Greta Garbo

## Summary

Greta Garbo was one of the most famous and highest paid stars of the silent era and the 1930s. She was infamous for her tragic performances and somber characters. She retired in 1941 at age 35. She was considered a highly introverted star. She did no interviews, no red carpet events and loathed publicity.

## Childhood

Garbo was born on 18 September 1905, in Stockholm, Sweden. This Swedish titan was born to a working class family. Her father, Karl Alfred Gustafsson, was a laborer, and her mother was Anna Lovisa, who worked at a jam factory. As the third and youngest child, she was a shy child and a daydreamer. Garbo had always planned on becoming an actress. Her favourite star was Mary Pickford, a worldwide superstar. However, a blow would come to Garbo. Her father passed away when she was 14, she recently had graduated from school as well. Garbo would have to become the family's breadwinner.

## Career

### Career Beginnings and Debut (1920-1924)

Garbo had mutiple jobs throughout 1920, such as working at department stores. She also did a bit of modelling and advertising. Garbo had also caught the attention of director Erik Arthur Petschler, who directed her in a short comedy Peter the Tramp (1922).

For the next two years she studied at the Royal Dramatic Training Academy in Stockholm. Finnish director Mauritz Stiller had noticed her and cast her in the Swedish romantic drama The Saga of Gosta Berling (1924), which was based on the novel of the same name. Stiller was Garbo's mentor and he moulded her into the famous actress she would eventually become. More offers were around the corner, such as The Joyless Street (1925), a German film. But Hollywood came knocking on the door soon...

### Hollywood and Silent Film Stardom (1925-1929)

Louis B. Mayer, who at the time was vice president and general manager of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, was encouraged by Victor Sjöström to meet Mauritz Stiller. The story of how Garbo was discovered by Hollywood has two versions. Either Mayer was initally to sign Stiller to a contract, but he demanded his protégé be included. The other version was that he had seen The Saga of Gosta Berling and sought to sign her instead. However, Garbo was signed. Garbo arrived in 1925, unable to speak English and regarded as an overweight girl, no one knew what Mayer had seen in the girl. No one knew how big this titan would be. MGM production boss Irving Thalberg had groomed Garbo. He made her lose weight and gave her English lessons. But a problem arose. How on earth would they cast Garbo?

Garbo's hollywood debut Torrent (1926) was a standard melodrama, but it introduced her image as a temptress. Quite ironic, as her following film was called The Temptress (1926). She was not quite a megastar, but she had steadfully began a rise to the top. MGM had a new star. Garbo was distraught with her roles, meanwhile her sister had passed away, she was ready to quit. Garbo had been again upset at the studio for another femme fatale role in Flesh and the Devil (1926), but it introduced her to her most famous relationship with John Gilbert, they quickly began living together.. The two had intense sexual chemistry and audiences were mesmerised by the two stars. Their relationship was highly publicised and for a while, they were one of the most famous couples in the world. Flesh and the Devil was a triumphant blockbuster, Garbo was an international star, but MGM was paying her barely anything. She went on strike. Eventually, MGM realised they could not lose their most famous screen star and they payed her a higher salary and gave her more power on production.

Her next film Love (1927), an adaptation of Anna Karenina, was a major hit and was one of the highest grossing films of the year. It was another film with her partner John Gilbert. During this period, Garbo began to require unusual conditions during the shooting of her scenes. She prohibited visitors—including the studio brass—from her sets and demanded that black flats or screens surround her to prevent extras and technicians from watching her. When asked about these eccentric requirements, she said: "If I am by myself, my face will do things I cannot do with it otherwise." Garbo was also one of the most critically acclaimed film stars. Critics frequently talked about her beauty and her usage of eyes while conveying emotions. Garbo had turned into a Hollywood megastar and a dramatic titan, for the next few years, audiences and the industry alike, regarded her as the biggest movie star in the world.

In 1928, Garbo starred in The Divine Woman (1928), which is now lost. She portrayed a Russain spy in The Mysterious Lady (1928). And her final film of the year A Woman of Affairs (1928), also her final silent film with John Gilbert, was a huge blockbuster and propelled her to MGM's biggest female star. Garbo closed in on the 1920s with films like Wild Orchids (1929), The Single Standard (1929), and The Kiss (1929). Sound had arrived, everyone was prepared for the Swedish husky accent to flop in sound.

### Sound and Superstardom (1930-1932)

Throughout the following years, the Swedish Sphinx would ultimately reach her peak. She starred in her first sound film Anna Christie (1930). Sixteen minutes into the film, she famously utters her first line, "Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side, and don't be stingy, baby." The film was publicised with the tagline "Garbo Talks!", and the film was hugely profitable and attracted immense critical attention, the public and critics loved the deep Swedish accent. In Anna Christie, Garbo plays a former prostitute who must confront the truth about her past when reunited with her father. She also starred in the historical drama Romance (1930), which popularized the Eugénie hat. She recieved Academy Award nominations for both roles, but did not win.

