Muehsam Family Collection

Alice Muehsam

Alice Muehsam neé Freymark was born on December 22, 1889. Her father, Isidor Freymark, was the director of the Deutsche Bank and Disconto-Gesellschaft, and her mother, Lina née Hirschfeld, came from the wealthy Hirschfeld-Thorsch banking family. Alice Freymark took a keen interest in music, and privately studied harmony, counterpoint, and composition as well as piano with Conrad Ansorge. For a short time she attended the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik (State College of Music). In 1911, Alice married the Berlin Correspondent of the Austrian daily Die Neue Freie Presse Kurt Mühsam and became an Austrian citizen.

During and after the First World War, Alice Muehsam was contributing concert and musical reviews and articles on the arts to various newspapers, among others Der Sammler (The Collector), Berliner Börsenzeitung (Berliner Stock-Exchange News), Grunewald-Zeitung (Grunewald News), Neue Berliner Zeitung – Das 8 Uhr Abend-Blatt (New Berliner News - 8 o’clock Evening Edition), and Signale für die Musikalische Welt (Signals for the Musical World). In 1918 Alice Muehsam became a full-time musical critic for Neue Berliner Zeitung - Das 12-Uhr Blatt (New Berliner News - The Noon Edition). This commitment lasted until 1922. In addition, she published essays, reviews of books, and reports on exhibitions and art auctions in various Berlin newspapers.

In 1929 Alice Muehsam began to study at the University of Berlin after passing special examinations since she had previously studied privately and did not have any official certificate from a higher institution. Alice Muehsam received her PhD in classical archaeology and art history in 1936, her dissertation entitled Die Attischen Grabreliefs in Römischer Zeit (Attic Grave Reliefs in the Roman Period).

Although Alice Muehsam finished her studies in Berlin, there was little chance that she would have ever been able to fully pursue her interests in Germany in the late 1930s. All she was allowed to do was to lecture on art history and architecture to the Jewish audience. In January 1940, Alice Muehsam arrived in the United States with another 350 Jewish emigrants from Germany. Based on her dissertation and credentials she received a scholarship for re-training as an art restorer at the Brooklyn Museum. In particular, her restoration of ancient Egyptian and Greek vases and artwork gained prominence and acknowledgement. However, until circa 1945 she was earning her living by cleaning and baby-sitting.

In addition to her restoration and conservation work, Alice Muehsam gave German lessons to Art History students at Columbia University and music students at the Mannes School, for which she prepared a primer German Readings II in 1959. Twenty years after the defense of her dissertation, Alice Muehsam published it in English by the American University of Beirut in 1956 as Attic Grave Reliefs from the Roman Period . In 1966 Alice Muehsam published Coin and Temple through Leeds University Oriental Society, a treatise on ancient Hebrew coins and architectural representations. Together with Norma A. Shatan she also translated a book by Heinrich Wöfflin The Senses of Form in Art (Italien und das deutsche Formgefühl) that was published in 1958.

She died on February 26, 1968 in Spring Valley, New York.

Gerd Muehsam

Gerd Muehsam was born in Berlin on March 30, 1913. She was the second child of art historian Alice Muehsam née Freymark and an Austrian journalist Kurt Muehsam. She attended the Fürstin-Bismarck Schule in Berlin and began studying piano at 6 or 7 years and music theory at 10 years old. Gerd Muehsam started to attend the University of Vienna in 1933. Anton von Webern was one of her teachers. She received a PhD summa cum laude in musicology in conjunction with art history in 1937. Her dissertation was entitled Sigismund Thalberg als Klavierkomponist (Sigismund Thalberg as Piano Composer). After her return to Germany, she received a certificate to teach music privately, however because of her Jewish origin, a provision stipulated she could only teach those who the Nazi-warped terminology called Non-Aryans.

After her application for an Australian visa was rejected, Gerd Muehsam arrived via London in America in 1940. She became Director of Community Music at the Goodrich Social Settlement of Cleveland, Ohio. In 1942 Gerd Muehsam received a library degree from Case Western University, and worked as a reference assistant at East Cleveland Public Library, subsequently holding the position of librarian in charge of photographs at the Cleveland Museum of Art until 1945.

