Greta Garbo

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Greta Garbo
File:Garbo Lenox Publicity.jpg
Publicity still for film Susan Lenox
Born
Greta Lovisa Gustafsson
OccupationActress
Years active1920–1941
SpouseNever married

Greta Garbo (18 September 1905  – 15 April 1990) was a Swedish actress primarily known for her work in the United States during Hollywood's silent film period and part of its subsequent Golden Age. Once moving to Hollywood, she appeared in only 27 movies, yet she remains one of the most popular and recognizable Hollywood stars. The MGM marketing ploy, "Garbo talks" became a catch-phrase of the 1930s. Her popularity with the Depression-era audiences allowed her to dictate the terms of her contract in 1932, and she became increasingly choosy about her roles. After 1941, she accepted no more roles, and retired to an apartment in New York City.

Regarded as one of the greatest and most inscrutable movie stars ever produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the Hollywood studio system, Garbo appeared in both the silent and the talkies era of film-making. She was one of the few silent movie actresses to successfully negotiate the transition to sound, which she achieved in 1930's Anna Christie, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. She appeared twice as the fabled Anna Karenina, once in 1927's silent film, Love, and in 1935's Anna Karenina, for which she received the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. She considered her 1936 performance as the courtesan Marguerite Gautier as her best performance and that role in Camille earned her a second Academy Award nomination. During the World War II era, MGM attempted to recast the somber and melancholy Garbo into a comedic actress, in 1939's Ninotchka, which MGM touted with the tagline, "Garbo laughs," followed by 1941's Two-Faced Woman, in which Garbo danced and sang. For Ninotchka, Garbo was again nominated for an Academy Award; Two-Faced Woman did well at the box office, but was a critical failure. Garbo received a 1954 Honorary Academy Award.

Garbo reportedly entered into a variety of intimate liaisons with men and women, but her long-standing relationship appeared to be with the leading man, John Gilbert, whom she agreed to marry but she failed to show up for her wedding. In her retirement, during which she became increasingly reclusive, she lived in New York City. A 1986 Sidney Lumet film, Garbo Talks, reflected the continuing popular obsession with the star. Until the end of her life, Garbo-watching became a sport among the paparazzi and the media, but she remained elusive. She died in 1990.

Early life

Garbo, or Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was born in Stockholm, Sweden, the youngest of three children of a latrine cleaner, Karl Alfred Gustafsson (1871–1920) and his wife, Anna Lovisa Johansson (1872–1944).[1] Garbo's older brother and sister were Sven Alfred (1898–1967) and Alva Maria (1903–1926). The family lived in a small apartment at Blekingegatan No. 32 in Stockholm. She stated in the book Garbo On Garbo (p. 33) that her relationship with her mother was not strained.

Becoming an actress

Garbo circa 1920

When Gustafsson was 14 years old, her father, to whom she was extremely close, died. She was forced to leave school and go to work. Her first job was as a soap-lather girl in a barbershop. One day a young man by the name of Kristian Bergström, son of the founder of PUB department store, Paul U. Bergström, entered the barbershop for a shave. He eventually offered her a job as a clerk at PUB. She accepted the offer and started to work for PUB in July 1920, where she also modeled for newspaper advertisements. She appeared in two short film advertisements, the first for PUB, and they were eventually seen by comedy director Erik Arthur Petschler. He gave her a part in his upcoming film Peter the Tramp (1922).

From 1922 to 1924, Gustafsson studied at the prestigious Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. There, she met director Mauritz Stiller who worked as a teacher. He trained her in cinema acting technique, gave her the stage name Greta Garbo, and cast her in a major role in the silent film Gösta Berlings Saga (The Story of Gösta Berling) in 1924, a dramatization of the famous novel by Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf. She played opposite Swedish film actor Lars Hanson. She followed this appearance with a part in the 1925 German film Die freudlose Gasse (The Joyless Street or The Street of Sorrow) directed by G. W. Pabst and co-starring Asta Nielsen.