Garbo followed this with the romantic melodrama Inspiration (1931) and Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) (1931). It is the only screen pairing of Garbo and Gable, who did not like each other. Although the films did not match Garbo's success with her sound debut, she was ranked as the most popular female star in the United States in 1930 and 1931. She followed this with her one of her most famous roles as the eponymous exotic dancer and German spy in Mata Hari (1931). When the film was released, it "caused panic, with police reserves required to keep the waiting mob in order." Commercially, *Mata Hari* was Garbo's most successful film and MGM's biggest hit of the year.

The following year, Garbo starred in the ensemble drama Grand Hotel (1932), opposite Wallace Beery, John Barrymore and Joan Crawford among others. In the film Garbo utters a line "I want to be alone", the line is forever associated with the silver screen icon. Likewise, Grand Hotel was MGM's highest grossing film of 1932, causing Garbo to be dubbed "the greatest money-making machine ever put on screen". By this time she had a fanatical worldwide following and the phenomenon of "Garbomania" reached its peak. After appearing in *As You Desire Me* (1932), the first of three films in which Garbo starred opposite Melvyn Douglas, her MGM contract expired, and she returned to Sweden.

### Critical Triumphs, Decline and Comeback (1933-1939)

After nearly two years of the screen, Garbo finally agreed to return to the silver screen. Salka Viertel, Garbo's close friend wrote a screenplay called Queen Christina (1933). MGM was reluctant but Garbo insisted. For her leading man, Laurence Olivier and Charles Boyer were refused by Garbo and she considered John Gilbert. Although MGM was worried that his declining career would affect the box office, they eventually gave in. Publicized as "Garbo returns", the film featured one of Garbo's greatest performances, and was a major box office triumph. The movie, however, met with controversy upon its release; censors objected to the scenes in which Garbo disguised herself as a man and kissed a female co-star. She followed this with a melodrama The Painted Veil (1934), which was less successful. Garbo then starred in an adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (1935). The films Garbo begun to make contrasted with what was popular in domestic audiences. As a result, Garbo's films highly depended on international audiences for huge profits.

Garbo selected Camille (1936) as her next film. Directed by George Cukor and produced by Irving Thalberg, Garbo plays Margeurite Gautier as a lower-class woman who becomes a famous courtesan. During production, Thalberg passed away, which sent shockwaves in the Hollywood studios. When the film premiered in New York on 12 December 1936, it became an international success, Garbo's first major success in three years. She won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress for her performance, and she was nominated once more for an Academy Award. Garbo regarded *Camille* as her favorite out of all of her films. She followed this with Conquest (1937), the film emerged as one of the studio's biggest failures. When her contract expired soon thereafter, she returned briefly to Sweden. On 3 May 1938, Garbo was among the many stars—including Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Luise Rainer, Katharine Hepburn, Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, Fred Astaire, and Dolores del Río, among others—dubbed to be "Box Office Poison" in an article published by Harry Brandt on behalf of the Independent Theatre Owners of America.

After the box-office failure of *Conquest*, MGM decided a change of pace was needed to resurrect Garbo's career. For her next film, she collaborated with Ernst Lubitsch in the romantic comedy Ninotchka (1939). It was written by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, and Walter Reisch, and was Garbo's first full-fledged comedy. Starring opposite Melvyn Douglas, she portrayed a stern Soviet woman sent to Paris to supervise the sale of jewels seized from Russian nobles finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest. *Ninotchka* premiered in October 1939 and publicized with the catchphrase "Garbo laughs!".

The film was an international success and briefly revived her dying career. Garbo was praised by critics for her depature from melancholic roles as she transferred to comedy. Ninotchka is regarded as gem in one of the greatest years in film history. Critics praised her dry and monotonous delivery. Frank S. Nugen praised her "It must be monotonous, this superb rightness of Garbo's playing." Furthermore, he also stated that "she remains infallible and Garbo, always exactly what the situation demands".

