Austrians in Hollywood - Introduction
Migrants from “old” Habsburg Austria and “new” Republican Austria left a remarkable imprint on the Hollywood film industry. Directors, producers, actors, agents, composers of film music all made vital contributions to the “most American” art form—film.
Many began in theater in Vienna and Berlin and moved on to switching from theater being based on language to film dedicated to image. Some came before World War I, most after the war—a flood of Jewish artists in the 1930s.
Directors such a Fritz Lang, Otto Preminger, Max Reinhard, Fred Zinnemann, Josef von Sternberg, Berthold Viertel, and Edgar Ulmer, all born in Vienna, put their imprint on Hollywood before and after World War II.
Samuel “Billy” Wilder was born in Sucha, Galicia, in the Habsburg Monarchy and came to Hollywood via Vienna, Berlin and Paris. Wilder knew what the ascent of Hitler meant to Jews: “I was on the train to Paris the day after the Reichstag fire.”
Vienna-born migrants such as Hans Julius Salter and Max Steiner, Brno-born Erich Wolfgang Korngold, along with Hanns Eisler (of Viennese parentage) were among the most successful composers of film music in Hollywood and infused American film with the “Vienna touch.”