During filming of Die freudlose Gasse (1925)

She and Stiller were brought to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by Louis B. Mayer when Gösta Berlings Saga caught his attention. On viewing the film during a visit to Berlin, Mayer was impressed with Stiller's direction, but was more taken with Garbo's acting and screen presence. According to Mayer's daughter, Irene Mayer Selznick, with whom he screened the film, he was impressed by the gentleness and expression that emanated from her eyes.

Her first years in Hollywood were also marred by tragedy. Garbo's sister Alva died of cancer in 1926 at the age of 23, after appearing in one feature film in Sweden; MGM did not permit Garbo to return to Sweden for the funeral. Garbo and Stiller became friends with Einar Hanson, a Swedish actor who worked with her and Pabst on The Joyless Street, and then came to Hollywood to work at MGM and Paramount Pictures. Hanson was killed in an auto accident in 1927, after leaving a dinner with Garbo and Stiller. Then, as her fame grew, Stiller struggled in the studio system. MGM fired him, and he returned to Sweden in 1927, where he died the following year. She was only able to return there for a visit in 1928.

Hollywood career

File:Greta Garbo in Meyers Blitz-Lexikon 1932.jpg
Greta Garbo in 1932

The most well-received of Garbo's silent movies were Flesh and the Devil (1927), Love (1927) and The Mysterious Lady (1928). She starred in the first two with the popular leading man John Gilbert.[2] Garbo played the role of Iris Storm in "The Green Hat," a role made famous by stage actress Katharine Cornell.[3] Having achieved enormous success as a silent movie star, she was one of the few actors or actresses who made the transition to talkies, though she delayed the shift for as long as possible. Her film The Kiss (1929) was the last film MGM made without dialogue, although it used a soundtrack with music and sound effects only.

Her voice was first heard on screen in Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie (1930), which was publicized with the slogan "Garbo Talks". The movie was a huge success. In 1931 Garbo made a German version of the movie. Garbo next appeared as the World War I spy Mata Hari (1931). She was subsequently part of an all-star cast in Grand Hotel (1932) in which she played a Russian ballerina.

After a contract dispute with MGM, she eventually signed a new contract with the studio in July 1932, which gave her more control over her parts and her private life. She exercised her new control by visiting Sweden the same month and by having her leading man in Queen Christina (1933), Laurence Olivier, replaced with Gilbert. In 1935, David O. Selznick wanted to cast her as the dying heiress in Dark Victory, but she insisted on doing Tolstoy's Anna Karenina instead. Although Anna Karenina was arguably one of her most famous roles, Garbo regarded her role as the doomed courtesan in George Cukor's Camille (1936), opposite Robert Taylor, as her finest performance.

She then starred opposite Melvyn Douglas in Ninotchka (1939), directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Ninotchka attempted to lighten Garbo's somber and melancholy image. The comedy, Garbo's first, was marketed with the tagline, "Garbo laughs!", playing off the tagline for Anna Christie, "Garbo talks!" The follow-up film, George Cukor's Two-Faced Woman (1941), attempted to capitalize on Garbo's restyled war-time image by casting Garbo in a romantic comedy, where she played a double role that featured her dancing, and tried to portray her as an ordinary girl. The film, Garbo's last, was a critical, although not a commercial, failure.

Greta Garbo together with her mother Anna Gustafsson during a trip in USA 1939.

It is often reported that Garbo chose to retire from cinema after this film's failure, but Garbo's 1932 contract gave her control over her roles, and by 1935 she had become more choosy. Years passed without her agreeing to do another film. By her own admission, Garbo felt that after World War II the world changed, perhaps forever. In 1949, Garbo considered reentering the movie business to shoot La Duchesse de Langeais directed by Walter Wanger and she even filmed several screen tests. Otherwise she never stepped in front of a movie camera again. The plans for this film collapsed when financing failed to materialize, and these tests were lost for 40 years, before resurfacing in someone's garage.[4] They were included in the 2005 TCM documentary Garbo,[5] and show her still radiant at age 43.[6] There were suggestions that she might appear as the "Duchess de Guermantes" in a film adaptation of Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past: but this also never came to fruition. She was offered many roles over the years, but always turned them down.

