She was born as Bertita Carla Camille Loenarz on 1 November 1902 in
Nuremberg,
Bavaria. Her father, Emil Leonarz, was an engineer from the
Rhineland. While working on a public street lighting project in
Budapest in 1896, he married the Hungarian Countess Sarolta Pősze-Károly. The couple had five children, two of which died in 1903 iu during a
diphtheria outbreak. In 1904 the family moved briefly to
Berlin and the following year to
Mexico City where her father worked as general director of the Mexican steel industry. It was in Mexico City where Bertita was raised and spent her formative years. Her childhood was one of privilege. She attended a Catholic school, made trips to Europe and the United States, and learned German, Spanish, English, Hungarian and French. In 1912 the family moved to
Monterrey. It was at this time that she began piano lessons. Her parents destined her to follow a career as a concert pianist. Bertita became a naturalized American citizen in 1927 and began to have some success as concert pianist. At the age of 28, she abandoned her career as a pianist and started to write
Phantom Crown: The Story of Maximilian and Carlota of Mexico. The book sold well. In the following years she continued to publish more books about royalty and she became a well-known author. Indianapolis firm Bobbs-Merrill published most of her books. Her first book,
Phantom Crown, was turned into a screenplay by
John Huston for the film
Juarez (1939). Invited by
Warner Brothers, the studio that made Juarez, she moved with her husband to
Hollywood in 1940 as she was offered a job as a writer for the studio. She spent winters in Indianapolis and the summers in Mexico. In 1940 she made a trip to Brazil that inspired her books on the
House of Braganza of Brazil. The following year she began a career as a lecturer, giving more than 120 lectures throughout the United States. During
World War II, her husband served as a lieutenant colonel and she sold
war bonds in support of the troops. In the latter part of the 1940s Bertita published
The Land Columbus loved, a traveling book written with her husband, and wrote
Mosaic, in the Fountain, an autobiographical book covering her childhood. The couple had an active social life and traveled extensively as Bertita continued her series of lectures around the United States. After the death of her husband in 1953, she sold her house in Indianapolis moving permanently to
Mexico City. Her biography of
Richard Wagner, was made into a German film,
Magic Fire, by
William Dieterle in 1955. She attended the premier of the film in
London. In 1957 she married Count Josef Radetzky. The couple adopted a four-year-old Mexican orphan named Katya, but the marriage lasted less than one year. In 1961 she published her last book
Concerto: a biography of Clara Schumann. Bertita retired to her Spanish Villa at Lomas of
Chapultepec, spending her time painting. She did not finish a biography of
Haile Selassie Emperor of
Ethiopia. She fought breast cancer that metastasized to the bones. In May 1971 she married Halstead P. Councilman, an American businessman who had been her friend for years. She died the same year on 31 December 1971. == Books ==