Educated at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Vicki Baum — born Hedwig Baum in Vienna in 1888 — trained as a harpist before embarking on a career that would take her across multiple disciplines and two continents.

Her professional life proved unusually varied. She worked as a journalist and served on editorial staff, and she also wrote for the stage in the roles of both playwright and librettist. Her work drew on two languages, German and English, and her citizenship reflected a comparable breadth: born Austrian, she later became a citizen of the United States.

The later phase of her career brought her into the world of film, where she worked as a screenwriter. She settled in the Los Angeles area, and she continued producing work there until her death. She died in Hollywood on August 29, 1960.

Across her working life, Baum occupied roles as a musician, journalist, editor, playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and writer — a range of occupations that spanned the cultural institutions of both the German-speaking world and the United States. Her training as a harpist at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna stood alongside her later engagement with print, stage, and screen. That she worked across two languages, German and English, gives some measure of the scope of a career that ended with her death in Hollywood in 1960.