Vicki Baum
One of the immigrants to America pictured on the stamps released by various countries through the Inter-Governmental Philatelic Agency is Vicki Baum. She is pictured in the margin of the souvenir sheet issued by the Maldive Islands (along with labor leader David Dubinsky) in 1986.
In some ways she was an excellent choice. After she came to the United States in 1931 she became a "150 percent American"; she felt she owed something to this country which admitted her and gave her the freedom and opportunity to continue her career as a writer. The choice might have been better, perhaps, if coming to America had been a long-range goal of if she came to this country as a poor unknown. But these are not the facts.
Vicki Baum was born in Vienna on January 24, 1888, to Herman and Mathilde (Donat) Baum. She died in the United States on August 29, 1960.
She came to America as an established author for a two-week visit to see her play performed. She remained and continued her career for 30 years.
Her career as a writer came about as an "accident" also. Vicki Baum was a musician (she was an excellent harpist) with the Berlin Royal Opera conducted by her husband Richard Lert. One day an actor was visiting the couple and saw a desk filled with stories and novels she had written.
He sent one to a publisher. When it was published Vicki Baum gave up her music career and devoted herself to writing. The play she came to see performed in America was one she adopted from one of her novels at the urging of a friend. The play was first produced in Germany by Max Reinhardt.
Vicki Baum's name may not be a household word, and she was never considered literary star -- in fact she described herself as a "first class second-rate author" -- but her style became a model for many authors. Her greates fame came as author of the novel, play, and movie Grand Hotel. She followed her characters as they moved from their own rooms to the hotel lobby and merged with other characters.
Her style was said to be tinged with melodrama and sentimentality, but she provided excellent insights into her characters and their world. She was an excellent storyteller and her works were entertaining -- and successful. Her first of many novels was published in 1920, and her most famous novel Grand Hotel in 1929.
Her first novel written in English was published in 1941. She began to write in English because she no longer wanted to write in German, the language of the Nazis she hated so much.
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