### Last Work and retirment (1941-1990)

With George Cukor's *Two-Faced Woman* (1941), MGM attempted to capitalize on Garbo's success in *Ninotchka* by re-teaming her with Melvyn Douglas in another romantic comedy which sought to transform her into a chic, modern woman. She played a "double" role that featured her dancing the rhumba, swimming, and skiing. The film was a critical failure, but, contrary to popular belief, it performed reasonably well at the box office. Garbo referred to the film as "my grave". *Two-Faced Woman* was her last film; she was thirty-six and had made 28 feature films in a span of 16 years. Although Garbo was humiliated by the negative reviews of *Two-Faced Woman*, she did not intend to retire at first. But her films depended on the European market, and when it fell through because of the war, finding a vehicle was problematic for MGM. Garbo signed a one-picture deal in 1942 to make *The Girl from Leningrad*, but the project quickly dissolved. She still thought she would continue when the war was over, though she was ambivalent and indecisive about returning to the screen. Salka Viertel, Garbo's close friend and collaborator, said in 1945: "Greta is impatient to work. But on the other side, she's afraid of it." Garbo also worried about her age. "Time leaves traces on our small faces and bodies. It's not the same anymore, being able to pull it off." George Cukor, director of *Two-Faced Woman*, and often blamed for its failure, said: "People often glibly say that the failure of *Two-Faced Woman* finished Garbo's career. That's a grotesque over-simplification. It certainly threw her, but I think that what really happened was that she just gave up. She didn't want to go on."

Still, Garbo signed a contract in 1948 with producer Walter Wanger, who had produced *Queen Christina*, to shoot a picture based on Balzac's *La Duchesse de Langeais*. Max Ophüls was slated to adapt and direct. She made several screen tests, learned the script, and arrived in Rome in the summer of 1949 to shoot the picture. However, the financing failed to materialize, and the project was abandoned. The screen tests—the last time Garbo stepped in front of a movie camera—were thought to have been lost for 41 years until they were re-discovered in 1990 by film historians Leonard Maltin and Jeanine Basinger. Parts of the footage were included in the 2005 TCM documentary *Garbo*. In 1949, she was offered the role of fictional silent-film star Norma Desmond in *Sunset Boulevard*, directed by *Ninotchka* co-writer Billy Wilder. However, after a meeting with film producer Charles Brackett, she insisted that she had no interest in the part whatsoever.

She was offered many roles both in the 1940s and throughout her retirement years but rejected all but a few of them. In the few instances when she did accept them, the slightest problem led her to drop out. Although she refused throughout her life to talk to friends about her reasons for retiring, four years before her death, she told Swedish biographer Sven Broman: "I was tired of Hollywood. I did not like my work. There were many days when I had to force myself to go to the studio ... I really wanted to live another life."

In retirement, Garbo generally led a private life of simplicity and leisure. She made no public appearances and assiduously avoided the publicity she loathed. Contrary to myth, from the beginning she had many friends and acquaintances with whom she socialized and later travelled, although it has also been said that she didn't trust many people, wanted privacy and therefore didn't have many friends. Her response to anyone asking her about a comeback was "I have made enough faces", as she once said to David Niven.

In 1971, Garbo vacationed in Southern France at the summer home of her close friend Baroness Cécile de Rothschild who introduced her to Samuel Adams Green, an art collector and curator in New York City. Green became an important friend and walking companion. He was in the habit of tape-recording all of his telephone calls, including many of his conversations with Garbo. He did so with her permission, but Garbo ended the friendship in 1981 after being falsely told that Green had played the tapes to friends. In his last will and testament, Green bequeathed all of the tapes in 2011 to the film archives at Wesleyan University. The tapes reveal Garbo's personality in later life, her sense of humor, and various eccentricities. In 1977, Garbo wrote to Frederick Sands: "I am forever running away from something or somebody"… "Unconsciously I have always known that I was not destined for real and lasting happiness."

Although she was increasingly withdrawn in her final years, Garbo became close to her cook and housekeeper Claire Koger, who worked for her for 31 years. "We were very close—like sisters," Koger said. Throughout her life, Garbo was known for taking long daily walks with companions or by herself. In retirement, she walked the streets of New York City, dressed casually and wearing large sunglasses. "Garbo-watching" became a sport for photographers, the media, admirers, and curious New Yorkers, but she strictly maintained her privacy and her elusive mystique followed her to the end.

## Death

Garbo was successfully treated for breast cancer in 1984. Towards the end of her life, only Garbo's closest friends knew she was receiving six-hour dialysis treatments three times a week at The Rogosin Institute in New York Hospital. A photograph appeared in the media in early 1990, showing Koger assisting Garbo, who was walking with a cane, into the hospital.

Garbo died on 15 April 1990, aged 84, in the hospital, as a result of pneumonia and renal failure. Daum later claimed that towards the end, she also suffered from gastrointestinal and periodontal ailments.

Garbo was cremated in Manhattan, and her ashes were interred nine years later in 1999 at Skogskyrkogården Cemetery just south of her native Stockholm.

Garbo made numerous investments, primarily in stocks and bonds, and left her entire estate of $32 million to her niece.