A life in three cities

Born 26 December 1909 as Kurt Ehrlich; the family name was officially changed to Hellmer in 1922. Son of the theatre manager Arthur Hellmer.

Attended the Wöhler-Realgymnasium in Frankfurt, then studied philosophy and psychology for four semesters at the universities of Heidelberg, Berlin, and Frankfurt. Working languages: German, French, English.

First professional engagement at age 20 as director at the Schauspielhaus in Bremen. In 1931/32 dramaturg and director at the Stadttheater Erfurt; in 1932/33 director at the Kleines Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, where he staged (among other productions) an adaptation of Gustav Freytag's Die Journalisten. From 1933 to 1935 engaged as director and dramaturg under his father Arthur Hellmer at the Neues Theater in Frankfurt. From 1930 also guest director (Gastregisseur) at the Altes Theater (Leipzig), Deutsches Theater (Hannover) and the Municipal Theatre of Stettin, and playreader at the Lessingtheater and Kleines Theater in Berlin.

Left Nazi Germany for Austria under the pressure of antisemitic persecution. 1935–37 dramaturg and director at the Theater an der Wien, joining his father Arthur Hellmer there from 1936, where his operetta Majestät privat (music by Ralph Benatzky) premiered in 1937. Reader for Twentieth Century Fox Vienna and for theatrical publishers including Felix Bloch Erben, Drei-Masken-Verlag, Georg Marton Verlag, and Otto Eirich Verlag; translated English-language plays that were staged in adapted form at theatres in Austria and Czechoslovakia.

After the Anschluss of Austria to Nazi Germany, left Vienna overnight on 23 June 1938 for Italy and waited six weeks in Naples for a U.S. immigration visa; arrived in New York on 11 August 1938 and filed first citizenship papers on 18 October 1938. On 23 November 1938 Variety profiled him in "Inside Stuff — Legit" as a young refugee stage director, son of Arthur Hellmer and adapter of You Can't Take It With You, Yes My Darling Daughter, Three Minute Murder and Love from a Stranger.

Editor — at times acting editor-in-chief — of the German-Jewish exile weekly Aufbau in New York. Wrote the columns "New Yorker Notizbuch" (civic life), "Broadway Bulletin" (theatre and film criticism), and "Anti Anti", confronting antisemitic and antidemocratic currents in the U.S.

Directed short plays for the WHN radio series "Refugee Theater of the Air". Board member and secretary of the German-American Writers Association (1939–41); in 1941, with Manfred Fürst and others, attempted to found a Free German Theatre (Theatre of German Freemen) in New York — the plan foundered on lack of funds.

New York theatre correspondent for Neue Zeitung, the U.S. occupation newspaper published in Munich.

From 1952, literary and theatre agent in New York and proprietor of his own theatrical publishing house — representing Max Frisch, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Sławomir Mrożek and others. Died in New York on 11 May 1975.