About Vicki Baum
Hedwig "Vicki" Baum (; January 24, 1888 – August 29, 1960) was an Austrian writer. She is known for the novel Menschen im Hotel ('People at a Hotel', 1929 — published in English as Grand Hotel), one of her first international successes. It was made into a 1932 film and a 1989 Broadway musical. == Education and personal life == Baum was born in Vienna into a Jewish family. Her mother Mathilde (née Donath) suffered from mental illness, and died of breast cancer when Vicki was still a child. Her father, described as "a tyrannical, hypochondriac" man, was a bank clerk who was killed in 1942 in Novi Sad (present-day Serbia) by soldiers of the Hungarian occupation. She began her artistic career as a musician playing the harp. She studied at the Vienna Conservatory and played in the Vienna Concert Society. She followed her conductor husband to Germany – to Hannover and Mannheim – in the years 1916–1923. She later worked as a journalist for the magazine Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, published by Ullstein-Verlag in Berlin.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.