THE GARBO NEXT DOOR

A friendship with Greta Garbo had its many pleasures. But, as a noted producer recalls, Garbo's celebrity and eccentricities produced some unusual moments, from a silent dinner with Mae West to a tense evening with Irene Dunne and Greer Garson to the unforgettable purchase of a $1.10 cream puff

BY WILLIAM FRYE

One day in 1954. while I was producing the TV series The Halls of Ivy, which starred Ronald Colman, Eleanor Aherne, the wife of the actor Brian Aherne, called to invite me to dinner. She asked me not to mention the invitation to our mutual friends the Colmans. This seemed odd, but because it was always a pleasure to visit the Ahernes at their wonderful house in Santa Monica, I saw no reason not to comply with Eleanor's request. f did ask for an explanation, and her reply was short and dramatic: “We have Garbo staying with us.”
     Eleanor Aherne was observing a cardinal Greta Garbo rule: Fewer is better. Only five people had been invited that evening–the very social actor Clifton Webb and his mother, Maybelle; Zsa Zsa Gabor and Porfirio Rubirosa, the international playboy whose wives had included to bacco heiress Doris Duke and Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton; and I.

ODALISQUE
Garbo reclining on a banquette in a suite at the Plaza Hotel in New York, photographed by Cecil Beaton in 1947.

     Barbara Hutton had lived in the house where we were dining before the Ahernes. It had been built around 1930 by Nick Schenck, president of Loew's and MGM. He had sold it to Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, who made a pact that whichever of them married first would get the house. Cary married Barbara Hutton, so Randy moved out. Barbara had done her best to glamorize what was basically a straightforward California beach house. The inspiration for the dining room came from Maxim's of Paris–red damask, red velvet, and lots of mirrors. You sat on banquettes against the walls, but it was a narrow room, so you could comfortably talk to the people across the way.
     Garbo sat opposite me, so I had a chance to study her closely. She was in her late 40s, and absolutely beautiful. She was wearing black velvet pants with a white blouse and a black velvet bolero. Her hair, cut Prince Valiant–style, came to just above her shoulders, and she kept pulling it back in a repetitive gesture.
     “Why do you have cotton in your ears?” I finally asked.
     “You know, Mr. Frye, I have a hole in my head, and here at the beach the wind blows right through, from one ear to the other. I cotton them up!” she replied with a straight face.

     I was totally charmed. After dinner I told Brian that it must be thrilling to have Garbo staying in his home.
     “My dear boy, it's not at till a thrill.” he said. “It can be goddamned embarrassing. When I go down to the pool in the morning to have breakfast, she's already out there sunning herself, stark naked. I never know which way to look.” A f ew days later, Garbo and I were at another intimate affair. Lenore Cotton's husband, actor Joseph Cotten, was away doing a film, so she invited Eleanor Aherne, Garbo, my friend the producer James Wharton, and me to dinner. It was a relaxed evening, and Garbo and I got to know each other better. A few days later I called Eleanor Aherne and invited her and Garbo to my Coldwater Canyon home for dinner.
     Garbo looked marvelous in a blouse and slacks, with a sweater on her shoulders. She wore no jewelry. That night and on countless subsequent evenings at my house, I was struck by how undemanding she was, how easy to please. Depending on the time of the year, she drank either vodka or, as she said, “Guttysark” (Cutty Sark scotch). I always added a little ice. Once, I suggested a splash of water, but she refused, saying, “No, thank you. I don't want to rust.”
     Garbo had quite a heavy Swedish accent, and it seemed to me that it became more pronounced with time, as her voice became deeper.
     For the first decade of our friendship, she came to dinner often. Garbo was famous for canceling at the last minute, although she never did it to me. I sometimes cautioned guests to stay cool in her presence, but I forgot to warn actor Vincent Price. When he spotted her, he blurted out. “It's Garbo!” Once he was himself again, they got along quite well.
     Garbo loved games. After dinner, I'd sometimes put a white napkin on a tray and place 20 objects on it–a postage stamp, a penny, a daisy, a cuff link, and so on. The players had 30 seconds to study the tray and then go back to their seats and write down as many of the objects as they could remember. The winner got a bottle of scotch or wine, or a box of chocolates, and Garbo won every time. She was very competitive.

