Ernst Lothar was born in Brünn, Austria-Hungary (now Brno in the Czech Republic) in 1890 and died in Vienna in 1974. He was a writer, theater director, and producer. In addition to The Vienna Melody, first published in the US in 1944 as The Angel with the Trumpet, his best-known works are The Prisoner and Beneath Another Sun. He was married to the Austrian actress Adrienne Gessner.