Private life

A veiled Garbo in dark coat and hat writes at a counter.
Filling out U.S. citizenship paperwork in 1950

She gave few interviews, and her last was with the entertainment writer Paul Callan of the British newspaper Daily Mail during the Cannes Film Festival. Meeting at the Hotel du Cap Eden Roc, Callan began his line of questioning with, "I wonder..." Garbo cut in with "Why wonder?" and stalked off, making it one of the shortest interviews ever published.

She gradually withdrew from the entertainment world and moved to a secluded life in New York City, refusing to make any public appearances. Despite Garbo's obvious wish for privacy, elements of the public remained obsessed with her. In the 1984 film, Garbo Talks, directed by Sidney Lumet, a son (Ron Silver) tries to fulfill his dying mother's Anne Bancroft request by arranging for her to meet the Great Garbo reflected popular obsession with the star.[7] Until her death, Garbo sightings were considered sport for paparazzi. In 1974, pornographic filmmaker Peter De Rome tracked Garbo across New York and shot unauthorized footage of her for inclusion in his X-rated feature Adam & Yves.[8]

Even in the early days of her career, Garbo was reclusive; she signed no autographs, attended no social functions and answered no fan mail.[clarification needed] Today she is often associated with her famous line from Grand Hotel: "I want to be alone". However, Garbo later commented, "I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said, 'I want to be left alone.' There is all the difference."[clarification needed] Garbo neither married[9] nor had children and she lived alone.[10]

Reported liaisons

There was some speculation that Garbo was bisexual, that she had intimate relationships with women as well as with such men as the actor John Gilbert.[11][12][13] She and Gilbert starred together for the first time in the classic Flesh and the Devil in 1926. Their on-screen erotic intensity soon translated into an off-camera romance, and by the end of production Garbo had moved in with Gilbert.[11] Gilbert allegedly proposed to her three times before she finally accepted.[11] When a marriage was finally arranged in 1926, she failed to show up at the ceremony.[2][14] After the affair ended, and Gilbert's career collapsed with sound films, Garbo demonstrated great loyalty to him and insisted that he appear with her in 1933's Queen Christina, despite the objection of MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer.

Garbo was introduced to stage and screen actress Lilyan Tashman at a tennis party in 1927 and allegedly had an affair with her.[15] The two became inseparable companions who went shopping, swimming, and to Tashman's garden cottage.[16]

In 1931, Garbo befriended the writer and socialite Mercedes de Acosta, and introduced to her by the author Salka Viertel. According to de Acosta, the pair ultimately began a sporadic and volatile romance, punctuated by long periods during which Garbo ignored her and disregarded her many love letters. After about a year, the relationship ended, but they maintained contact. Following de Acosta's claims about her many trysts with Garbo, in her controversial autobiography Here Lies the Heart in 1960, the pair were permanently estranged.[citation needed]

According to the memoir written by dancer, model, and silent film actress Louise Brooks, she and Garbo had a brief liaison.[17][18] Brooks described Garbo as masculine but a "charming and tender lover".[19][20]

The 1995 biography Garbo relates Garbo's relationships—which were often just close friendships—with actor George Brent, conductor Leopold Stokowski, nutritionist Gayelord Hauser, photographer Cecil Beaton, and her manager George Schlee, husband of designer Valentina.[citation needed] In other cases, some private letters describe her as narcissistic, possessive, and supposedly ashamed of her father, a latrine cleaner, and suggest that Garbo suffered from periods of depression.[21]

Secluded retirement

Gravestone of Greta Garbo

On 9 February 1951, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In 1953, she bought a seven-room apartment in New York City at 450 East 52nd Street, where she lived for the rest of her life. Although she occasionally jet-setted with some of the world's best known personalities—Aristotle Onassis and Cecil Beaton—she elected to live a private life. She was known for taking long walks through the New York streets dressed casually and wearing large sunglasses, always avoiding prying eyes, the paparazzi, and media attention. Garbo did, however, receive one last flurry of publicity when nude photos, taken with a long-range lens, were published in People in 1976.