In 1964 our friendship almost turned professional. With hundreds of hours of television under my belt, I had an opportunity to make my first feature, The Trouble with Angels, based on Jane Trahey's book Life with Mother Superior. I thought I could g et Garbo for the Picture. She would have been perfect as the mother superior–no hair problems, no costume changes, and, best of all, no leading man to worry about. The part had lots of warmth and humor, and over the years I'd seen a wonderfully funny side of her. I sent the book to her in New York, and she showed interest.
     When the first draft of the script was finished, I flew to New York with it. Garbo and I lunched at the Ahernes' brownstone in the East 50s, and I gave her the script. The next day, since I'd been given producer Ray Stark's house seats for a matinee of Funny Girl, starring Barbra Streisand, I invited Garbo. To my surprise, she accepted.
     I hired a car, and we drove to the Winter Garden Theatre at 50th Street and Broadway. Ray Stark had alerted the manager that we were coming, so we were ushered to our seats just as the houselights dimmed. Garbo had known Fanny Brice, who was Ray Stark's mother-in-law, and she told me she had always admired her. We both enjoyed the first act immensely, and when the curtain came down for intermission I said, “Are we going to just sit here?”
     “Please, we mustn't move,” she whispered urgently.
     I had been with Garbo often. but always in the privacy of my house or at the homes of friends. At the Winter Garden. I learned what her celebrity cost her in the world outside. Just minutes into the intermission, people realized that Garbo was in their midst. An audible buzz began to surround us. People walked down the aisle and crossed through the row in front of us, staring and talking and pointing.
     Trapped in a crowd soon numbering about 50, Garbo panicked. The moment the lights went down, she wanted to leave.
     “We're not leaving,” I said. “The car won't be here and I don't know if we can get a taxi. It's hot outside, so we're not about to walk. Enjoy the show, and before the curtain comes down we'll run up the aisle and get out.”
     But Garbo liked the second act more than the first, and when the curtain came down, I couldn't get her out of her seat. She applauded and applauded, and didn't seem to mind that the aisles were again jammed with people gawking at her.
     When we got to the street, the car was waiting. I put Garbo in the backseat, behind the driver, but before I could get around to the other side a woman opened Garbo's door and tried to climb in. I had to shove her forcefully out of the car. As we drove away, I realized I was exhausted. I'd been in public with any number of stars, including Tallulah Bankhead, Bette Davis, Rosalind Russell, and Joan Crawford, but I'd never witnessed anything approaching the frenzy we had just gone through.
     Garbo was still so high from watching Streisand's performance that she was unfazed. She even invited me back to her apartment for the first time. She lived beside the East River on 52nd Street, across from the River House. Her apartment covered an entire floor. However, I saw only the entrance hall and the living room, which was filled with beautiful furniture and exquisite paintings–auctioned after her death for almost $20 million. There was no chance of seeing the rest. The kitchen was off-limits, and she told me her bedroom was unfinished. (She had only been there for 11 years.) It didn't seem fair: she had been in my bedroom many times, but just to talk.
     I eventually steered the conversation to The Trouble with Angels. Garbo was a master at the game of delay. Before giving a definite yes or no, she told me, she would have to see a final draft of the script.

By the time the script was finished, Garbo had retreated with her friend George Schlee to his house at Cap d'Ail on the French Riviera. I phoned to tell her the script was on its way.
     At Garbo's suggestion. I had given the script to George Cukor to read, and he told me he liked it. “I'll even direct it, if you get Garbo.” he told me, “but I don't think you're going to get her. She's going to play a game with von. She loves to be wanted.”
     In spite of Cukor's pessimism. I kept hoping. Garbo was a friend, and she seemed deeply touched when I offered her the use of my house during the eight weeks it would take to make the film. I said I'd move into a hotel.

Once, I suggested a splash
of water in her scotch,
but she said, “No, thank you.
I don't want to rust.”
  

     A week passed and I didn't hear from her, so I phoned her again. Once more, Garbo hemmed and hawed, and I realized she was going to need even more stroking. “Look,” I said, “I'll come to France to talk to you in person.”
     I was in Cap d'Ail less than 48 hours when I realized there was no way she was going to make the picture. Not even for $1 million–a monumental salary in those days–which Columbia had authorized me to offer her. If Garbo had said no with some sorrow in her voice, it wouldn't have hurt so much. Instead, she just said matter-of-factly, “It is not possible for me to do it. It is not possible.”
     In the end, Rosalind Russell played the part of the mother superior and did a superb job. She repeated the role in a sequel, Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows.

