Donna Rifkind
Donna Rifkind is the author of The Sun and Her Stars: Salka Viertel and Hitler's Exiles in the Golden Age of Hollywood (Other Press, Jan. 2020) Her book reviews appear frequently in The Wall Street Journal and many other publications.
Twitter: @donnarifkind
Are there particular films that have influenced your writing?
My book is about Golden Age Hollywood and Salka Viertel, the emigre screenwriter who wrote five films for Greta Garbo at MGM in the 1930s and 1940s.
Her most inspiring film for me is "Queen Christina," which translates themes of isolation and belonging into a glamorous biopic of Sweden's progressive 17th-century queen.
Is your go to comfort food sweet or savory? Is it something you make yourself? Does food inspire your writing?
My comfort food is Salka Viertel's chocolate cake, which she served at her famous Sunday salons in Santa Monica. Her relatives gave me the recipe. It was so addictive that Salka's good friends Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht once showed up at a wedding reception for a couple they didn't know, because they knew Salka was bringing the cake.
Is there a work of art that you love. Why? Have you ever visited it in person?
"The Painter's Studio," by Gustave Courbet. It's at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris. It's crowded with many kinds of people connected to the artist--country folk, aristocrats, allegorical figures--with Courbet at the center, painting a landscape. For me it illustrates the role of community in art and in life. Each of us stands at the center of a vast network of people, and we're all obligated to each other.
What do you worry about?
When I was eight, my parents went out for the evening and I left my mother the following note: "Dear mother, I am nervous, love, Donna." At the time everyone thought this was hilarious. There was no vocabulary for anxiety, whether specific or existential, and it took me years to understand what it was I was feeling, all the time. Now at least we know how to give it a name.
What brings you great joy?
Books and books and books.
