Peter Viertel

Peter Viertel, a WWII veteran whose first novel was published to glowing reviews when he was only 18, was born of parents of the European intelligentsia, refugees from Adolf Hitler's Europe. Brought up in Hollywood, in a household where Greta Garbo (his mother's closest friend), Bertolt Brecht Thomas Mann, Heinrich Mann and Franz Werfel were constant guests, young Peter yearned to be an American. Read more... legendary director of The Maltese Falcon (1941). Peter died in Marbella, Spain, nineteen days following the death of his second wife, actress Deborah Kerr.