After our discussion in Cap d'Ail, my friendship with Garbo had a hiatus. But in the late 1960s it sprang back to life in a rather unexpected way. She became my neighbor.
     Gayelord Hauser, the famous nutrition guru, lived across the street from me. Garbo came to California every spring and stayed with him for several months. Actually, she stayed in his guesthouse, which was very modest, just one room with an alcove for a bed and a kitchenette.
     Garbo loved the California climate, which allowed her to swim and walk virtually every day. I often wondered out loud why she didn't live there full-time. Garbo's response was always the same. “I can walk in New York, too,” she told me. “That's all I ever do. I walk the asphalt of New York.” I suspect the real reason she maintained her base in New York was that she wanted to keep “the movies,” as she referred to the whole motion-picture industry, at a safe distance.
     Garbo's Los Angeles days were fairly structured. She got up early and gardened for an hour or two. One morning she walked over to tell me, as proud as punch, that she had just killed a rattlesnake with a hoe. After her chores were done, she sunned and swam. If she lunched at Hauser's, they had iced tea and dietetic food. But she was not a strict follower of Hauser's wheat-germ-and-alfalfa-sprout regimen. If she came to my place, she'd get something less wholesome, perhaps a tuna-salad sandwich.
     An hour later she'd be ready for a walk. We'd cross over Coldwater and go up behind the fire station. I don't know why I call it a walk–it was more like a forced march, and it would last an hour or two. I tried all kinds of strategies to slow her down. “Let's stop and look at the view,” I'd say. Or “Hold on a minute, I've got something in my shoe.” The only thing that could interrupt a Garbo walk, however, was a wildflower. She especially loved wild roses, and she'd sometimes stop to pick one. The wonder in her eyes and voice as she contemplated the flower was positively childlike.
     I don't know what she did between four and six. She may have read, but I never heard her discuss books. Hauser took a nap every day about six. Since booze was not part of his health program, as soon as he retired for his nap, Miss G. would be at my door, all primed for a Guttysark or two. After an hour or so, she'd run back to join Hauser for dinner. They retired early to their separate beds.

During those early-evening visits, we talked about all kinds of things. Eventually, we even talked about her movies. It took a few years, however, before I dared to broach the subject. The picture she talked about most often and most freely was Two-Faced Woman. It was her last film, made in 1941, and she hated it. She described in graphic detail the horror of going to the preview in Long Beach and realizing the picture was no good. Because she liked Louis B. Mayer and the director, George Cukor, she offered to shoot the final scenes over again. In fact, they reshot them twice. But no amount of tinkering could fix the flawed film. Garbo's verdict: “Two -Faced Woman was not good and never could be made good.”
     My own theory is that Garbo was much better in costume pictures–Anna Karenina, Camille, Queen Christina. Those were her great films. She walked so well in all those grand gowns. Garbo was always “of the period.” In real life, she had a brisk. mannish walk. She looked absolutely at home in slacks and sweaters. I was with her hundreds of times, but the only time I ever saw her in a dress was the day we went to see Funny Girl . The truth is, she wasn't very feminine. Dressed in period costumes with luxurious wigs, she could look feminine, but it was difficult for an audience to accept Garbo as a contemporary woman.
     Gayelord Hauser seldom entertained, but one night he invited me over for what he called “a Hollywood party.” I assumed I'd be in the company of a lot of old friends; however, all 50 guests were Japanese. Gayelord's health-food line had just been launched in Japan. Few of his guests spoke English, and the evening was excruciating. Garbo refused to leave the guest-house until the last of them had left.
     Why, I asked her, hadn't she come out and been sociable?
     “I don't speak Japanese,” she said.
     Once she'd uttered one of those little Garboisms, a subject was closed.

REFLECTED GLORY
Dining with producer and
longtime friend Robert Reud
at New York's Marguery
restaurant in 1938, Garbo is
as camera-shy as ever.

