Greta Garbo - Press Articles (Screenland 1929)

How about the lovely Miss Garbo, who has but 22 years to her credit (or debit), a Swedish woman who already has become what the psychologists call the soul-image to the American people, and to many millions besides? Everything about her, so we are told, is mystery. To begin with, her history since she came to these shores reverses the theory that foreign actors are ruined by Hollywood and Americanization; their peculiar novelty wears off; their fire dies; from being passionate they become good sports, and from being unique they become commonplace. But Greta Garbo, while she was always Greta Garbo, has undergone an amazing development, as if she had added to herself only what was best in America and rejected the shoddy.
     No amount of success has rooted out her initial qualities, and, were it not for the new psychology with its knowledge of types, we could have no key to her mystery. Her mystery is this: She is genuinely shy, yet she broadcasts herself to the world; she loves solitude and is not a mixer, yet she stands in the glare of terrific publicity; it is not easy for her to express herself to others, yet she is today one of the truly remarkable actresses of the screen. America has, every year, a Prize Beauty contest, and every district of the land sends its favorite good-looker, and from these one is chosen as Miss America. Yet none of these Prize Beauties even faintly resembles Greta Garbo. She is not in any way the typical American beauty, whose symbol is the American beauty rose, shapely, open and frank of face, familiar, a good fellow, a mixer, with nothing in the least mysterious about her. She might live down the next block. Greta Garbo lives in Never-Never Land, and she is more popular, more loved of Americans than any of these.
     Her appeal is not direct, like that of an Anita Page or a Mary Pickford; it is subtle, evasive, often unexpected. She is not changeless, like a Norma Shearer or a Marion Davies. Most actresses have what we might call one face. Greta Garbo is a woman of a thousand faces. She always looks different. Spread out a set of her photographs and each is quite different. Here is the face of a very worldly woman, here is the face of an innocent, here is sheer loveliness, even magic; here is something approaching plainness. If we can say that almost every woman moves with a certain rhythm by which we place her–the athletic motion of a Helen Wills, the comedienne lightness of a Marian Davies–we can say of Greta Garbo that she has a thousand rhythms, as if she were all women in one, as if she were typical of all the women of all time.
     Such women are comparatively rare and they correspond with what the psychologist calls the soul-image, that is, the ideal woman, the woman that every man seeks in his dreams, the woman who will mean everything to him; and because she is changeable and varied, so unexpected in her thought and action, so different always, remains forever a mystery. The soul-image type woman, as Dr. Jung points out, runs the gamut of what women have been: from the shady to the light, from the demonic or devilish to the divine. Of course she may not have lived these things; but one senses in her nature all feminine possibilities–the child-like, the naive, the worldly, the irregular; maiden, mistress, wife, mother. She is Mona Lisa with her mysterious smile, a smile that sometimes looks like sadness, sometimes like joy. She is Cleopatra. She appears on the world-stage always as a disturbing beauty, a Helen that launches a thousand ships and destroys a kingdom.
     Psychologically this means that the woman is many-sided, instead of being caked and fixed like most of us. She is a mystery even to herself, and hence to men she furnishes the lure of the unknown and her many-sidedness gives promise of rich relationship.
     This, of course, does not explain Greta Garbo, so much as describe her.


GRETA GARBO Psycho-Analyzed An Amazing Psycho-Analytic Portrait of the Screen's Mystery Woman By James Oppenheim
Greta Garbo as she looked when she first arrived in Hollywood–a lonely, moody, shy Swedish girl. Hollywood direction, lighting, and clever costumes helped her to burst her bondage and become a world celebrity.	The poised and perfect Garbo of today! She found in America just that help which has allowed her to bring her real self–shut in, a being of inarticulate moods–out into the glare of the Kleig lights.
How about the lovely Miss Garbo, who has but 22 years to her credit (or debit), a Swedish woman who already has become what the psychologists call the soul-image to the American people, and to many millions besides? Everything about her, so we are told, is mystery. To begin with, her history since she came to these shores reverses the theory that foreign actors are ruined by Hollywood and Americanization; their peculiar novelty wears off; their fire dies; from being passionate they become good sports, and from being unique they become commonplace. But Greta Garbo, while she was always Greta Garbo, has undergone an amazing development, as if she had added to herself only what was best in America and rejected the shoddy. No amount of success has rooted out her initial qualities, and, were it not for the new psychology with its knowledge of types, we could have no key to her mystery. Her mystery is this: She is genuinely shy, yet she broadcasts herself to the world; she loves solitude and is not a mixer, yet she stands in the glare of terrific publicity; it is not easy for her to express herself to others, yet she is today one of the truly remarkable actresses of the screen. America has, every year, a Prize Beauty contest, and every district of the land sends its favorite good-looker, and from these one is chosen as Miss America. Yet none of these Prize Beauties even faintly resembles Greta Garbo. She is not in any way the typical American beauty, whose symbol is the American beauty rose, shapely, open and frank of face, familiar, a good fellow, a mixer, with nothing in the least mysterious about her. She might live down the next block. Greta Garbo lives in Never-Never Land, and she is more popular, more loved of Americans than any of these. Her appeal is not direct, like that of an Anita Page or a Mary Pickford; it is subtle, evasive, often unexpected. She is not changeless, like a Norma Shearer or a Marion Davies. Most actresses have what we might call one face. Greta Garbo is a woman of a thousand faces. She always looks different. Spread out a set of her photographs and each is quite different. Here is the face of a very worldly woman, here is the face of an innocent, here is sheer loveliness, even magic; here is something approaching plainness. If we can say that almost every woman moves with a certain rhythm by which we place her–the athletic motion of a Helen Wills, the comedienne lightness of a Marian Davies–we can say of Greta Garbo that she has a thousand rhythms, as if she were all women in one, as if she were typical of all the women of all time. Such women are comparatively rare and they correspond with what the psychologist calls the soul-image, that is, the ideal woman, the woman that every man seeks in his dreams, the woman who will mean everything to him; and because she is changeable and varied, so unexpected in her thought and action, so different always, remains forever a mystery. The soul-image type woman, as Dr. Jung points out, runs the gamut of what women have been: from the shady to the light, from the demonic or devilish to the divine. Of course she may not have lived these things; but one senses in her nature all feminine possibilities–the child-like, the naive, the worldly, the irregular; maiden, mistress, wife, mother. She is Mona Lisa with her mysterious smile, a smile that sometimes looks like sadness, sometimes like joy. She is Cleopatra. She appears on the world-stage always as a disturbing beauty, a Helen that launches a thousand ships and destroys a kingdom. Psychologically this means that the woman is many-sided, instead of being caked and fixed like most of us. She is a mystery even to herself, and hence to men she furnishes the lure of the unknown and her many-sidedness gives promise of rich relationship. This, of course, does not explain Greta Garbo, so much as describe her.

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