Heritage Florida Jewish News - Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice

We don't get to choose when or where we are born. And it isn't until we are much older that we can begin to make our own life choices. In fact, most of our childhoods are spent doing what we are told, trusting those who care for us.

Such was Orange City resident Katherine MK Mitchell's life. She was born in Budapest during World War II, and named Katalin Landstein, Kati for short. She was raised along with her brother, Laci, by her mother and grandmother. Her father died in a labor camp and her grandfather left his shoes along with many others on the shore of the Danube.

As people began to hear about Mitchell's very diverse life, they asked why she didn't write her memoirs? She admitted that she didn't know how, "a life story is a very complicated thing," she said. Mitchell never had a college degree, but she had always taken night classes. She honed her skills with education and hard knocks.

"If you have a goal, someone has to show you the steps to get there," Mitchell said. She became her own teacher.

"I was always educating myself," she said. "If I wanted to write, I took a couple courses at UCLA, if I wanted to be a paralegal, I had to take paralegal courses."

She took a playwriting course in which she had to write a 1-act play. Of the three best plays, Mitchell's was picked and produced that summer. It was the beginning.

Since then, Mitchell has written several screenplays and three fiction novels. She based her characters on people she knows, but, of course, changed their names. "You have to create your characters – know them inside out," she said. What better way to develop characters than to already know them.

"From Budapest to Hollywood - Searching for the Promised Land" is the memoir of her roller-coaster ride through life. You wouldn't know how tough she had it by her appearance. For our interview, petite and slender Mitchell was dressed to the nines in a smart red turtle-neck sweater with a black blazer and black slim pants. Her confident smile could put anyone at ease. That confidence was hard won by her persistent fighting spirit.

The opening chapter of "From Budapest" begins in 1956 with an escape from communism in Hungary. She and her mother struggled to get across a snow-covered field to the saving arms of the Red Cross. The following chapters jump back and forth in time. But the sustaining force was built upon a promise her mother made to God when she was in a concentration camp that she would get her family to the promised land - Israel.

Kati, her mother and brother almost made it there in 1947 when they traveled from Marseilles to Haifa on the doomed Exodus ship. They arrived at the Haifa port only to be herded onto another ship that took them back to sea - one of many goals snatched away throughout Mitchell's life.

As a young girl, Kati aspired to be an accomplished ballerina and she was on that road to success, until it was discovered she had a heart condition. She turned to gymnastics and became an accomplished gymnast with hopes of qualifying for the Olympics. Again, life interfered and ended her Olympic dream.

Kati and her mother came to the United States. They settled in Toledo, Ohio, sponsored by her mother's first cousin. She became a dishwasher and saved her money and eventually moved to Brooklyn, New York.

A true go-getter, a nothing-can-stop-me-now kind of gal, Mitchell eventually landed in a different "promised land" - Hollywood, where she had several different careers. It wasn't easy because she was hindered by her thick Hungarian accent and the fact that she was female in a male-dominated world. Once when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she responded that she wanted to be a director. "Their faces turned into question marks as they looked at me," she wrote. "'What do you mean, director? You're a girl,' [her uncle] said."

Being a "girl" - translate to "female" - would be a problem from that point on.

Through her determination she became a talent agent, screenwriter, and a trial paralegal. She married a semi-famous actor and had a daughter. She knew many well-known producers, actors, and screenwriters - and had many stories she could tell about the industry.

Mitchell's writing style is refreshing. Of one lah-de-dah relative who thought she was better than everyone (don't we all know someone like that?) she says, "She had so many airs about her I couldn't breathe."

One chapter in her book, titled "I found the key to success. Then somebody changed the lock," could have been the theme of her life because every time she was on the verge of a lucky break, something would happen to hinder her success.

"I almost had a contract in hand and something would happen," she stated. "I was close to success – always an inch away."

But all these almost successes have made Mitchell who she is today - a confident, strong woman who knows herself well. In light of all that has happened in her life, she has made it.

In the preface, Mitchell writes, "The adventure of a lifetime is a life. A person drops into history, into a family, into a lifestyle. There are no guarantees of guidance. There is no equality. The person must rise above, float along, sink below whatever life offers."

"From Budapest to Holllywood - Searching for the Promised Land" is really about the triumph of the human spirit. We can all use this kind of inspiration.

"From Budapest to Holllywood - Searching for the Promised Land" is published by The Three Tomatoes Book Publishing and is available on amazon and booksellers everywhere. For more information about Katherine MK Mitchell and her books, visit http://www.katherinemitchellauthor.com.