In 1945 she moved to New York to accept an appointment at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, where she served in various functions including Associate Librarian (Art) from 1950 until her retirement from Cooper Union in 1965. Gerd Muehsam held the position of Supervising Art Librarian at the Donnell Library of New York Public Library from 1965 until 1967. In 1967 she became an Assistant, later an Associate Professor and Art Bibliographer of the Paul Klapper Library at Queens College.

Besides her duties of librarian Gerd Muehsam was also active as an educator in the field of Art History and Music, she lectured publicly, taught the courses "Philosophy of Music" and "Music and Western Ideas" at the Cooper Union Adult Teaching Department (1961-1967), and gave lectures in art and music at the Cooper Union School of Engineering. After she became Associate Professor at Queens College, she was a lecturer in the Adult Collegiate Education (ACE) Program of the School of General Studies where she taught introductory courses in "Introduction to Art" and "Introduction to Music" and inaugurated a course in art bibliography at the library. She also conducted a number of various workshops.

Gerd Muehsam authored 3 books: one concerning the painter Dietz Edzard, D. Edzard ; French Painters and Paintings from the Fourteenth Century to Post-Impressionism ; and Guide to Basic Information Sources in the Visual Arts in 1977. This last work was named outstanding reference book for 1978 by the ALA.

Gerd Muehsam was active in many professional organizations, including the American Library Association (ALA), the Special Libraries Association (SLA), the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS), the College Art Association of America, the American Society for Aesthetics, and the Library Association of the City University of New York (LACUNY). Since 1969 she was on the Visiting Committee of the Library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her contribution to the field of art librarianship was acknowledged when ARLIS announced the Gerd Muehsam Award for outstanding student papers on art librarianship on January 3, 1980.

Gerd Muehsam died on December 14, 1979 in New York.

Helmut Muhsam

Helmut Victor Muhsam was born in Berlin on August 12, 1914. He was brother of Ruth Marton and Gerd Muehsam and the youngest child of Alice and Kurt Muehsam. Helmut Muhsam attended the Collège Français in Berlin and the Technische Hochschule of Charlottenburg. In 1934 Helmut Muhsam went to the Université de Genève in Switzerland, where he studied physics and mathematics. Helmut Muhsam concluded his study with a doctorate in physics in 1937. Following his studies, Helmut Muhsam moved to Palestine in 1937.

During the same year he married Brouria Feldman, a biologist. Helmut Muhsam held positions as the head of the Department of Statistics, as an extension teacher, and a lecturer, all at Hebrew University. From 1938 until 1944 Helmut worked as a statistician for the Va’ad Leumi (National Council), and as an assistant statistician for the government of Palestine from 1944 to 1948. From 1948-1952 he worked as the principal statistician for the government of Israel.

From 1957-1958 Helmut Muhsam was a social affairs officer for the United Nations in New York. From 1961-1962 he was a visiting associate professor of sociology and public health at the University of California at Berkeley, and in 1969 became a member of the Department of Demography and Statistics at Hebrew University. From 1980-1985 he participated in the International Statistics Institute Committee on Ethics.

Helmut Muhsam was a member of several international scientific organizations, among others he was Vice-President of the Union Internationale pour l’Etude Scientifique de la Population; member of the International Statistics Institute; the American Statistic Association; the Biometrical Society; and a member of the International Statistical Institute Committee on a Code of Ethics for Statisticians.

Helmut Muhsam is author of The Supply of Professional Manpower (1959); The Valuation of Men and the Principles of Cost-Benefit Analysis of Family Planning Activities (1975), and Bedouin in the Negev (1966), as well as author of many academic articles in scientific journals.

Helmut Muhsam died in 1997.

Kurt Muehsam

Writer and journalist Kurt Muehsam was born on May 3, 1882 in Graz, Austria as the second youngest of nine children of Rabbi Samuel Muehsam and Marianne née Loewenstein. He studied law and philosophy at the University of Vienna and in Graz and undertook several trips to Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor to explore artistic monuments. Kurt Muhsam received his law degree in 1909.

From 1909-1912 he became the Berlin correspondent for the Austrian liberal daily Die Neue Freie Presse. Kurt Muehsam married Alice Freymark, daughter of Isidor Freymark, the director of the Deutsche Bank and Disconto-Gesellschaft, in 1911.

