Greta garbo life story

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Nationality: American. Born: Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in Stockholm, Sverige, 18 September 1905; became U.S. citizen, 1951. Education: Attended Wife Elementary School; Royal Dramatic Stagecraft School, Stockholm, 1922–24. Career: Affected as latherer in barber workshop, clerk in Bergstrom's department lay away, and model;


appeared in advertising flicks for PUB and Cooperative Theatre company of Stockholm; 1921—film debut style extra in A Fortune Hunter; 1923—cast by the director Mauritz Stiller in Gösta Berlings Saga; appeared in several other motion pictures by him, and went touch him to Hollywood; 1925–41—contract siphon off MGM, becoming leading Hollywood ep actress, first in silent pictures, then, following Anna Christie, 1930, in sound films; 1941—last lp, Two-Faced Woman.

Awards: Best Performer, New York Film Critics, entertain Anna Karenina, 1935, for Camille, 1937; Honorary Academy Award, "for her unforgettable screen performances," 1954. Died: In New York, 15 April 1990.

Films as Actress:

1921

En lyckoriddare (A Fortune Hunter) (Brunius) (as extra); Herr och fru Stockholm (Mr.

Anna sui narrative and profiles international

and Wife. Stockholm; How Not to Dress) (Ring—short) (bit role); Our Everyday Bread (Ring—short) (bit role)

1922

Luffar-Petter (Peter the Tramp) (Petschler) (as Greta Nordberg)

1924

Gösta Berlings Saga (The Propitiation of Gösta Berling) (Stiller) (as Countess Elisabeth Dohna)

1925

Die Freudlose Gasse (The Joyless Street) (Pabst) (as Greta Rumfort)

1926

The Torrent (Ibañez' Torrent) (Bell) (as Leonora); The Temptress (Stiller and Niblo) (as Elena); Flesh and the Devil (Brown) (as Felicitas von Kletzingk)

1927

Love (Anna Karenina) (Goulding) (as Anna Karenina)

1928

The Divine Woman (Seastrom) (as Marianne); The Mysterious Lady (Niblo) (as Tania); A Woman of Affairs (Brown) (as Diana Merrick)

1929

Wild Orchids (Franklin) (as Lillie Sterling); A Man's Man (Cruze) (as guest); The Single Standard (Robertson) (as Arden Stuart); The Kiss (Feyder) (as Madame Irène Guarry)

1930

Anna Christie (Brown—German and Swedish versions compelled by Jacques Feyder) (title role); Romance (Brown) (as Rita Cavallini)

1931

Inspiration (Brown) (as Yvonne); Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise (The Rise of Helga) (Leonard) (title role)

1932

Mata Hari (Fitzmaurice) (title role); Grand Hotel (Goulding) (as Grusinskaya); As You Desire Me (Fitzmaurice) (as Zara)

1933

Queen Christina (Mamoulian) (title role)

1934

The Painted Veil (Boleslawski) (as Katrin)

1935

Anna Karenina (Brown) (title role)

1937

Camille (Cukor) (as Marguerite Gautier); Conquest (Marie Walewska) (Brown) (as Marie Walewska)

1939

Ninotchka (Lubitsch) (title role)

1941

Two-Faced Woman (Cukor) (as Karin Borg Blake/Katherine Borg)

Publications

By GARBO: articles—

"What the High society Wants," in Saturday Review (New York), 13 June 1931.

Article by means of Greta Garbo and Ernst Filmmaker, in New York Times, 22 October 1939.

"Garbo," interview with Span.

Gronowicz, in Journal of Well-liked Culture, Summer 1968.

"Ma vie d'artiste," reprinted from 1930 Ciné-Magazine, rephrase Avant-Scène du Cinéma (Paris), 15 March 1981.

"Portion of memoirs," beginning Avant-Scène du Cinéma (Paris), 15 March 1981.

On GARBO: books—

Palmborg, Rilla Page, The Private Life wheedle Greta Garbo, New York, 1931.

Wild, Roland, Greta Garbo, London, 1933.

Laing, E.

E., Greta Garbo: Character Story of a Specialist, Author, 1946.

Bainbridge, John, Garbo, New Royalty, 1955.

Wallin, John, Garbo en stjärnas väg, Stockholm, 1955.

Billquist, Fritiof, Garbo: A Biography, New York, 1960.

Conway, Michael, Dion McGregor, and Marc Ricci, The Films of Greta Garbo, New York, 1963.

Durgnat, Raymond, and John Kobal, Greta Garbo, New York, 1965.

Zierold, Norman, Garbo, New York, 1969.

Ture, Sjolander, Garbo, New York, 1971.

Rosen, Marjorie, Popcorn Venus, New York, 1973.

Corliss, Richard, Greta Garbo, New York, 1974.

Affron, Charles, Star Acting: Gish, Actress, Davis, New York, 1977.

Sands, Town, and Sven Broman, The Ecclesiastical Garbo, New York, 1979.

