Vicki Baum


Hedwig "Vicki" Baum was an Austrian writer. She is known for the novel Menschen im Hotel, one of her first international successes. It was made into a 1932 film and a 1989 Broadway musical.

Education and personal life

Baum was born in Vienna into a Jewish family. Her mother Mathilde suffered from mental illness, and died of breast cancer when Vicki was still a child. Her father, described as "a tyrannical, hypochondriac" man, was a bank clerk who was killed in 1942 in Novi Sad by soldiers of the Hungarian occupation. She began her artistic career as a musician playing the harp. She studied at the Vienna Conservatory and played in the Vienna Concert Society. She followed her conductor husband to Germany – to Hannover and Mannheim – in the years 1916–1923. She later worked as a journalist for the magazine Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, published by Ullstein-Verlag in Berlin.
Baum was married twice. Her first, short-lived marriage, in 1906, was to Max Prels, an Austrian journalist who introduced her to the Viennese cultural scene; some of her first short stories were published under his name. They divorced in 1910, and in 1916, she married Richard Lert, a conductor. They had two sons, Wolfgang and Peter.

Boxing

Baum took up boxing in the late 1920s. She trained with Turkish prizefighter Sabri Mahir at his Studio for Boxing and Physical Culture in Berlin. Although the studio was open to men and women, Baum writes in her memoir, It Was All Quite Different, that only a few women trained there: "I don't know how the feminine element sneaked into those masculine realms, but in any case, only three or four of us were tough enough to go through with it." Positioning herself as a "New Woman", she asserted her independence in the traditionally male domain of boxing and challenged old gender categories. She writes that "Sabri put one limitation on women – no sparring in the ring, no black eyes, no bloody noses. Punching the ball was okay, though, to develop a pretty mean straight left, a quick one-two; a woman never knew when she might have to defend herself, right?" While training with Mahir, Baum mastered a rope-jumping routine that was designed for German heavyweight champion Franz Diener. She later credited her strong work ethic to the skills instilled in Mahir's studio.

Writing career

Baum began writing in her teens but did not turn to writing professionally until after the birth of her first son. Her first book, Frühe Schatten: Die Geschichte einer Kindheit, 1919, was published when she was 31. Thereafter she published a new novel nearly every year, with a career total of more than 50 books, at least ten of which were adapted as motion pictures in Hollywood. Her ninth novel, Stud. chem. Helene Willfüer , was her first major commercial success, selling over 100,000 copies. Baum is considered one of the first modern bestselling authors, and her books are seen as exemplifying New Objectivity within contemporary mainstream literature. Her protagonists were often strong, independent women caught up in turbulent times.
Baum is most famous for her 1929 novel Menschen im Hotel, which introduced the genre of the 'hotel novel'. It was made into a stage play in Berlin in 1929, directed by Max Reinhardt, and an Academy Award winning film, Grand Hotel, in 1932. Baum emigrated to the United States with her family after being invited to write the screenplay for this film. She settled in the Los Angeles area and worked as a screenwriter for ten years, with moderate success. With the rise of National Socialism in Germany, her literary works were denigrated as sensationalist and amoral and banned in the Third Reich as of 1935. She became an American citizen in 1938, and her post-World War II works were written in English rather than in German.
Baum visited Mexico, China, Egypt and Bali in 1935; and became close friends with the painter Walter Spies. With historical and cultural input from Spies, she wrote Liebe und Tod auf Bali, which was published in 1937 and translated into English as 'A Tale From Bali' and then later republished under its original German title as Love and Death in Bali. The book was about a family that was caught in the massacre in Bali in 1906 at the fall of the last independent kingdom in Bali to the Dutch.

Last years

Baum's reputation went into a decline following World War II. She died of leukemia in Hollywood, California, in 1960, aged 72. Her memoir It Was All Quite Different was published posthumously in 1964.

Honors

In 1999, the corner of Wiedner Hauptstraße and Waaggasse in Vienna was named Vicki-Baum-Platz in her honor. In 2009, a street was named after her in Berlin.

Works

  • 1919: Frühe Schatten: Die Geschichte einer Kindheit
  • 1920: Der Eingang zur Bühne
  • 1921: Die Tänze der Ina Raffay, republished as Kein Platz für Tränen in 1982
  • 1922: Die anderen Tage
  • 1923: Die Welt ohne Sünde
  • 1924: Ulle der Zwerg
  • 1926: Tanzpause
  • 1927: Hell in Frauensee
  • 1927: Feme
  • 1928: Stud. chem. Helene Willfüer
  • 1929: Menschen im Hotel
  • 1930: Zwischenfall in Lohwinkel
  • 1930: Miniaturen
  • 1931: Pariser Platz 13
  • 1932: Leben ohne Geheimnis
  • 1935: Das große Einmaleins / Rendezvous in Paris
  • 1936: Die Karriere der Doris Hart
  • 1937: Liebe und Tod auf Bali
  • 1937: Hotel Shanghai
  • 1937: Der große Ausverkauf Querido, Amsterdam.
  • 1939: Die große Pause
  • 1940: The Ship and the Shore / One Tropical Night
  • 1941: The Christmas Carp
  • 1941: Marion Alive
  • 1943: The Weeping Wood
  • 1943: Hotel Berlin / Hotel Berlín 1943 / Berlin Hotel, a sequel to Menschen im Hotel
  • 1946: Mortgage on Life
  • 1947: Flight of Fate
  • 1948: Headless Angel
  • 1951: Danger from Deer
  • 1953: The Mustard Seed
  • 1956: Written on Water
  • 1957: Theme for Ballet
  • 1962: It Was All Quite Different -- memoir

Filmography

Assassination, directed by Richard Oswald The Three Women of Urban Hell, directed by Jaap Speyer Stud. chem. Helene Willfüer, directed by Fred Sauer Grand Hotel, directed by Edmund Goulding Lake of Ladies, directed by Marc Allégret Helene, directed by Jean Benoît-Lévy Return at Dawn, directed by Henri Decoin The Great Flamarion, directed by Anthony Mann Hotel Berlin, directed by Peter Godfrey Week-End at the Waldorf, directed by Robert Z. Leonard A Woman's Secret, directed by Nicholas Ray La Belle que voilà, directed by Jean-Paul Le Chanois Le Château de verre, directed by René Clément The Red Needle, directed by Emil-Edwin Reinert Dreaming Days, directed by Emil-Edwin Reinert School for Love, directed by Marc Allégret , directed by Rudolf Jugert Love, directed by Horst Hächler Menschen im Hotel, directed by Gottfried Reinhardt Haus der Schönheit, directed by Eugen York Rendezvous in Paris, directed by Die goldenen Schuhe, directed by Dietrich Haugk Hell in Frauensee, directed by Shanghai 1937, directed by Peter Patzak

Screenwriter