A less than glamorous job, most successful screenwriters are solitary individuals who work quietly and diligently at their craft.
But screenwriter Peter Viertel (1920 – 2007) lived the jet-set life that is the glittering exception. Born in Dresden to an artistic and assimilated Jewish family, mother Salka was a screenwriter who was Greta Garbo’s best friend. His father, Berthold Viertel, was also a prominent writer and intellectual. The family moved to Hollywood in 1928. Peter’s childhood was the stuff of dreams: weekends were spent in the company of Garbo, Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford.
Young Peter was Hollywood royalty.
A WW II veteran, Viertel went on to become a prominent screenwriter. However, like so many intellectuals of the time, he saw himself primarily as a novelist who supported himself by taking Hollywood’s money.
His excellent memoir Dangerous Friends, chronicles Viertel’s friendships with Ernest Hemingway and director John Huston, each in their own way, dangerous men who drank too much, married too often, slept with too many women, were indifferent parents, often callous in their friendships, and ultimately lived self-destructive lives.
Viertel is pitiless in his portrayal of his two dangerous friends. Hemingway comes across as a nasty, macho bully tainted with the standard WASP anti-Semitism of his time. And Huston’s legendary cruelty is everywhere evident, especially in his treatment of the great author Ray Bradbury who adapted “Moby Dick” for Huston. Bradbury was a sober, serious man who just wanted to write whereas the careless Huston expected his collaborators to drink all night and then go riding in the morning. Huston and Bradbury hated each other after just a few days.
Both Hemingway and Huston, Viertel makes clear, were, in spite of their numerous flaws, capable of great loyalty and generosity.
Bouncing from Hollywood to Switzerland to Paris, Viertel marries author and screenwriter Budd Schulberg’s ex-wife Virginia Ray “Jigge.” He gets her pregnant, then has an affair with the stunning French super model of the 50’s, Bettina Graziani. Peter divorces Jigee only to get dumped by Bettina. Viertel has numerous affairs and then a one-night stand with Nancy “Slim” Keith, Howard Hawks’ former wife who cooly refers to the famous director as, “A pillar of nothingness.”
Finally, Viertel marries and settles down in Switzerland—yes, folks, taxes affect behavior—with actress Deborah Kerr.
All this and Viertel still manages to write several fine novels and work on numerous films. Honestly, I got exhausted just reading about his hectic schedule. I have no idea how he manged to fit in so much work between all jet lag, booze and babes.
“Dangerous Friends” is filled with razor-sharp anecdotes. Here, at random, are just three side-splitters:
On location to shoot “The African Queen.”
Did Huston anticipate trouble with the strong-minded Miss Hepburn? the reporter asked. John [Huston] frowned. “Not really,” he replied. “As long as I don’t get the clap from one of my leading ladies I’m satisfied.”
Viertel proposes adapting Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” to mogul Darryl F. Zanuck.
Darryl shook his head. “How the hell can you make a story about a guy who can’t get it up?”
Zanuck was right. The film was an artistic and commercial disaster.
Billy Wilder and Charles Lederer were supposed to write a film about Charles Lindbergh.
When asked by friends why he and Billy, both Jewish, had agreed to make a movie about a man who was known to be an anti-Semite, Charlie had replied: “Oh, but you don’t know… in our version he crashes.”
The film that was produced, “The Spirit of St. Louis” (1957) starring Jimmy Stewart is one of Wilder’s lesser films.
Thanks for the tip, Robert, ‘Dangerous Friends’ is on my Amazon shopping list, for when the stack of unread books on the coffee table drops below ten.
I’m fascinated by these guys who lived hard, partied hard, worked hard and, as you say, somehow found the time to produce great work while living large. A lot of them were true beasts but it often seems to be the case. Maybe Karen could write a guest column about ‘The Artist And The Ego’?
Given the Virginia Ray connection, it seems more than coincidental that I found Budd Schulberg’s ‘Moving Pictures’ for $7 in a second-hand bookshop yesterday. Great read!
Earl:
Budd Schulberg was another Hollywood prince, a fine writer who hated Hollywood.