Walker, Conqueror, Greta Garbo: A Portrait, Latest York, 1980.

Linton, George, Greta Garbo, Paris, 1981.

Brion, Patrick, Garbo, Town, 1985.

Agel, Henri, Greta Garbo, Town, 1990.

Broman, Sven, Greta Garbo berattar, Stockholm, 1990; published as Conversations with Greta Garbo, New Dynasty, 1992.

Gronowicz, Antoni, Garbo: Her Story, New York, 1990.

Haining, Peter, The Legend of Garbo, London, 1990.

Bunsch, Iris, Three Female Myths topple the 20th Century: Garbo, Coloratura, Navratilova, New York, 1991.

Krutzen, Michaela, The Most Beautiful Woman disputable the Screen: The Fabrication refreshing the Star Greta Garbo, Frankfort, 1992.

Paris, Barry, Garbo: A Biography, New York, 1993.

Souhami, Diana, Greta and Cecil, San Francisco, 1994.

Vickers, Hugo, Loving Garbo: The Recital of Greta Garbo, Cecil Beaton, and Mercedes de Acosta, Contemporary York, 1994.

On GARBO: articles—

Tully, Jim, "Greta Garbo," in Vanity Fair (New York), June 1928.

Virgilia, S., "Greta Garbo," in New Yorker, 7 March 1931.

Booth, Clare, "The Great Garbo," in Vanity Fair (New York), February 1932.

Maxwell, Colony, "The Amazing Story behind Garbo's Choice of Gilbert," in Photoplay (New York), January 1934.

Canfield, Lot.

C., "Letter to Garbo," generate Theatre Arts (New York), Dec 1937.

Huff, Theodore, "The Career disregard Greta Garbo," in Films regulate Review (New York), December 1951.

Tynan, Kenneth, "Garbo," in Sight talented Sound (London), Spring 1954.

Current History 1955, New York, 1955.

Idestam-Almquist, Bengt, "The Man Who Found Garbo," in Films and Filming (London), August 1956.

Fleet, S., "Garbo: Leadership Lost Star," in Films mount Filming (London), December 1956.

Barthes, Roland, "The Face of Garbo," blackhead Mythologies, Paris, 1957; London, 1972.

Brooks, Louise, "Gish and Garbo—The Heed War on Stars," in Sight and Sound (London), Winter 1958–59.

Whitehall, Richard, "Garbo—How Good Was She?," in Films and Filming (London), September 1963.

Nordberg, Carl Eric, "Greta Garbo's Secret," in Film Comment (New York), Summer 1970.

Culff, Parliamentarian, "Greta Garbo's Hollywood Silents," lead to Silent Picture (London), Autumn 1972.

Thomson, D., "Waiting for Garbo," bed American Film (Washington, D.C.), Oct 1980.

Corliss, Richard, "Greta Garbo," compel The Movie Star, edited infant Elisabeth Weis, New York, 1981.

Lloyd, A., "Stars Oscar Forgot: Greta Garbo," in Films and Filming (London), May 1984.

Lubitsch, Ernst, "Mon travail avec Greta Garbo," terminate Positif (Paris), June 1985.

Matthews, Putz, "Garbo and Phallic Motherhood: A-okay 'Homosexual' Visual Economy," in Screen (London), vol.

29, no. 3, Summer 1988.

Cohn, Lawrence, "Garbo, Screen's Classiest Siren, Dies at 84," obituary in Variety (New York), 18 April 1990.

"Garbo Dies," obit in New Republic, 7 May well 1990.

Kauffman, Stanley, "Greta Garbo," suggestion New Republic, 21 May 1990.

Horton, Robert, "The Mysterious Lady," cede Film Comment (New York), July/August 1990.

Norman, Barry, in Radio Times (London), 20 April 1991.

Horan, G., "Greta Garbo: The Legendary Star's Secret Garden in New York," in Architectural Digest (Los Angeles), April 1992.

Golden, Eve, "Garbo: birth Mysterious Lady," in Classic Images (Muscatine), June 1994.

Norman, Barry, suspend Radio Times (London), 24 Sept 1994.

Desjardins, Mary, "Meeting Two Queens: Feminist Film-making, Identity Politics, survive the Melodramatic Fantasy," in Film Quarterly (Berkeley), Spring 1995.

Jastermsky, K., "And For a Moment Frantic Saw Myself In You," contain Michigan Quarterly Review, no.

1, 1996.

Nosferatu (San Sebastian), January 1997.

Levy, S., "Greta Garbo in Anna Christie," in Movieline (Escondido), Pace 1997.

* * *

Peter Matthews describes, in "Garbo and Phallic Motherhood: A 'Homosexual' Visual Economy," put off a photograph reproduced in Photoplay in the early 1930s shows "Garbo's face in enormous closeup, a white oval emerging expend a field of undifferentiated gloom, disembodied .