Garbo and Hauser rarely went out in the evening, but one of their infrequent excursions intrigued me: George Cukor invited them to his house for dinner with Mae West and one of her musclemen. The two fabled ladies had never met.
     I went out to the guesthouse as they were preparing to leave. Garbo was in beige slacks and a beige sweater. “What are you planning to wear tonight?” I asked, knowing perfectly well that she was planning to wear what she had on.
     “I am going like this,” she said.
     “Put on your black slacks and sweater,” I said.
     “Why should I do that?”
     “Because Miss West is going to be in white. I've never been at dinner with her when she hasn't worn white. Put on your black slacks, black turtleneck, and black patent-leather shoes.”
     She took my advice, and the simplicity of the black clothes. combined with her wonderful hair, which was just beginning to turn gray, produced a stunning image.
     I said, “Promise me tomorrow you'll give me a blow-by-blow account of what happens.” She promised.

An audible buzz began
to surround us. Trapped in
a crowd soon numbering
about 50, Garbo panicked.
  

     The next night she arrived as usual for her Guttysark. We talked about this and that, but Garbo didn't mention Mae West. Finally, exasperated, I said, “Well, what did you talk about with Miss West?”
     “Oh,” she said, “I didn't talk. During dinner, all Miss West discussed was monkeys. Do you know she used to have monkeys? I don't know anything about monkeys, so I didn't talk.”
     “What about after dinner?” I asked. “Surely she didn't talk about monkeys after dinner, too?”
     “No. After dinner all she talked about was musclemen. I don't know anything about musclemen, so I didn't talk then either. I was home at 10:30, and I didn't say a word the whole evening.”

Eleanor Aherne called one day and asked what I would think of bringing our mutual friends Greta Garbo and Irene Dunne together for the first time over dinner at the Ahernes' in Santa Monica. I told Eleanor a story Irene had told me years earlier about Garbo.
     The two stars were both working at MGM, on different films. Irene always drove herself to the studio, dressed primly and properly in a suit with gloves and a bag. One morning, as her car passed through the studio gate, she noticed that a limousine carrying Garbo was right behind her. Irene wanted to see the storied star in the flesh, so she parked and waited for Garbo to get out of the limo. Their dressing rooms were nest door to each other, but they had never met. Ten minutes passed before it became clear that Garbo was going to outwait Dunne. Finally, Irene had to rush to her dressing room or be late for her morning call. Although they were working on adjoining soundstages, she never again saw Garbo, whose set was always kept closed.
     Garbo and Gayelord said they would ride with me to Santa Monica. Garbo, I knew, would want to ride in the front seat. Since Irene Dunne's house was on the way, in Holmby Hills, I told Eleanor I'd pick her up en route. Just before I left home, the phone rang. It was Irene. “Bill, dear, it's a long drive out to the ocean, and I'd like to sit in the front seat with you.”
     “That's going to be impossible,” I said. “Garbo always rides in the front seat, and she's first on board tonight.”
     Irene wasn't going to give up without a fight. “I really would like to sit in front.”
     I had no idea how to handle this deli cate situation. In the end, as I turned into Irene's driveway, I said to Garbo, “Would you mind terribly getting into the backseat? Miss Dunne gets carsick if she rides in the backseat. Even when she's being driven by her chauffeur, she sits in the front.”
     Irene, who was looking out the upstairs window, watched in amazement as Garbo moved from front to back.
     When we got to the Ahernes', Eleanor normally poise personified–was in a panic. Taking me aside, she said, “Bill, I've made a terrible mistake. Greer Garson was supposed to come to dinner tomorrow night, but I gave her the wrong date and she's coming tonight. She'll be here any minute. Pm scared to death to tell G.G., because meeting one new person is all she can handle, and she's never met Greer Garson.” When the doorbell rang. Eleanor made a beeline for the kitchen. I rushed to the bar and fixed a scotch for Garbo and a martini for Irene. Brian Aherne had the unenviable task of greeting Garson and her husband, the Texas millionaire Buddy Fogelson, at the door.
     Garson's voice carried clearly down the hall, and Garbo recognized it immediately. “What is she doing here?” she asked.
     Pressed in this way, I came up with the most pathetic story. “The Ahernes' house is for sale, you know.” (It really was.) “Maybe she's come to see it.”
     “At night?”
     “Well, potential buyers like to see what a house looks like at night.”
     Garbo didn't believe me for a minute. As Greer entered the room, you could feel the tension. She was wearing a full-length, black-and-white herringbone mink coat over a long green dress with white polka dots. Garbo and Irene were both wearing simple slack suits.
     It was not a comfortable evening. As we were leaving, Brian asked us to sign the guest book. Greer and Buddy signed first, then Irene. Garbo whispered to me, “I'm not going to sign.”
     “Oh, yes, you are,” I whispered back. “Otherwise you're going to walk home.”
     And so, after all the years she'd known them and all the times she'd stayed with them as their houseguest, Garbo signed the Ahernes' guest book for the first time.
     I feebly tried to reduce the growing tension. “This is a real first,” I said. “This page reads Greer Garson, Irene Dunne, and Greta Garbo, in that order. To my knowledge, it's the first time Garbo has ever had third billing.”