Garbo lived the last years of her life in absolute seclusion. She died in New York Hospital on 15 April 1990, aged 84, as a result of pneumonia and renal failure. She had previously been successfully treated for breast cancer.[22]

She was cremated, and after a long legal battle, her ashes were finally interred at Skogskyrkogården Cemetery just south of her native Stockholm. She invested very wisely, particularly in commercial property along Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Despite her wealth, she was known for extreme frugality.[citation needed] She left her entire estate, estimated at $20,000,000 USD to her niece, Gray Reisfield.

Awards and acknowledgments

Garbo received praise from many fellow actors:

Her instinct, her mastery over the machine, was pure witchcraft. I cannot analyse this woman's acting. I only know that no one else so effectively worked in front of a camera. —Bette Davis

Garbo was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for Anna Christie (1930), Romance (1930), Camille (1937) and Ninotchka (1939). In 1954 she was awarded a special Academy Award.

For her contributions to cinema, she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6901 Hollywood Boulevard. She was voted Best Silent Actress of the Century (her compatriot Ingrid Bergman winning the Best Sound Actress) in 1950, and was once designated as the most beautiful woman who ever lived by the Guinness Book of World Records.[23][24][25]

In September 2005, the United States Postal Service and Swedish Posten jointly issued two commemorative stamps bearing her likeness.[26][27]

During Garbo's Hollywood career, the animated cartoons frequently caricatured her. These include Warner Brothers' Porky's Road Race, Speaking of the Weather (both directed by Frank Tashlin) and Hollywood Steps Out (directed by Tex Avery). She is also caricatured in Disney's Mickey's Gala Premiere, among others.[citation needed]

Filmography

Template:Filmography table begin |- | rowspan="2" | 1920 | Mr and Mrs Stockholm Go Shopping | Elder sister | former title: How Not To Dress |- | The Gay Cavalier | Extra | uncredited |- | rowspan="2" | 1921 | Our Daily Bread | Companion | |- | The Scarlet Angel | Extra | uncredited |- | 1922 | Peter the Tramp | Greta | |- | 1924 | The Story of Gösta Berling | Elizabeth Dohna | directed by Mauritz Stiller |- | 1925 | Die freudlose Gasse | Greta Rumfort | The Joyless Street |- | rowspan="3" | 1926 | The Torrent | Leonora Moreno aka La Brunna | First American movie |- | The Temptress | Elena | |- | Flesh and the Devil | Felicitas | directed by Clarence Brown |- | 1927 | Love | Anna Karenina | directed by Edmund Goulding |- | rowspan="3" | 1928 | The Divine Woman | Marianne | Only a 9 minute reel exists. Source: The Mysterious Lady DVD |- | The Mysterious Lady | Tania Fedorova | |- | A Woman of Affairs | Diana Merrick Furness | |- | rowspan="3" | 1929 | Wild Orchids | Lillie Sterling | |- | The Single Standard | Arden Stuart Hewlett | |- | The Kiss | Irene Guarry | |- | rowspan="2" | 1930 | Anna Christie | Anna Christie | Nominated–Academy Award for Best Actress
Garbo's first talkie |- | Romance | Madame Rita Cavallini | Nominated–Academy Award for Best Actress |- | rowspan="4" | 1931 | Anna Christie | Anna Christie | MGM's German version of Anna Christie, released early 1931 |- | Inspiration | Yvonne Valbret | |- | Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) | Susan Lenox | |- | Mata Hari | Mata Hari | |- | rowspan="2" | 1932 | Grand Hotel | Grusinskaya | |- | As You Desire Me | Zara aka Marie | |- | 1933 | Queen Christina | Queen Christina | |- | 1934 | The Painted Veil | Katrin Koerber Fane | |- | 1935 | Anna Karenina | Anna Karenina | New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress |- | 1936 | Camille | Marguerite Gautier | Nominated–Academy Award for Best Actress |- | 1937 | Conquest | Countess Marie Walewska | |- | 1939 | Ninotchka | Nina Ivanovna 'Ninotchka' Yakushova | Nominated–Academy Award for Best Actress |- | 1941 | Two-Faced Woman | Karin Borg Blake | Template:Filmography table end