From 1912-1921 he worked as the director of the National-Zeitung and was editor of the Berliner Zeitung am Mittag. During the First World War Kurt Muehsam was a war reporter (Kriegsberichterstatter) at the Western front. At the beginning of the war he published a two-volume book, Deutsche Heerführer im Weltkriege (German Commanders in the World War) in 1914. From 1922-1923 he led the Press Department of the Ufa (Universum-Film AG), at this time privatized and no longer under state control, and after 1924 was the head of the film section of the Berliner Zeitung am Mittag. From 1924-1927 he was also the chief editor of the Lichtbildbühne.

In addition to journalism Kurt Muehsam was involved in the arts, particularly in theatre and later in film. In 1912 Kurt Muehsam became the artistic director (Dramaturg) of the theater on Königgrätzer Street, the Komödienhaus, and the Berlin Theater. His contacts in the world of theatre and film certainly had an effect on his daughter Ruth, who became an actress and in 1937 moved to Hollywood. He also had a special interest in art, especially the collecting of old paintings and drawings.

Kurt Muehsam died in Berlin on November 17, 1931.

Kurt Muehsam published several books, brochures, and plays. He wrote Berufsführer für Film und Kino (1927), Deutsche Heerführer im Weltkriege (2 volumes, 1914), Germania und Austria (1913), Hindenburg, der Befreier Ostpreußens (1914), Hippolyt (1913, performed 1924), Internationales Preislexikon für Gemälde aller Zeiten und Schulen (1925), Die Kunstauktion (1923), Lexikon des Films (1924), Salonmenschen (1911), Der Sonnenbursch (1911), Tiere im Filme (1922), Unsere Flieger über Feindesland (1914), Wie wir belogen wurden (1918).

Ruth Marton

Ruth Marton was born as Ruth Philippine Muehsam on February 25, 1912 in Berlin, to Kurt and Alice Mühsam neé Freymark. As a child Ruth was heavily exposed through her parents’ activities to film, theater, art and music. She planned on becoming an actress after graduating from the Fürstin Bismarck-Schule in Berlin-Charlottenburg in 1931. She went on to study acting and passed the exam of the Genossenschaft Deutscher Bühnen-Angehörigen (the Union of German Stage Members) and the Deutschen Bühnenvereins (the German Theater Association) in 1933. Although she passed the exam, she was not allowed to perform in Germany. Her first acting role was in Strasbourg, France, playing Phoebe in a German version of Shakespeare’s As You Like It (Wie Es Euch Gefaellt). After a short time spent in London Ruth Marton went to Vienna, where she took smaller parts and even worked as a clothing designer. It was in Vienna that she became a close friend of the writer and poet Alexander Lernet-Holenia, who created a part for her in a play at the Volkstheater, the short-lived Die Frau des Potiphar (Potiphar’s Wife), in spite of the objections of the theater’s superintendent, Rolf Jahn.

In 1937 Ruth Marton visited friends in Hollywood after having been convinced by Lernet-Holenia and Jahn to leave Vienna in 1936, and hoped to remain there only for a short visit. However, after Hitler annexed Austria in March 1938 she decided to stay. With little training and experience, Ruth Marton’s most valuable asset was her fluency in three languages. She worked as a translator, reader in French or German for individuals or motion picture companies, researcher, secretary, salesperson, and a fashion model. At the same time she became acquainted with the social life in Hollywood and attended parties thrown by European refugee writers, actors, and film artists, thereby getting to know well-known Americans as well. It was at one of these parties where she first met Erich Maria Remarque in 1939. They became close and lifelong friends until his death in 1970. Allegedly, it was through Remarque’s assistance that Ruth Marton managed to bring her sister and mother to the US in 1940.

While working in a boutique in Beverly Hills, Ruth Marton wrote her first short story, Letter to a Girlfriend. Encouraged by her friend John Huston, the film director, she continued writing and started her first novel, Last Night of All, as well as several short stories. With the moral and financial support of John Huston’s father Walter, Ruth Marton was able to quit her regular job and concentrate on writing. John and Walter Huston were among her closest friends, and even after the death of John Huston in 1980, Ruth Marton continued to keep in touch with his children Anjelica, Tony, and Danny Huston.

After the United States entered into World War II in 1941, Ruth Marton joined the war effort by making bandages and gauze pads for the Red Cross. By special permission she was awarded the Red Cross pin for her work despite being Austrian. Once her novel Last Night of All was finished, Ruth Marton worked with a literary agent, Jacques Chambrun, but they were unable to find a publisher for it. On Erich Maria Remarque’s advice she continued writing. On May 26, 1944, she became a citizen of the United States and officially changed her name to Ruth Marton, originally her stage name that she first used during her London stay and then later in Vienna.

