Garbo watching the 'view'

One day, screenwriter S. N. Behrman (he was working for Two-Faced Woman) was waiting for her to show up for a meeting at MGM:

“I went to the men's room and there was Greta. I asked her what she was doing there. She said, ‘I'm watching the view!' “

Garbo on the Two-Faced woman set

Garbo on Garbo

In the late 70s, on one of her last California visits, she and Anthony Palermo's daughter Michelle were sitting in the dark corner of a coffee shop one evening when a man came over and said:

“Aren't you Greta Garbo?” She looked at him and replied, “What would Greta Garbo be doing in a place like this?”

Garbo, late 1970s

Jean Harlow and her loud music

In the mid 1930s, Jean Harlow's little dressing room was quite next to Garbo's big room. Harlow often listened to funny dance tunes and she always played them quite loud.

But she always worried if this would annoy Garbo and so one day, she knocked at Garbo's door and asked if the music is too loud and GG said : "Nooooooo darling, i used to listened to loud and funny music too!"

Garbo the mollusk

In the 1960s, she said to her friend Raymond Daum:

"I'm sorry for a lot of things, for quitting things.... Actually, I've been out of order for years. It takes forever for me ... to make a move. How can I do anything when I can't even move from my living room to my other room? A friend told me, ‘You are like a mollusk!'

I didn't know what it meant, so I looked it up – it's an animal that doesn't move, just sits there.”

Garbo 'just sitting', England 1960

The hungry boy

On the Corsica voyage in 1973, with her friend Cécile Rothschild , Garbo was more playful than usual, plopping down next to Cecile at the bow of the boat with a cheerful, "Hi there, boy."

Corsica voyage in 1973

She was heavy on the masculine gender during that trip, said Garbo's friend Sam Green. "She'd come to the table and say things like, 'Here's a boy who's very hungry after his swim´."

Once, when Cecile was struggling to read a map in the wind, Garbo put her head on her friend's shoulder.

Garbo's huge razzzzberry!

There is this story were GG is trying on a costume for Grand Hotel – with her tailors waiting for her opinion.

Garbo in Grand Hotel

Garbo walked slowly up and down in her gown, stopped and gazed at herself in the full length mirror and started walking again. She didn't say a word, her face showed no expression. The tension mounted... Garbo continued her pacing back and forth. Suddenly she stopped, whirled around and faced herself in the mirror. Then she stuck out her tongue and gave herself a huge razzzzberry!

Garbo at dinner

(in treatment)

Fyling with Garbo

(in treatment)

Dali meeting Garbo

In the 1940s, Salvador Dali, the famous surrealist painter, was dying to meet Garbo, and Jack Warner set up a meeting. After agonizing over what to wear, Dali finally decided on a white suit, lilac silk shirt, and heavily waxed moustache.

Garbo in the 1940s

Garbo showed up in trousers and tennis shoes–and when she was introduced to Dali, took a long look at him and said " One of us has got it wrong." And she left!

Garbo visiting a gay cruising era

By 1983, at seventy-eight, she was walking shorter distances and at a slower pace, but was still as eager to observe human behavior as always. In the Tuilleries (France) one day, she suddenly said to Sam Green (her friend):

“Let's go to where the queens are. Someone once took me there – oo-la-la.”

So they went for a tour of the gay cruising area, where she made comments like, “Ooh, look at that one,” or, “Regardez le negre!”.

At one point, when two sailors passed, she said, “There's one for each of us!”

Garbo's Nicknames and Pseudonyms!

Rather than be Greta Garbo she prefers to masquerade. All pseudonyms that she has used in an effort to lose her public identity. When she was travelling, Garbo used funny names and alter egos. Her funniest ones were Gussie Berger and James Emerson.

The accident

One day GG was sitting in a restaurant/café and a woman journalist came to her and said:

” Oh,I'm so glad to meet Greta Garbo finally. My friends aren't gonna be so jealous when I tell them" and GG answered "You can tell your friends it was an accident."

Garbo – The snake killer

(in treatment)

Someone called G. Garbo

In 1985, she was attempting to do business with a young clerk at a Second Avenue dry cleaner's shop. "Is that a G or a C ?" the teenager asked as she filled out the ticket. "G", said the customer. "G-A-R-B-O," the clerk repeated, and then asked if the first initial was G or C.

"G!" she snapped, and left, at which point a customer customer watching the scene exclaimed, "Do you know who that was?"

"Of course," the clerk replied. "It was somebody called 'G. Garbo'."