Greta Garbo

“All my life I’ve been a symbol – a symbol of immortal change. I’m tired of being a symbol – I long to be a humane being.”

Greta Garbo in Queen Christina

Greta Garbo (1905-1990) is arguably one of the biggest actresses in film history. Greta Lovisa Gustafsson of Stockholm, Sweden had long held, and often times talked about, her ambition to be an actress.

Her primary film appearances were in two short advert films; one for a section store where she worked as a millinery apprentice, and the second for a local bakery. These film ads were followed by a handful of extra roles in minor Swedish silent films. 1922 brought Greta her initial chance to appear in a professional film.

Peter the Tramp was a little silent comedy filmed in the style of Max Sennett. Her work in the film was sufficient to support her gain admittance to The Royal Dramatic Theater’s Acting School in Stockholm where she would study for two years.

It was for the duration of this amount of time when she met, and was mentored by, Sweden’s leading film conductor Mauritz Stiller, who gave her the stage name of Greta Garbo and a major role in his 1924 film The Saga of Gosta Berling. It was at this point that complexity entered the life of Greta Gustafsson.

At the time Greta was rather shy, more or less passive with a willingness to be molded, and possessed a sure freshness of appeal. She was the perfective subject for conductor Stiller, who had an imperial ego and fancied himself a cinematic master builder. It was Stiller’s dream to formulate the biggest star of all time – a woman who would personify all women. A woman who could be, “sophisticated, scornful, superior, but under the shining surface humanely warm and womanly.”

MGM producer Louis B. Meyer, while watching The Saga of Gosta Berling for the duration of a visit to Berlin, found himself impressed with the direction of Mauritz Stiller, but even more impressed by the acting and screen presence of Greta Garbo. Meyer negotiated a contract to fetch Stiller to MGM with Stiller insisting that Garbo also be offered a contract.

The Hollywood arrival of the two Swedish film celebrities induced no special excitement and MGM was not sure of just what to do with them. Director Stiller never finished a film for MGM and even though directing a couple of pictures for rival studios, had no success and finally returned to Sweden.

The begin of Greta’s Hollywood career likewise wasn’t going so well. Her screen test for Irving Thalberg failed to impress the producer. It took a set of still photos and a second chance at a screen test for Thalberg to realize the elusive, magical, and almost undefinable quality of the actress.

Her original couple of roles in the films Torrent and The Temptress brought Garbo to the attention of both critics and the public. This attention would provide the motivation for MGM to start out the real building of the Garbo legend. MGM had found itself another star.

What followed were a heap of of Garbo’s most intimate silent films including Flesh and the Devil, Love, and The Mysterious Lady. Starring with Garbo in Flesh and the Devil and Love was very popular leading man John Gilbert. The (erotic|sexual pleasure|sexually arousing intensity of the pair carried into an off-camera romance. The couple lived together for awhile with Gilbert proposing marriage three times before Garbo accepted. They were to be married in 1926. Garbo hid in a lavatory never coming out for the ceremony.

Her reputation for reticence and her mysterious screen presence would fit utterly with one another. She was almost always cast as a woman of mystery supplying a promise of sexual adventure. Audiences were fascinated with Garbo’s growing mystique.

She was described as “every man’s harmless fantasy mistress. By being worshiped by the entire world she gave you the sentiment that if your imagination has to sin, it may at least felicitate itself on it is impeccable taste.” Other descriptions included, “the supreme symbol of inscrutable tragedy.” and, “a super-human symbol of The Other Woman.”

The Garbo mystique was developing off screen as well. Her personal life proved to also be a mystery. She dressed in mannish clothing, with a carelessness with regards to her appearance, and lived frugally, occupying only a couple of rooms in her huge home. Her personal time was guarded, and while there were hints of interesting suitors no one in truth knew how she expended her time. Unlike other stars of her day, she would keep out of the way of being in the spotlight.

In 1927, Greta met stage and screen actress Lilyan Tashman, with the two allegedly having an affair. For a time the pair would be inseparable. This rumor of bisexuality proved to add fuel to the fire of the growing Garbo mystique.

By this time, sound had been introduced into motion pictures. With a good deal of of the silent screen stars unable to make the transition to sound recording, Garbo had galore doubts in regards to her own transition. Having achieved outstanding success in silent films, Garbo held out as long as she could fearing that her Swedish accent would prove to be a problem.