John Huston provided Ruth Marton with an idea for a short film story that materialized in Salto Mortale . This piece was read by numerous producers and eventually led to Ruth Marton’s first paid writing assignment, as a collaborator on a film idea. In 1946 she ended up in the hospital primarily from exhaustion from pursuing both writing and regular work at the same time. After her release she decided not to write again until she could be paid for it, a promise she kept for the next 15 years

In 1949 Ruth Marton was hired by film director Max Ophuls as an assistant and translator for his film The Restless Moment , based on the novel The Blank Wall and starring James Mason and Joan Bennett, and she also assisted with the production. Upon completion of the film Ruth Marton took her first vacation to Europe since 1937, where she remained for the next five months. After her return she moved to New York where she would live for the rest of her life. In 1951 Ruth Marton worked as a script writer for the 15-minute "Lilli Palmer TV Show."

By the mid-1950s Ruth Marton worked as an editorial scout for several European publishing houses, including the German S. Fischer Verlag, the French Librairie Stock, the Italian Aldo Garzanti Editore, and several Scandinavian houses until her resignation because of illness after about six years. Around this time period, Ruth Marton received monetary restitution from Germany for the loss of her work as an actress as well as inheritance and restitution money concerning property her family had owned, and she used this money to support herself while writing her next novel The Divorcees . This story succeeded in being published in the 1960s. Despite having been written in English, it appeared published only in translation abroad in German, Danish, Norwegian, and Italian. The Divorcees was intended as the first part of a trilogy, but the sequels The Female / The Mousetrap and The Shattered Mask remained in manuscript. Her memoir first called Cat of Many Lives, and later renamed Lost and Found, is also available only in manuscript. The parts of the memoir that were related to Ruth Marton’s friendship with Erich Maria Remarque were later adopted into another memoir book My Friend Boni that was translated and published as Mein Freund Boni in Germany in 1993.

Ruth Marton died in 1999 in New York.

Alice Muehsam

Alice Muehsam neé Freymark was born on December 22, 1889. Her father, Isidor Freymark, was the director of the Deutsche Bank and Disconto-Gesellschaft, and her mother, Lina née Hirschfeld, came from the wealthy Hirschfeld-Thorsch banking family. Alice Freymark took a keen interest in music, and privately studied harmony, counterpoint, and composition as well as piano with Conrad Ansorge. For a short time she attended the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik (State College of Music). In 1911, Alice married the Berlin Correspondent of the Austrian daily Die Neue Freie Presse Kurt Mühsam and became an Austrian citizen.

During and after the First World War, Alice Muehsam was contributing concert and musical reviews and articles on the arts to various newspapers, among others Der Sammler (The Collector), Berliner Börsenzeitung (Berliner Stock-Exchange News), Grunewald-Zeitung (Grunewald News), Neue Berliner Zeitung – Das 8 Uhr Abend-Blatt (New Berliner News - 8 o’clock Evening Edition), and Signale für die Musikalische Welt (Signals for the Musical World). In 1918 Alice Muehsam became a full-time musical critic for Neue Berliner Zeitung - Das 12-Uhr Blatt (New Berliner News - The Noon Edition). This commitment lasted until 1922. In addition, she published essays, reviews of books, and reports on exhibitions and art auctions in various Berlin newspapers.

In 1929 Alice Muehsam began to study at the University of Berlin after passing special examinations since she had previously studied privately and did not have any official certificate from a higher institution. Alice Muehsam received her PhD in classical archaeology and art history in 1936, her dissertation entitled Die Attischen Grabreliefs in Römischer Zeit (Attic Grave Reliefs in the Roman Period).

Although Alice Muehsam finished her studies in Berlin, there was little chance that she would have ever been able to fully pursue her interests in Germany in the late 1930s. All she was allowed to do was to lecture on art history and architecture to the Jewish audience. In January 1940, Alice Muehsam arrived in the United States with another 350 Jewish emigrants from Germany. Based on her dissertation and credentials she received a scholarship for re-training as an art restorer at the Brooklyn Museum. In particular, her restoration of ancient Egyptian and Greek vases and artwork gained prominence and acknowledgement. However, until circa 1945 she was earning her living by cleaning and baby-sitting.