I never took a photograph of Garbo. I always wanted to, but I never did. At the end of one of her California trips, she came to the front door and rang the bell. I could see who it was, and I could also see she was in a playful mood, with a half-gallon jug of Cutty Sark slung over her shoulder.
     “Who is it?” I asked.
     “It's the water boy.”
     “I'm sorry, we don't take deliveries at the front door. You'll have to come around to the service entrance.”
     Like a delighted child, she flew around the side of the house. past the garage and clotheslines, and came in the back door. After giving me the scotch, she made another little presentation. “You have photographs everywhere in your home. Since you seem to like them so much. here's one that Dr. Hauser just took. It's only a Polaroid. but it's not bad, eh?” The photo showed Garbo at her most robust, in a white turtleneck sweater. Her hair was pulled back with a little leather strap. I didn't like it that way, and she knew it.

To her closest friends,
she was G.G. If you were on
the next level of intimacy,
you called her Miss G.
  

     “Why don't you let your hair grow a little longer and let it hang just above your shoulders?” I once asked her.
     “Fine for you to say,” she said, “but you don't have to wear my hair.”

Going to a public place with Garbo was always an adventure, partly because she hated to commit herself to anything in advance. One night I mentioned I was planning to go to the Farmers Market the next morning. I asked her if she'd like to go along. “Well, let me see how I feel tomorrow” was her entirely predictable response. She was constitutionally incapable of committing to anything on the spur of the moment.
     Early the next morning, the phone rang. “Are you still going to the market?” I told her yes. “Well, I'll be right over.”
     I had a station wagon and a Rolls-Royce in those days. I seldom used the Rolls, and I doubted if she'd ever been in it. So I decided to take it that day. As she got in, she noticed the R.R. insignia on the rubber floor mat. “Does this car belong to Rosalind Russell?” she asked. Garbo had never met Roz Russell, but she knew the two of us were close friends.
     She was dressed in what I called her “Katharine Hepburn look.” It was rather Chinese–loose cotton pants, a kind of coolie jacket, a straw hat tied under the chin, and the inevitable sunglasses. At the Farmers Market, I headed for the fresh vegetables, but we passed a bakery on the way, and Garbo stopped.
     “Oh, look at those cream puffs. I haven't had a cream puff in years.”
     “Well, treat yourself to one.”
     “No,” she said. “Buy it for me.”
     “Buy it yourself,” I said. “It only costs one dollar and 10 cents.”
     “Oh, so much!”
     “That's right. Buy one and I'll get some tea for you and some coffee for me.”
     When I returned with the tea and coffee, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Garbo had actually worked up enough courage to buy a cream puff. She was sitting at a table eating it, beside herself with joy. Someone 20 or 30 feet away waved at me. Garbo looked up from her cream puff. “Is that Janet Gaynor?”
     “It is.”
     “Oh,” she said, “don't let her come over here. I don't know her.”
     “Of course you know her. Her husband, Adrian, did all your costumes at MGM. You know exactly who she is, and she's a dear.”
     “Then go over and talk to her, because I don't want to meet her.”
     It could have been an embarrassing situation. but wonderful Janet saved the day. By the time I got to her table, she had figured out exactly what was going on. “You're sitting with Garbo,” she said, “and you had to come over here because she doesn't want to speak to me.”
     “That's it.”
     “Isn't she a funny little creature? But still so beautiful.”
     In spite of the fact that Garbo hadn't made a picture in 25 years, everyone recognized her. It made me realize that she was the very definition of presence. She radiated celebrity from every pore.
     Another morning excursion–this one in the station wagon–took us to Mr. Guy's clothing store in Beverly Hills. I had spotted a sweater there which I thought Garbo might like. She wore mostly beige or black, but she looked great in what I call “aster colors”–pink, lavender, purple. This was a pale lavender man's sweater, and when I described it to Garbo she couldn't wait to see it. It was early, and the store was deserted.
     Garbo hated spending money. She studied that sweater as if it were a piece of Georgian silver. She held it up, put it down, examined it in front of a mirror, viewed it under different lights, stretched the sleeves out. She did everything but put it on. It soon became apparent, however, that while she loved it she wasn't going to part with $150.

