Prompt Cast
The Fascinating Life of Alma Schindler Mahler Gropius Werfel
TLDR Alma Schindler Mahler Gropius Werfel, born into an artistic family in Vienna, had relationships with famous artists such as Gustav Klimt and Alexander Zemlinsky before marrying Gustav Mahler. After Mahler's death, she had an affair with Walter Gropius and eventually married him, but her most significant relationship was with Franz Werfel. Despite her artistic achievements and influential connections, Alma's reputation as a witness and her personal flaws have made her story controversial.
Timestamped Summary
00:00
Alma Schindler Mahler Gropius Werfel had a fascinating life that intersected with several important figures in the world of art in Central Europe, including three marriages to famous men, and her story begins with her birth in Vienna in 1879.
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Alma Schindler Mahler Gropius Werfel was born into an artistic family in Vienna and had a close relationship with her father, which may have influenced her later relationships with men; after her father's death, she threw herself into music and became a sensation in artistic social circles in Vienna.
04:38
Alma Schindler Mahler Gropius Werfel had relationships with artists such as Gustav Klimt and Alexander Zemlinsky, but eventually married Gustav Mahler, who did not want her to continue composing.
06:49
After the death of her daughter, Alma became depressed and had an affair with Walter Gropius, but after Mahler's death, she didn't take up musical composition again and had an affair with Oscar Kokoschka before eventually marrying Gropius, who founded the influential Bauhaus School.
08:59
Alma Schindler Mahler Gropius Werfel had two children with Walter Gropius, but they divorced in 1920 and she had been having an affair with Franz Werfel since 1917, with whom she openly lived and didn't formally marry until 1929, and their time together was the high point of Werfel's career as a writer, but they had to flee Austria when the Germans annexed it in 1938 and eventually settled in Los Angeles, where Alma became the center of a community of artists and Werfel published his best known novel, The Song of Bernadette, before his death in 1945.
11:14
Alma Schindler Mahler Gropius Werfel published books and letters about her first husband, Gustav Mahler, but biographers discovered factual errors, edited letters, and her own diary entries to make herself look good, leading to her being considered an unreliable witness; she also displayed anti-Semitism in interviews, abused alcohol late in life, and passed away in 1964 at the age of 85.
13:26
Alma Schindler Mahler Gropius Werfel had relationships with numerous famous men, including Gustav Mahler, Walter Gropius, and Franz Werfel, and her story is the stuff of ballads.
