Born in Vienna, Vicky Baum began a music career as a professional harpist. She succeeded more as a short story writer, which caused her to leave the music career. Vicky Baum became an editor in the Berlin publishing house of Ulstein (1921). She wrote 25 novels, of them the most famous are Menschen im Hotel (1929) which was translated as Grand Hotel (1930). This book was a worldwide bestseller and was filmed in many versions.
In 1931 she settled in the USA and continued writing books. She often repeated the pattern of Grand Hotel (several stories for different people all mixed together) and set the characters of her books through different historical and psychological themes.