Following photographer Edward Steichen's 1928 visit to Hollywood, Vanity Fair sent another photographer,Nickolas Muray (1892–1965), to Hollywood the next year to make more portraits of Hollywood's greatest. Along with Genthe and Steichen, Muray had distinguished himself as one of the best independent photographers working in New York.
Unlike the Steichen session, Garbo was not filming when she posed for Muray but was at the studio preparing for her next film, The Kiss. Muray had asked MGM's publicist, Howard Strickling, if Garbo would wear a low-cut evening dress so he could make an uncluttered head shot. Not being able to find an appropriate gown, Garbo appeared in a white man-tailored shirt, as Muray remembered.
Another brief encounter followed, with Muray exposing perhaps a half dozen negatives using a template largely identical to Steichen's, including Garbo pulling her hair back with her hands on the side of her head. The best of his work showed Garbo with her shirt unbuttoned appearing as if she were about to take it off.
This charming, though in 1929 risqué, composition was never published. Vanity Fair decided not to run any of these photographs, so Muray sold four to Screenland , where they were published over two pages as The Kiss opened in theaters.