In addition to her restoration and conservation work, Alice Muehsam gave German lessons to Art History students at Columbia University and music students at the Mannes School, for which she prepared a primer German Readings II in 1959. Twenty years after the defense of her dissertation, Alice Muehsam published it in English by the American University of Beirut in 1956 as Attic Grave Reliefs from the Roman Period . In 1966 Alice Muehsam published Coin and Temple through Leeds University Oriental Society, a treatise on ancient Hebrew coins and architectural representations. Together with Norma A. Shatan she also translated a book by Heinrich Wöfflin The Senses of Form in Art (Italien und das deutsche Formgefühl) that was published in 1958.

She died on February 26, 1968 in Spring Valley, New York.

Gerd Muehsam

Gerd Muehsam was born in Berlin on March 30, 1913. She was the second child of art historian Alice Muehsam née Freymark and an Austrian journalist Kurt Muehsam. She attended the Fürstin-Bismarck Schule in Berlin and began studying piano at 6 or 7 years and music theory at 10 years old. Gerd Muehsam started to attend the University of Vienna in 1933. Anton von Webern was one of her teachers. She received a PhD summa cum laude in musicology in conjunction with art history in 1937. Her dissertation was entitled Sigismund Thalberg als Klavierkomponist (Sigismund Thalberg as Piano Composer). After her return to Germany, she received a certificate to teach music privately, however because of her Jewish origin, a provision stipulated she could only teach those who the Nazi-warped terminology called Non-Aryans.

After her application for an Australian visa was rejected, Gerd Muehsam arrived via London in America in 1940. She became Director of Community Music at the Goodrich Social Settlement of Cleveland, Ohio. In 1942 Gerd Muehsam received a library degree from Case Western University, and worked as a reference assistant at East Cleveland Public Library, subsequently holding the position of librarian in charge of photographs at the Cleveland Museum of Art until 1945.

In 1945 she moved to New York to accept an appointment at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, where she served in various functions including Associate Librarian (Art) from 1950 until her retirement from Cooper Union in 1965. Gerd Muehsam held the position of Supervising Art Librarian at the Donnell Library of New York Public Library from 1965 until 1967. In 1967 she became an Assistant, later an Associate Professor and Art Bibliographer of the Paul Klapper Library at Queens College.

Besides her duties of librarian Gerd Muehsam was also active as an educator in the field of Art History and Music, she lectured publicly, taught the courses "Philosophy of Music" and "Music and Western Ideas" at the Cooper Union Adult Teaching Department (1961-1967), and gave lectures in art and music at the Cooper Union School of Engineering. After she became Associate Professor at Queens College, she was a lecturer in the Adult Collegiate Education (ACE) Program of the School of General Studies where she taught introductory courses in "Introduction to Art" and "Introduction to Music" and inaugurated a course in art bibliography at the library. She also conducted a number of various workshops.

Gerd Muehsam authored 3 books: one concerning the painter Dietz Edzard, D. Edzard ; French Painters and Paintings from the Fourteenth Century to Post-Impressionism ; and Guide to Basic Information Sources in the Visual Arts in 1977. This last work was named outstanding reference book for 1978 by the ALA.

Gerd Muehsam was active in many professional organizations, including the American Library Association (ALA), the Special Libraries Association (SLA), the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS), the College Art Association of America, the American Society for Aesthetics, and the Library Association of the City University of New York (LACUNY). Since 1969 she was on the Visiting Committee of the Library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her contribution to the field of art librarianship was acknowledged when ARLIS announced the Gerd Muehsam Award for outstanding student papers on art librarianship on January 3, 1980.

Gerd Muehsam died on December 14, 1979 in New York.

Helmut Muhsam

Helmut Victor Muhsam was born in Berlin on August 12, 1914. He was brother of Ruth Marton and Gerd Muehsam and the youngest child of Alice and Kurt Muehsam. Helmut Muhsam attended the Collège Français in Berlin and the Technische Hochschule of Charlottenburg. In 1934 Helmut Muhsam went to the Université de Genève in Switzerland, where he studied physics and mathematics. Helmut Muhsam concluded his study with a doctorate in physics in 1937. Following his studies, Helmut Muhsam moved to Palestine in 1937.