Not only was her accent not a problem, it intensified her exotic and (erotic|sexual pleasure|sexually arousing appeal with audiences. Her voice was basi heard in 1930′s Anna Christie, which was publicized with the slogan, “Garbo Talks!” Some of her more famous roles would follow including Mata Hari in 1931 and Grand Hotel in 1932.

While Garbo’s transition to pictures with sound was considered successful, it may likewise be said that it signaled the beginning of a slow decent in the stars box office appeal. There now appeared to be a crack in the Garbo mystique.

With the completion of 1941′s Two-Faced Woman, Garbo self-imposed upon herself…silence. She chose to undertake and preserve her mythic quality, gradually withdrawing from the amusement world, refusing to make any personal appearances, and living a secluded life in New York City surrounded by her globally widely known and esteemed art collection.

Greta Garbo has often times been related with her famous line spoken in the film Grand Hotel, “I want to be alone.” The sentiment of the line was sensed to be a personal request. When asked if the line might be just that, Garbo responded, “I never said, ‘I want to be alone.’ I only said, ‘I want to be let alone.’ There is all the difference.”

The obsession with the outstanding Greta Garbo still exists today, and the Garbo mystique has become a permanent portion of Hollywood history.

Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo (1905-1990) is as famous for her reclusiveness as for starring in such enduring classics as Flesh and the Devil, Grand Hotel, Queen Christina, and Ninotchka. In this richly illustrated volume, famous biographer Barry Paris offers the definitive biography of this arousing and attention holding and complex woman-from her hardscrabble childhood in Sweden to her arrival in Hollywood at the age of nineteen, from her meteoric rise to stardom to her unintentional retirement from filmmaking at the height of her fame, from the new life she crafted for herself to her surprising, and failed, plans for a comeback. Drawing on hitherto unavailable material, including one hundred hours of tape-recorded conversations, fifty years of correspondence, and consultations with Garbo’s surviving friends and family, Paris reveals the real woman behind the enigma.

“Barry Paris has crafted a magnificent, moving biography-a feast of rare, delicious facts, exploded myths, and compassionate observations. Surely it will be the final word on this most-fantasized-about movie idol.” Liz Smith, New York Daily News

“A witty, clearheaded correction to all the misinformation that has become part of the Garbo legend.” Julie Salamon, Vogue

“Magnificent, literate, detailed, and scrupulous. This is a book that at last solves the riddle of the Sphinx.” Hugh Leonard, Sunday Independent (London)

“A substantial work exploring the enigmatic life of one of the twentieth century’s most widely known and esteemed icons, a book noteworthy above all for it is humanity and compassion.” Robert Sklar, Newsday

“This strong, rich biography has sweeping detail, a huge cache of photos, and a satisfying grip on Garbo’s character. . . . Paris offers what is likely to be the ordinary life of Garbo-handsomely made, a gripping must-read.” Donald Newlove, Hollywood Reporter

Barry Paris is an award-winning biographer, film and music critic, and journalist who is the author of Louise Brooks (Minnesota, 2001). His articles have appeared in the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, American Film, and a great deal of other publications. He lives in Pittsburgh.

”A witty, clearheaded correction to all the misinformation that has become part of the Garbo legend.” –Vogue

”Magnificent, literate, detailed, and scrupulous. This is a book that at last solves the riddle of the Sphinx.” — Sunday Independent (London)

”A significant work exploring the enigmatic life of one of the twentieth century’s most famous icons, a book remarkable above all for it is humanity and compassion.” –Newsday

”This strong, rich biography has sweeping detail, a huge cache of photos, and a satisfying grip on Garbo’s character. . . . Paris offers what is likely to be the general life of Garbo–handsomely made, a gripping must-read.” — Hollywood Reporter

”(Reader: Anna) Fields’s sardonic and wry style fits well the public persona of Garbo.” –AudioFile

About the AuthorBARRY PARIS is the author of Louise Brooks. His articles have appeared in the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and American Film. He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, the actress and singer Myrna Paris, and their two children.

