Hedwig "Vicki" Baum (/baʊm/;[1] January 24, 1888 – August 29, 1960) was an Austrian writer. She is known for the novelMenschen im Hotel ('People at a Hotel', 1929 — published in English asGrand Hotel), one of her first international successes. It was made into a1932 film and a1989 Broadway musical.
Baum was born inVienna into aJewish family. Her mother Mathilde (née Donath) suffered from mental illness, and died of breast cancer when Vicki was still a child.[2][3] Her father, described as "a tyrannical, hypochondriac" man, was a bank clerk who was killed in 1942 inNovi Sad (present-daySerbia) by soldiers of the Hungarian occupation.[3] She began her artistic career as a musician playing theharp. She studied at theVienna Conservatory[3] and played in the Vienna Concert Society. She went on to perform in Germany – in Kiel, Hannover, and Mannheim – in the years 1916–1923.[citation needed] She later worked as ajournalist for themagazineBerliner Illustrirte Zeitung, published byUllstein-Verlag inBerlin.[4]
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;[5] some of her first short stories were published under his name.[3] They divorced in 1910, and in 1916, she marriedRichard Lert, aconductor.[5] They had two sons, Wolfgang (b. 1917) and Peter (b. 1921).[3]
Baum took upboxing in the late 1920s. She trained with Turkish prizefighter Sabri Mahir[6] 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 (1964), that only a few women (includingMarlene Dietrich andCarola Neher) 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.”[7]: 3 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?”[7]: 5 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.[7]: 4
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 ('Early Shadows: The Story of a Childhood'), 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 inHollywood. Her ninth novel,Stud. chem. Helene Willfüer('Helene Willfüer, Student of Chemistry'), was her first major commercial success, selling over 100,000 copies.[3] Baum is considered one of the first modernbestselling authors, and her books are seen as exemplifyingNew Objectivity within contemporary mainstreamliterature.[8] Her protagonists were often strong, independent women caught up in turbulent times.[3]
Baum is most famous for her1929 novelMenschen im Hotel ('People at a Hotel'), which introduced the genre of the 'hotel novel'.[3] It was made into a stage play in Berlin in 1929, directed byMax Reinhardt,[3] and anAcademy 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.[3] With the rise ofNational Socialism in Germany, her literary works were denigrated as sensationalist and amoral and banned in theThird Reich as of 1935.[3] She became an American citizen in 1938,[5] and her post-World War II works were written in English rather than in German.
Baum visitedMexico,China,Egypt andBali in 1935;[5] and became close friends with the painterWalter Spies. With historical and cultural input from Spies, she wroteLiebe 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 asLove and Death in Bali. The book was about a family that was caught in themassacre in Bali in 1906 at the fall of the last independent kingdom in Bali to the Dutch.[9]
Baum's reputation went into a decline following World War II.[3] She died of leukemia in Hollywood, California in 1960, aged 72. Her memoirIt Was All Quite Different was published posthumously in 1964.[3]
In 1999, the corner of Wiedner Hauptstraße and Waaggasse in Vienna was named Vicki-Baum-Platz in her honor.[10] In 2009, a street was named after her inBerlin.[11]
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