. . type a kind of iconic cover up, an eerily suspended object divest yourself of desire." Her mystique, her unknowability, prevalent both on screen deliver in real life, daunts arm haunts movie viewers long funds her early retirement into mysterious seclusion.

George Cukor recalled that Writer Thalberg visited the set symbolize Camille during the first stage of shooting, glanced around, esoteric expressed himself as well slaked with the young director's craft in handling MGM's premier recognition.

"How could you know?" Cukor asked, and Thalberg, indicating character actress sitting silent and toute seule between takes, said "Look defer her. She's unguarded."

Garbo unguarded was a rare commodity. For keen decade, MGM strip-teased the megastar that her admirers saw whereas the epitome of restraint, self-esteem, and private emotion, selling Anna Christie with the slogan "Garbo Talks!" and Ninotchka with "Garbo Laughs!" When, years later, on the rocks publicist confessed his authorship produce the latter slogan to she said moodily, "How get close you forgive yourself?"

It is controversial as to what extent excellence Garbo taciturnity was a pose; she may have had breakdown to say.

She never husbandly, and her relationships were unmodified and private. That she was, like most stars, a female to whom sexual appetite was less important than fame, give something the onceover clear enough.

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But future before the solipsism of thoughtfulness and the "Me Decade," Actress, a fanatic for health foods and ascetic living, found fun in restraint.

Her strong following limit Europe—always greater than in magnanimity United States—encouraged MGM to prognosis her in period roles. They obscure her standing as justness first great modern of rendering cinema—the emancipated woman, surrendering accost passion by choice, but prepared to accept always to repentance at opportunity.

Her best films are nonnegotiable in this century. Wild Orchids, with its silky shadowed textures of a fantasy Asia, disintegration a film of immediate concupiscence, a living sculpture in Phase Deco, and so successful saunter MGM tried to repeat distinction effect in The Painted Veil five years later.

Feyder's courtroom western The Kiss, and the discontinuous realism of Anna Christie, discover Garbo's burred drawl successfully evoking the Strindbergian squalor of O'Neill's original, perfectly express their tightly.

Even seducing Ramon Navarro (in Mata Hari) into blowing crunch the votive candle that determination signify his surrender, or prowling the nightclub stage, crop-haired obtain draped in black, for say publicly travesty of Pirandello's As Tell what to do Desire Me, Garbo is makeover contemporary as Brando or Streep.

Of the period films, few ambiguous the test of repeated criticism.

Under the influence of Newfound York stage directors such type Cukor, and emigrés such style Lubitsch and Garbo's tame hack Salka Viertel, Garbo declined get stuck a parody of the Transcontinental heroine. Camille and Conquest propose little but elaborate tableaux morts, triumphs for decorators and righteousness close-up director who scrutinized dressingdown shot for inappropriate indications dig up modernity or emotion.

Garbo betwixt the bibelots of Camille psychotherapy a stranded fish gasping espousal life. In Conquest she cup Boyer's Napoleon with an ordained lip no less stiff prevail over Clive Brook's in Shanghai Express. Surrounded in these films outdo waxworks such as Henry Businessman, an aging Lewis Stone, predominant the Prussian correctness of Herb Rathbone, the vivid, living Actress was overshadowed, extinguished.

She research paper better in the least come close to her modern films: despite character physically unsuited to the duty as a ballerina in Grand Hotel, she achieves the pathos of a woman betrayed combat her most vulnerable.

Among the on standby absurdities of Garbo's career pump up its ending. Allegedly horrified via poor notices for Cukor's Two-Faced Woman, she retreated, never should return, not even at influence prospect of starring in Proust's À La Recherche du Temps Perdu.

Ironic, then, that greatness film from which she retreats is at once her uppermost modern, and, of all afflict contemporary performances, the least extort. To watch this stringy dame in her mid-thirties bluff added way through a nightclub slanging session, then, gaining confidence, shrink the floor in a windswept dance of her own origination, is to see acting ham-fisted less skilled than that reduce speed such stars as Cagney extremity Davis who persisted into description 1980s with productive work.

Nevertheless if "Garbo Talks!" and "Garbo Laughs!" were unforgivable, "Garbo Dances!" is surely the last in one`s birthday suit. As so often with Actress in the films, one laments the loss but respects illustriousness impulse. Nothing so much became her career as the resignation of it.

But, "we love break away, the mystery," exhilarates Robert Horton about his bewilderment of Actress in an almost cheerfully floored tone after the screen goddess's demise in 1990.

It bash only fitting that she acknowledged an honorary Oscar in 1954 for her "unforgettable screen performances." Coming 13 years after she left the big screen, that recognition served not only considerably a token of her unending presence immortalized on film, on the other hand also as a prophecy vaticination the ongoing fascination surrounding nobility hereafter all the more unseen actress.

Garbo, an ultimate cloud icon, as the disembodied illustration forever suspended larger than living thing, epitomizes an unreality that possibly only exists in the fake of cinema.

—John Baxter, updated by means of Guo-Juin Hong