References

  1. ^ "Garbo Facts." GarboForever.com.
  2. ^ a b Paris, Barry. Garbo. pp 124–125
  3. ^ Tad Mosel, "Leading Lady: The World and Theatre of Katharine Cornell," Little, Brown & Co, Boston (1978)
  4. ^ Alberge, Dalya. "Why Garbo just wanted to be alone." The Times. August 20, 2005.
  5. ^ "Garbo: A TCM Original Documentary." Turner Classic Movies.
  6. ^ "Greta Garbo Profile." Turner Classic Movies.
  7. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/12/movies/film-garbo-talks-directed-by-sidney-lumet.html
  8. ^ Christakos, John. "Adam & Yves." Chicago Free Press. February 13, 2008.
  9. ^ "Greta Garbo". Filmreference.com. Retrieved 2010-04-25.
  10. ^ "Top 10 Most Reclusive Celebrities". Time.com. 2009-06-03. Retrieved 2010-04-25.
  11. ^ a b c Wayne, Jane Ellen (2003). The Golden Girls of MGM: Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly, and Others. Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. xv, 88–89. ISBN 0786713038.
  12. ^ Aldrich, Robert (2001). Who's who in gay and lesbian history: from antiquity to World War II. Routledge. p. 175. ISBN 0415159822. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  13. ^ LaSalle, Mick (2001). Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood. Macmillan. p. 196. ISBN 0312284314.
  14. ^ Greta Garbo. Goldensilents.com
  15. ^ Fleming, E. J. (2004). The Fixers: Eddie Mannix, Howard Strickling, and the MGM Publicity Machine. McFarland. p. 105. ISBN 0-786-42027-8.
  16. ^ McLellan, Diana (2000). The Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood. New York: Macmillan. pp. 68–9, 74–5. ISBN 0-312-24647-1.
  17. ^ Brooks, Louise, Roland Jaccard, and Gideon Y. Schein. Louise Brooks: Portrait of an Anti-star. Phébus, 1977. ISBN 285940502X,.
  18. ^ Weiss, Andrea. Vampires & Violets: Lesbians in the Cinema. J. Cape, 1992. ISBN 0224035754.
  19. ^ Wayne, Jane Ellen. The Golden Girls of MGM. Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2003. ISBN 0786713038. p.89.
  20. ^ McLellan, Diana. The Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood. Macmillan, 2001. ISBN 0312283202 p. 81.
  21. ^ Smith, Alex Duval. "Lonely Garbo's love secret is exposed." The Observer. September 11, 2005.
  22. ^ Gibson, Greg (2009). It takes a genome. FT Press. p. 20. ISBN 0137137466. The list of famous women who have had breast cancer... {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)
  23. ^ Petrucelli, Alan W. "Garbo's lonely legacy: Seeking the actress's final resting place." Post Gazette. September 9, 2007.
  24. ^ Reynolds, Elisabeth. "Greta Garbo Returns." The Epoch Times. November 2, 2005.
  25. ^ Callahan, Dan. "DVD Review: Garbo – The Signature Collection." Slant Magazine. September 7, 2005.
  26. ^ "Greta Garbo Has Starring Role on U.S. Postal Stamp" (Press release). United States Postal Service. 2005-09-25. Retrieved 2008-07-09. ...the U.S. Postal Service and Sweden Post jointly issued two commemorative postage stamps bearing her likeness. Both stamps, issued near what would have been her 100th birthday, are engravings based on a 1932 photograph....
  27. ^ ed. William J. Gicker (2006). "Greta Garbo 37¢". USA Philatelic. 11 (3): 12. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); |author= has generic name (help); |format= requires |url= (help)

Further reading

External links

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