Greta Garbo - Press Articles (Coronet

Camera on the Wolrd
Behind That Mask Bewitching Greta Garbo still is Hollywood's prime riddle.
“SHE IS POETRY, sunrise, great music …” In such terms critics have eulogized the charms of Greta Garbo. But, amazing as this legendary screen star may have been, today, in her tenth year of retirement, she remains an enigma. Acclaim and glamour, the chief values Hollywood lives by, never were her values. She shunned the spotlight, and as though outraged by such unprecedented behavior, it followed her everywhere. What made her so inaccessible? Pride? Surliness? A blighted romance? (Those who favor the last theory believe her to be dedicated to the memory of the only man she ever loved, the Swedish film director, Maurice Stiller.) Whatever the secret, it still is hers, still lies hidden behind the masklike beauty of her face.
Gold and exclusive off the screen, Garbo in her screen roles was a symbol of flaming, exotic passion.
	Hat pulled low, scarf high, Garbo pursues her solitary way. “I vant to be alone!” she is said to have exclaimed on one memorable occasion, and the phrase, which characterized her so well, became a part of the American language.
But Garbo can shine as well as glower. “She is as beautiful as the Aurora Borealis!” rhapsodized a usually blasé photographer. A tribute to her aloof radiance, the words scarcely suggest the warm smile she reserves for her friends.
	Under a variety of pseudonyms, in hats often spooky and clothes often drab, the Swedish-born star skulks out back doors and down alleyways–all to avoid the publicity which many another actress would go far out of her way to invite.
According to some who know her, Garbo on day will emerge from retirement and resume her screen career. What will her face then show? Will it finally reveal her secrets or, like the inscrutable Mona Lisa's continue to conceal them?
from: Coronet July 1951 © Copyright by Coronet


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