STAR GARDENER
Garbo at 43, photographed
by Cecil Beaton in 1948,
before she left Los Angeles
to live in New York.

     Back out on Beverly Drive, I recognized Angie Dickinson walking toward us with her daughter. Angie had worked for me years earlier on G.E. Theater. I introduced the two of them to my shopping companion, and we chatted for a minute or two. But you could never linger in the street when you were with Garbo.
     As we walked away, she whispered, with great wonder in her voice, “You know everyone in Beverly Hills.”
     We had encountered a grand total of two people.

To her closest friends, such as Eleanor Aherne, Greta Garbo was G.G. If you were on the next level of intimacy, you called her Miss G. That is how I always addressed her, and she always called me Mr. Frye. Even Gayelord Hauser, who was one of her closest friends, she always referred to as Dr. Hauser. Everyone else called her Miss Garbo.
     When she phoned you, or left a message for you to phone her, she often identified herself as Harriet Brown. I was in New York the first time she used her nom de guerre with me. The phone rang in my hotel room one morning.
     “Hello, this is Harriet Brown speaking.”

One morning she walked
over to tell me, as proud as
punch, that she had just
killed a rattlesnake with a hoe.
  

     The accent was a dead giveaway, but I went along with her little ruse. “Good morning, Miss Brown, you're up very early.”
     She was always brisk and business-like on the phone. “You're here three days. When do you want to come for a drink?”
     “Today, absolutely,” I said. I was well aware by then that Garbo was far less likely to cancel a same-day social obligation than one set for the future.
     One thing you did not call Garbo, under any circumstances, was Greta.
     When Jules Stein, founder of MCA, was in his last days, his wife, Doris, called to see if I could arrange to have Garbo pay him a visit. An earlier attempt to invite Garbo to a large social event at the Steins', I knew, had been rebuffed.
     Garbo agreed. I wasn't free to take her to the Steins', so James Wharton did. He reported that when the butler opened the door Doris came into view, gushing, “Oh, Greta, it's so wonderful to see you.”
     Garbo didn't respond at first. Once her mask of impenetrability was in place, she said, very pleasantly, “Tell me, how is Mr. Stein?” When she was ushered into Jules Stein's bedroom, his face came to life. He even got out of bed and sat in a chair. Garbo was wonderful with him–funny, warm, charming–and his spirits rose. Just think: Jules Stein, arguably Hollywood's most powerful man, who could have requested any and every star in town (certainly any and every MCA star) to visit him at the end, wanted to see only Garbo. And she had never been a client.

Garbo had a great curiosity about sex–especially who was doing what to whom. She didn't want details, exactly, just the broad brushstrokes. During one of her visits to Los Angeles, I had to go to New York to talk to Gloria Swanson about appearing in my film Airport ‘75.
     Two days later, I flew back to Los Angeles, and no sooner had I entered my house than Garbo rang the doorbell. She must have been spying from across the street. I invited her in, and she asked if I'd had success in obtaining the services of Gloria Swanson.
     “Yes,” I said, “she's set. If you won't be in one of my pictures, then I'm thrilled to have Miss Swanson.”
     Garbo wasted no time: “Does Miss Swanson live alone?”
     “No, she lives with a man named Bill Dufty. He's maybe 15 or 20 years younger than Swanson.”
     I should have known what was coming next. “Do they have sex?,” Garbo asked.
     “Good God, how would I know if they have sex?” I asked Garbo if she and Swanson had been friends.
     “Yes. When we both lived in Hollywood, I used to know Miss Swanson. But it has been years since I talked to her. Three years ago, though, she wrote me a letter. It said, ‘Dear G., we both live in New York, near each other, we are both alone, we have similar lives. Why don't we have dinner sometime? Please come over and have dinner with me.'”
     “Did you?” I asked.
     “No. I didn't even answer her letter.”
     “Why?”
     She paused and thought deeply. A hint of sadness crossed her face. Her answer to my simple question spoke volumes about Greta Garbo. “There was no one to make me.”

from:   VANITY FAIR        April 2000
© Copyright by   VANITY FAIR