I have always thought The Sun Also Rises would be a better book if Hemingway had made it a raunchy, x-rated version of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, with “Jake Barnes CAN get it up” taking the place of “Colin CAN walk” and Lady Brett a grown-up, been around Mary Lennox, that “odd, determined little person.” I’ll be banned from this site if I tell you how I wish Hemingway had ended it.
..and it seems I have to slow down my typing (see below)
I rememebr an interview with Stgeven Bogart in the Icons radipo Hour wher he says that his father was one of the few on the set in the jungle who didn’t get dysentary because he drank Scotch – not the local water. The making of The African Queen in itself would probably make a good movie.
On Huston and Hemingway – do you think they were bipolar? It seems to be common among the artistic type. One wonders – with all that Sturm und Drang in their lives – Peter’s too – how they could still produce memorable stuff.
But as a leading lady and expected to sleep with Huston on set? Sounds like you sell your soul to the Devil to make it in Hollywood.
Wonder what Hepburn did.
Or sad.
The making of The African Queen in itself would probably make a good movie.
It’s been made already. It’s called WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART.
Miranda – Steven Bogart wrote a decent biography of his father –
http://www.amazon.com/Bogart-In-Search-My-Father/dp/0452277043/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339782373&sr=1-6&keywords=bogart
(I Have to learn how Robert compacts that long url into a net link) – but anyway as to the making of the movie Steven mentioned that as his mother was leaving in the plane at the airport his nanny – holding him as a baby – dies – and Lauren still left. (part of the book is a “woe is me for being a child of celebrities) but as to the actual making of it they are stuck in the jungle – dysentery, malaria and still get gets done.
Either because of Huston or in spite of him.
When you find out about the URL Bill, can you let me know?
You can to it with HTML. Here’s a tutorial:
http://www.simplehtmlguide.com/archive/0.1/
Or you can use TinyURL:
http://tinyurl.com/
Bill:
I don’t do anything to compact the URL. The Word Press template I use to write this blog does it for me automatically.
Robert:
Spoiled brats and lunatics seem to do the job. I will revisit White Hunter, the book, not the film.
Barry:
Viertel was a very good writer. I highly recommend “Dangerous Friends.”
Growing up in St. Louis, I expected Lindbergh to be on Mt. Rushmore. Avenues, a school district and other things are named for the man.
I know no one is perfect (except for the joke about Jesus saying let he who is without sin cast the first stone, and then when a rock comes zinging out of the crowd hitting the woman, Jesus says “Oh, mom) and crossing the Atlantic was a tremendous achievement. But should a nazi sympathizing bigamist ever be revered the way Lindbergh is?
Johnny:
LOL to your joke.
Steven Spielberg was also going to make a film about Lindy but pulled out once he realized what an unrepentant Jew-hater was the famous aviator.
Just for the record, just to give the devil his due: Lindbergh was knocked gaga by Hitler, may his name be erased, and the job Hitler did in putting Germany back on its feet. So, in the 1930s, were a lot of people. Lindbergh had his doubts about Hitler, see The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh. Lindbergh wanted America to stay out of the war. He was cosy as kittens with Norman Thomas, who my father, of blessed memory, VOTED FOR. Once Pearl Harbor was attacked and America was in the war willy-nilly, Lindbergh placed himself and his knowledge of aerodynamics at the disposal of the U.S. airforce.
Great points Miranda.
I have read White Hunter Black Heart and, of course, have seen the film. Liked neither. In fact these people, and their attitudes, disgusted me. For this, I blame the point of view. Too bad, could have been compelling stuff. I mean by that, they could have had audience approval.
Barry:
I like the book and the movie. Maybe because I have spent plenty of time here in Hollywood with such lunatics.
Fascinating story.
But what on earth are those arachnid-leg thingies that are crawling out of that woman’s hat?
Franny:
Never even noticed. Bettina’s come-hither-look always held my attention.
Twigs? Feathers? Cooties?
I am clueless.
A pair of self-serving left wingers. Huston made a few fine films despite conducting himself in an appaling manner to all, indluding Bogart. Hemingway depicted with clarity in Clancy Carlile’s brilliant book, The Paris Pilgrims. And you can add Norman Mailer and James Jones to this list of misfits.
Barry:
Hollywood lefties have always been ignorant and naive, a bunch of spoiled brats.