The mysterious Legend
of the elusive Garbo
by Lee Graham
It has been half a century (1928 was the year her discoverer, Director Maurice Stiller died) since Garbo turned her back on a maniacally inquisitive world. Beginning her desperate flight from that blazing celebrity which most stars consider the ultimate reward, Greta Garbo withdrew into the shadows of a final personal privacy which, strangely enough, brought a new kind of re-known.
Therefore, it was with some surprise that the world read of an interview the 72-year-old movie queen gave recently to a German magazine in which was quoted as saying she had led a lonely, wasted life and "It's too late to change it." The article said she spoke to a -reporter at a mutual friend's apartment in Klosters, Switzerland. Garbo lives two months of the year in a small flat in Klosters where she reads, sleeps and goes for long walks.
Although the woman has remained a total mystery all these years with only a series of disconnected news shots accidentally caught, she remains the most legendary star in movie history.
When Greta Lovisa Gustafsson was discovered by Stiller at Sweden's Royal Dramatic Academy, he immediately changed her name. It isn't generally known, but she almost became Greta GABOR. That conjunction between the most reclusive of future stars and the least reclusive of family names evidently shook up even the spirit of history – so we got GARBO.
After Louis B. Mayer saw the former barber shop employee in "The Saga of Gosta Berling," he ordered her to lose weight and brought her to Hollywood six months later. Her first American pictures, "The Torrent" and "The Temptress," drew poor reviews but made money because of the public's interest in the newcomer. Before her next picture, "The Flesh and the Devil," was released, Garbo was involved in a widely publicized romance with her co-star, John Gilbert. But when he proposed, she dropped him.
She would make 21 more pictures, receive three Oscar nominations, and break every rule in film's history. She refused to cooperate with the press or MGM (if she didn't get the money she wanted, she stayed home).
"GARBO TALKS!" proclaimed the ads and the world waited breathlessly when in "Anna Christie," she uttered her first words, "Gimme a visky, gingerale on the side, and don't be stingy, baby!" With that grave, tantilizing voice, she literally revolutionized the concept of the placement of the female vocal chords.
Almost a decade later, in "Ninotchka," the same ads announced "GARBO LAUGHS!" and the Mozartean gayety of her laughter proved her to be an artist of unparralled versatility.
"Even as a child I preferred being alone. I hate crowds. I was always inclined to be melancholy." Remarks like this prompted Alice B. Toklas to nickname the sad Swede, "Mademoiselle Hamlet."
Most notable among her few friends were Leopold Stokowski, Cecil Beaton (he was cut off her list after mentioning her in "Memoirs of the Forties"), Gayelord Hauser and designer Valentina. Valentina's husband, George Schlee, recalled that on a ship bound for Europe in the late fifties, he showed her John Bainbridge's unauthorized biography, "Garbo," which she promptly tossed overboard. "She never even opened the book," Schlee remembered.
Lately, she has added a new friend, Van Johnson, who has also become a recluse. When Garbo is in New York, she and the one-time bobby sox idol, eleven years her junior, frequently have quiet dinners at out of the way restaurants. Her pattern of life continues, and as you turn a corner on Manhattan's East Side, you're quite likely to find her walking briskly, alone, always alone, with that immortal nose pressed into the windows of various shops. The arching sense of solitariness is always there. The "hermit around town" will abruptly wheel and stride away if she becomes aware anyone is looking at that face that lights from within. That fabulous face is still unmistakable even though she wears no make-up.
Defying description, Garbo was most recently quoted, "I'm restless everywhere and unable to settle down...if only I knew where to go." |