During the same year he married Brouria Feldman, a biologist. Helmut Muhsam held positions as the head of the Department of Statistics, as an extension teacher, and a lecturer, all at Hebrew University. From 1938 until 1944 Helmut worked as a statistician for the Va’ad Leumi (National Council), and as an assistant statistician for the government of Palestine from 1944 to 1948. From 1948-1952 he worked as the principal statistician for the government of Israel.

From 1957-1958 Helmut Muhsam was a social affairs officer for the United Nations in New York. From 1961-1962 he was a visiting associate professor of sociology and public health at the University of California at Berkeley, and in 1969 became a member of the Department of Demography and Statistics at Hebrew University. From 1980-1985 he participated in the International Statistics Institute Committee on Ethics.

Helmut Muhsam was a member of several international scientific organizations, among others he was Vice-President of the Union Internationale pour l’Etude Scientifique de la Population; member of the International Statistics Institute; the American Statistic Association; the Biometrical Society; and a member of the International Statistical Institute Committee on a Code of Ethics for Statisticians.

Helmut Muhsam is author of The Supply of Professional Manpower (1959); The Valuation of Men and the Principles of Cost-Benefit Analysis of Family Planning Activities (1975), and Bedouin in the Negev (1966), as well as author of many academic articles in scientific journals.

Helmut Muhsam died in 1997.

Kurt Muehsam

Writer and journalist Kurt Muehsam was born on May 3, 1882 in Graz, Austria as the second youngest of nine children of Rabbi Samuel Muehsam and Marianne née Loewenstein. He studied law and philosophy at the University of Vienna and in Graz and undertook several trips to Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor to explore artistic monuments. Kurt Muhsam received his law degree in 1909.

From 1909-1912 he became the Berlin correspondent for the Austrian liberal daily Die Neue Freie Presse. Kurt Muehsam married Alice Freymark, daughter of Isidor Freymark, the director of the Deutsche Bank and Disconto-Gesellschaft, in 1911.

From 1912-1921 he worked as the director of the National-Zeitung and was editor of the Berliner Zeitung am Mittag. During the First World War Kurt Muehsam was a war reporter (Kriegsberichterstatter) at the Western front. At the beginning of the war he published a two-volume book, Deutsche Heerführer im Weltkriege (German Commanders in the World War) in 1914. From 1922-1923 he led the Press Department of the Ufa (Universum-Film AG), at this time privatized and no longer under state control, and after 1924 was the head of the film section of the Berliner Zeitung am Mittag. From 1924-1927 he was also the chief editor of the Lichtbildbühne.

In addition to journalism Kurt Muehsam was involved in the arts, particularly in theatre and later in film. In 1912 Kurt Muehsam became the artistic director (Dramaturg) of the theater on Königgrätzer Street, the Komödienhaus, and the Berlin Theater. His contacts in the world of theatre and film certainly had an effect on his daughter Ruth, who became an actress and in 1937 moved to Hollywood. He also had a special interest in art, especially the collecting of old paintings and drawings.

Kurt Muehsam died in Berlin on November 17, 1931.

Kurt Muehsam published several books, brochures, and plays. He wrote Berufsführer für Film und Kino (1927), Deutsche Heerführer im Weltkriege (2 volumes, 1914), Germania und Austria (1913), Hindenburg, der Befreier Ostpreußens (1914), Hippolyt (1913, performed 1924), Internationales Preislexikon für Gemälde aller Zeiten und Schulen (1925), Die Kunstauktion (1923), Lexikon des Films (1924), Salonmenschen (1911), Der Sonnenbursch (1911), Tiere im Filme (1922), Unsere Flieger über Feindesland (1914), Wie wir belogen wurden (1918).

Ruth Marton

Ruth Marton was born as Ruth Philippine Meuhsam on February 25, 1912 in Berlin, to Kurt and Alice Mühsam neé Freymark. As a child Ruth was heavily exposed through her parents’ activities to film, theater, art and music. She planned on becoming an actress after graduating from the Fürstin Bismarck-Schule in Berlin-Charlottenburg in 1931. She went on to study acting and passed the exam of the Genossenschaft Deutscher Bühnen-Angehörigen (the Union of German Stage Members) and the Deutschen Bühnenvereins (the German Theater Association) in 1933. Although she passed the exam, she was not allowed to perform in Germany. Her first acting role was in Strasbourg, France, playing Phoebe in a German version of Shakespeare’s As You Like It (Wie Es Euch Gefaellt). After a short time spent in London Ruth Marton went to Vienna, where she took smaller parts and even worked as a clothing designer. It was in Vienna that she became a close friend of the writer and poet Alexander Lernet-Holenia, who created a part for her in a play at the Volkstheater, the short-lived Die Frau des Potiphar (Potiphar’s Wife), in spite of the objections of the theater’s superintendent, Rolf Jahn.

