Home
| About | About
Feuchtwanger | Archives | Exhibitions
|
Researching German Exiles | Feuchtwanger
Society | Villa
Aurora | Writings | Hours
RESEARCHING
GERMAN EXILES
back
German
Exiles in Southern California
Bruno Frank (1887-1945) and Liesl Frank (1903-1979)
Bruno
Frank was born in Stuttgart where his father worked as a banker.
Frank studied law but worked as a writer in Munich until 1933 with
his wife, Liesl. Liesl Frank's childhood was noteworthy because her
mother was the well-known operetta diva, Fritzi
Massary, and her father, Max Pallenberg, was the leading comic
actor of German theater.
The Franks left Germany on the day following the burning of the Reichstag
in March 1933. For the next four years they lived between Austria
and London, before finally crossing the Atlantic in October 1937 on
the Ile de France. After arriving in New York the Franks
headed west for California where Bruno Frank was reunited with his
good friends Thomas Mann and Lion
Feuchtwanger.
Bruno Frank was one of the fortunate German writers whose works had
been translated into English in the 1920s, so that his name and reputation
was already established outside Germany by 1933. Frank wrote two important
novels while in exile, Cervantes (1934) and Der
Reisepaß (1937).
In addition to his fiction, Frank also worked for the film industry.
He was hired for a renewable one-year contract at Metro-Golden-Mayer,
but he left the studio after just seven months. However, he continued
to work on movies and made significant contributions with his historical
background for William Dieterle's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1939)
and his work with Salka Viertel rewriting
Mervyn LeRoy's "Madame Curie" (1943).
Shortly after their arrival in Hollywood, the Franks began to work
on behalf of their less-fortunate fellow emigrants and helped organize
the European Film Fund. Liesl Frank worked
as the executive secretary for the organization. The European Film
Fund supported unemployed exile writers by soliciting funds to subsidize
studio contracts.
The
Franks lived at 513 North Camden Drive in Beverly Hills.
Bruno
Frank's years in Southern California: 1937-1945.
Liesl
Frank's years in Southern California: 1937-1979?
References
Autorenlexikon
deutschsprachiger Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts. Edited by
Manfred Brauneck. Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1991.
Thomas Mann. Tagebücher 1940-1943. Edited by Peter
de Mendelssohn. Frankfurt: Fischer, 1982.
Virginia Sease. "Bruno Frank." Deutsche Exilliteratur seit 1933.
Band 1: Kalifornien. Edited by John M. Spalek and Joseph Strelka.
Bern: Francke Verlag, 1976, pp. 352-370.
For more information contact the Feuchtwanger
Librarian.