From AudioFileAficionados of early international and Hollywood filmmaking will find much of interest in this biography of Garbo. Anna Fields does an admirable occupation keeping the story moving as it weaves through the respective periods of Garbo’s life and discusses the numerous well-known persons through whom the story is pieced together. Fields’s sardonic and wry style fits well the public persona of Garbo. The one aspect of the book that makes the audio format tedious is the broad quoting of taped telephone conversations amid Sam Green and Garbo. The ceaseless repetition of “SG” or “GG” to designate the speaker would be effortlessly skimmed over in print. Moreover, in spite of assurances that Garbo realized the taping was being done, hearing these conversations gives one the uneasy sense of being an eaves-dropper on this woman who expended so much of her life guarding her privacy. J.E.M. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Most helpful client reviews

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful.
Meticulous Job
By Kathleen Chamberlain
One of the difficultnesses with celebrity biography is that biographers often assert too much, supplying as fact things that are in truth speculation or hearsay. Barry Paris fends off this trap very well, indicating distinctly which of his determinations are speculative and which may be documented. We see the value of this approach in his chapter on Garbo’s sexuality: different from numerous other Garbo biographers, Paris wisely refuses to rely on circumstantial evidence. Yes, I’m disappointed that the selective information is not more definitive, but then again, who would suppose the record of Garbo’s life to be any less equivocal than the woman herself? (And, as Garbo would no doubt point out, her sex life is none of our business anyway.)

If Paris is careful to discerned fact from gossip in biographical details, he is less cautious when indulging in psychological conjecture. For instance, his comprehensible statement of Garbo’s attraction to women (or her “sexual pathology,” as he terms it) is superficial, amateurish, and at times downright offensive (p. 249). (She turned to women only because she had been so hurt and betrayed by men? Please. Why ought to same-sex attraction be explained in terms of psychological harm and trauma? Why will have to it be “explained” at all?)

In general, the biography is weakest in it is psychological and cultural analyses. Despite galore interesting insights, Paris is evidently no psychologist, nor is he much of a cultural theorist. But I found it easy to skim these subsections and rather concentrate on the specifics of Garbo’s life and words, material that Paris presents thoroughly, meticulously, and (as far as I may tell) honestly. He’s respectful of his subject without being obsequious or gushy; he treats Garbo’s flaws in a balanced fashion.

Structurally, Paris may be repetitive. Stylistically, he have a tendancy to overuse his exclamation points! In a piece of severe writing, this quirk is distracting!

But all in all, “Garbo” is a solid, informative, gratifying biography.

11 of 11 humans found the following review helpful.
Garbo? Garbo who?
By M. A Newman
It is in all likelihood the case that more oftentimes than not the people who develop biographies of film stars hold themselves to a lower general than other authors. After all, most of these are trite recitations of scandals both real and imagined in which they are paired in any number of combinations.

Happily this is not the case with this book by Barry Paris. Mr. Paris brings a distinctive and scholarly approach to this work on the enigmatic silent and talky film star.

Frequently what compels humans to write these kinds of books is the assurance that a film star’s fan base will be sufficient to provide a ready made audience. In the case of Garbo’s career, as Mr. Paris cites time and time, it was her skill as an actress that enabled her to raise the quality of a work to dandier levels time and time again.

Garbo’s personal life was something else. It is clear that while in all probability a pleasant person to intimates, she did not suffer fools or intrusions gladly. In the final analysis as Mr. Paris points out, Garbo had two things going for her, her remarkable talent as an actress and the lengths she would go to to stay clear from undesirable contact. Otherwise she led a utterly general life with standard needs, at times carried almost to the level of excess in the case of Garbo’s a heap of quest for shoes. Still this mixture of the banal and rarified is the stuff of real life.

I would suggest that anybody reading this book might also get enjoyment from the TCM collection of Garbo movies that came out last year in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of her birth. This wondrous set likewise includes a copy of “Flesh and the Devil” with commentary by Mr. Paris.