In 1937 Ruth Marton visited friends in Hollywood after having been convinced by Lernet-Holenia and Jahn to leave Vienna in 1936, and hoped to remain there only for a short visit. However, after Hitler annexed Austria in March 1938 she decided to stay. With little training and experience, Ruth Marton’s most valuable asset was her fluency in three languages. She worked as a translator, reader in French or German for individuals or motion picture companies, researcher, secretary, salesperson, and a fashion model. At the same time she became acquainted with the social life in Hollywood and attended parties thrown by European refugee writers, actors, and film artists, thereby getting to know well-known Americans as well. It was at one of these parties where she first met Erich Maria Remarque in 1939. They became close and lifelong friends until his death in 1970. Allegedly, it was through Remarque’s assistance that Ruth Marton managed to bring her sister and mother to the US in 1940.

While working in a boutique in Beverly Hills, Ruth Marton wrote her first short story, Letter to a Girlfriend. Encouraged by her friend John Huston, the film director, she continued writing and started her first novel, Last Night of All, as well as several short stories. With the moral and financial support of John Huston’s father Walter, Ruth Marton was able to quit her regular job and concentrate on writing. John and Walter Huston were among her closest friends, and even after the death of John Huston in 1980, Ruth Marton continued to keep in touch with his children Anjelica, Tony, and Danny Huston.

After the United States entered into World War II in 1941, Ruth Marton joined the war effort by making bandages and gauze pads for the Red Cross. By special permission she was awarded the Red Cross pin for her work despite being Austrian. Once her novel Last Night of All was finished, Ruth Marton worked with a literary agent, Jacques Chambrun, but they were unable to find a publisher for it. On Erich Maria Remarque’s advice she continued writing. On May 26, 1944, she became a citizen of the United States and officially changed her name to Ruth Marton, originally her stage name that she first used during her London stay and then later in Vienna.

John Huston provided Ruth Marton with an idea for a short film story that materialized in Salto Mortale . This piece was read by numerous producers and eventually led to Ruth Marton’s first paid writing assignment, as a collaborator on a film idea. In 1946 she ended up in the hospital primarily from exhaustion from pursuing both writing and regular work at the same time. After her release she decided not to write again until she could be paid for it, a promise she kept for the next 15 years

In 1949 Ruth Marton was hired by film director Max Ophuls as an assistant and translator for his film The Restless Moment , based on the novel The Blank Wall and starring James Mason and Joan Bennett, and she also assisted with the production. Upon completion of the film Ruth Marton took her first vacation to Europe since 1937, where she remained for the next five months. After her return she moved to New York where she would live for the rest of her life. In 1951 Ruth Marton worked as a script writer for the 15-minute "Lilli Palmer TV Show."

By the mid-1950s Ruth Marton worked as an editorial scout for several European publishing houses, including the German S. Fischer Verlag, the French Librairie Stock, the Italian Aldo Garzanti Editore, and several Scandinavian houses until her resignation because of illness after about six years. Around this time period, Ruth Marton received monetary restitution from Germany for the loss of her work as an actress as well as inheritance and restitution money concerning property her family had owned, and she used this money to support herself while writing her next novel The Divorcees . This story succeeded in being published in the 1960s. Despite having been written in English, it appeared published only in translation abroad in German, Danish, Norwegian, and Italian. The Divorcees was intended as the first part of a trilogy, but the sequels The Female / The Mousetrap and The Shattered Mask remained in manuscript. Her memoir first called Cat of Many Lives, and later renamed Lost and Found, is also available only in manuscript. The parts of the memoir that were related to Ruth Marton’s friendship with Erich Maria Remarque were later adopted into another memoir book My Friend Boni that was translated and published as Mein Freund Boni in Germany in 1993.

Ruth Marton died in 1999 in New York.