later married actress Deborah Kerr in July 1969. Kerr died from Parkinson's disease on October 16, 2007. Nineteen days later, Viertel passed away from lymphoma in Marbella, Spain.