Biography
Peter Viertel was a writer and screenwriter. Born in Dresden, Germany, on 16 November 1920, he moved to Hollywood as a child with his parents, the director and writer Berthold Viertel and the screenwriter Salka Viertel.
He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1941. During the Second World War he served with the United States Marine Corps and the Office of Strategic Services. Viertel wrote screenplays including Saboteur (1942), Decision Before Dawn (1951), The Old Man and the Sea (1958) and an uncredited contribution to The African Queen (1951). His novel White Hunter, Black Heart (1953) was adapted into a film in 1990.
He died in Marbella, Spain, on 4 November 2007.
