BRIEF BIO

Viertel was born in Dresden, Germany in 1920, and after moving to the United States at the age of eight with his parents Berthold and Salka, became a naturalized U.S. citizen. His mother and father had life-long careers in film, theatre and literature.

Viertel attended Dartmouth College and the University of California before going into the military as a marine. He served as an enlisted man in the South Pacific and and later as a second lieutenant in the O.S.S. where his fluent German language skills were utilized in Europe during WW II.

Viertel wrote a number of novels (particularly well known is "White Hunter Black Heart" which he adapted to the screen for Clint Eastwood ); he also co-wrote Hitchcock's Saboteur, scripted The Old Man and the Sea, also the final version of The African Queen, Beat the Devil and other films (See a partial list here). Viertel originally worked in Hollywood as producer Val Lewton's assistant.

Viertel published a memoir "Dangerous Friends: At Large with Huston and Hemingway in the Fifties." That book also features Orson Welles, Ava Gardner, the bullfighter Luis Migel Dominguin, and others.

Viertel has said in interviews that his screenwriting work was primarily for income so that he could continue to write novels.

Viertel was married twice, his first wife was Virginia Ray "Jigee" Schulberg, the former wife of Hollywood writer Budd Schulberg. His second wife was the actress Deborah Kerr (from July 23, 1960 until Kerr's death on October 16, 2007). Viertel died of lymphoma nineteen days after Kerr.

At the time of his death, it was reported that a novel based upon his OSS experiences from World War II was in completed form, as was also a second volume of memoirs.

A filmed documentary by director Michael Scheingraber was in production at the time of Viertel's death. Titled "Peter Viertel - Between the Lines" the film uses over 400 minutes of recorded interviews with Viertel from May 2007.

A few weeks ago (October 2007) Dennis Miller was talking about Viertel on Miller's United States-based radio show and described Viertel as the cool headed buddy who goes out on adventures with guys like Huston, Hemingway and the like, but ends up holding the guys coat when some (often drunken) scrape comes up (examples of this are in the pseudo-autobiographical White Hunter Black Heart film version Clint Eastwood made).

I knew Mr. Viertel only through correspondence through the mail, and one telephone conversation. He was informal and friendly with me and was both generous about talking about his books, and even sent me (self-published) multiple reprint copies of his hard to find novel "The Canyon" when I wrote to tell him of how many people were contacting me through this web site trying to find it.