8 of 8 persons found the following review helpful.
A top-notch bio
By Anyechka
This biography is just as well-written and meticulously-researched as Mr. Paris’s biography on Louise Brooks, which I had read prior to reading this one. He’s a outstanding celebrity biographer; he actually does his homework, doesn’t in truth get into the sleazy, sensational, and speculative trap that a lot of other celebrity biographers too often fall into, has a clear respect for his subject without fawning all over her, sugarcoating less than perfective distinct elements of her life, or keeping her up as some sort of demigoddess, and without doubt or question distinguishes amidst fact, straightout fantasy and falsehood, and rumor and speculation that could go either way. This professional approach is keenly felt when he’s writing with regards to Garbo’s relationships with men and women; there were a good deal of affairs of hers that were well-substatiated by outside proof (most peculiarly her affair with Jack Gilbert), but other than that one can’t genuinely say how some relationships she may have had, or even that she were actively bisexual, though she distinctly felt more comfortable in an emotional manner with women. She wasn’t totally asexual either; even though she did seem more comfortable alone, with no one invading her privacy and personal territory, she didn’t go through life altogether celibate either. And of course, Mr. Paris makes this topic one of only galore covered in the book, since what she did or didn’t do with any person she may or may not have had a kinship with isn’t genuinely any of our business.

What makes this book, and it is subject, so arousing and attention holding is the fact that the majority of Garbo’s life was not lived on-camera. She had her childhood and adolescence, her years of acting in Sweden, Germany, and America in the Twenties and Thirties, and then retired from the screen in the early Forties (though there was a strong possibleness she could have had to return to the screen in 1948, and some other times before and since). Mr. Paris even points out that, of the comparatively little amount of films she was in, not a whole lot of them would be considered outstanding cinematic works of art or classics. To paraphrase the old saying, she was seldom in a picture that was as good as she was. However, the strength of her personality, her riveting screen presence, her distinctive and androgynous beauty, and her acting talent elevated these films beyond formula pictures, made one watch them in spite of the not always outstanding scripts. Particularly interesting are the chapters on Garbo’s life post-acting. Mr. Paris brings these years of retirement to bright life, showing us that just because she had willingly dropped out of public view didn’t mean she had ceased to live a arousing and attention holding life; in fact, in galore ways her post-acting life was even more colorful and interesting. He likewise chronicles the real story of her widely known and esteemed desire to be alone, or to be left alone, and how the truth was more complex than just a timid recluse or a former moviestar who shunned most humane contact. She led a very full and active social life for the duration of those almost 50 years off-screen, and had friendships with a lot of high-profile and arousing and attention holding people, pursued a lot of diverse interests, had a lot of interesting thoughts, and in general lived a very interesting life. He likewise examines the truth behind why she never married; on the one hand, there’s plenteous proof to suggest that she just preferent to be alone, didn’t want to be made vulnerable by intimacy, would feel invaded or violated by such intrusion, was never actually cut out to be the stereotypical traditionalisti wife and mother; but on the other hand, galore of her close associates felt that perchance she could have been happy with a collaborator who knew and understood her need to be alone and the fact that she would never be a housewife or conform to the conventional gender role assigned to women in Western society, and even said she now and then voiced regret she had never married or had a family. Whatever the case, she was always very much her own person with her own identity.

However, even in a bio this meticulous and even-handed, there are bound to be a lot of errors. The major one I noticed was Mr. Paris’s statement that ‘The Kiss,’ Garbo’s final silent, was likewise the last silent freed in America but for Chaplin’s last stands, ‘City Lights’ (1931) and ‘Modern Times’ (1936). ‘The Kiss’ came out in mid-November 1929, but there were still galore theatres in America not wired for sound, and galore artists who were still freeing silents they had made earlier that year, such as Laurel and Hardy’s final silent, ‘Angora Love,’ which came out in December of 1929. Additionally, galore of the more minor studios did release silent pictures in 1930, so to say that this was the final American silent picture is kind of dishonest. It would have been better had he said it was the last *major* American silent. Another error I noticed was when Mr. Paris referred to Natacha Rambova (whose forename he didn’t even spell correctly) as a lesbian. This seems to be just one of those old unfounded rumors that just won’t go away. The reader also might disagree with a good deal of of his views or conclusions in regards to galore of her films, or sure distinct features of them, but the beauty of views is that we’re all entitled to our own and aren’t forced to agree with somebody else’s.

Overall, I would highly commend this book to any individual who wants to know more with regards to this widely known and esteemed and elusive enigma and to go beyond long-time rumors and speculation to find out the facts.

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