Palmer told this story about Greta:
One evening, while Dutch Windsor, his wife Wallis, and Jimmy Donnahue were having dinner with us, there was a telephone call. Greta Garbo and her longtime companion, George Schlee, were in the harbour and wanted to know if they could come up. I told the Duke, and to my surprise he became quite animated. "Yes, tell them to come up," he said enthusiastically, "I've always wanted to meet her."
The Duchess was equally delighted; she had never met Garbo in person either. Rex jumped into the jeep and drove downhill to pick them up. It was a historic moment.The two women sat face to face and sized each other up from head to toe. Both knew they were legends of the twentieth century. Looking at them, I thought that life casts people in roles that a good scenario would never assign them. The woman for whom a man would be willing to give up his throne should obviously have been Greta Garbo, forever the world's most beautiful woman, unique and unattainable.
About Garbo's Beauty!
"There's no need to have beautiful features in order to be beautiful. It is the overall arrangement and its particular harmony that gives the impression of beauty. But in Greta's case every single feature was not only boldly designed but perfect by itself. Nothing was small in her face. A broad, high forehead, a strong, chiselled nose, as wide mouth, and most impressive of all, enormous dark blue eyes set under eyebrows curved like butterfly wings.
When we swam together, she would dive and reappear on the surface with drops of water clinging separately to eyelashes that looked as if they had been purchased at the drugstore. To me, though, the unique quality of her face showed at its best when she was displeased. In Greta's face, even her frown was a thing of beauty. Yes, there she sat in old blue slacks and a faded blouse a lonely woman."
Greta told her that she never met a man she could marry!
"Why haven't I got a husband and children?" she once said, during one of our long walks through the olive groves. "Are you serious?" I asked. A million men would have been happy to crawl on all fours to the marriage license bureau. "No", she said, "I never met a man I could marry."
And there, next to her, Wallis Windsor, in something white and exquisite, with what were probably fabulous jewels around her neck. Greta's brown hair hung straight and shapeless, matted from seawater, around her face. Wallis, of course travelled with her own hairdresser.
The Duchess of Windsor and Garbo!
"I'd like to give a party for you aboard the Sister Ann", said Wallis benevolently. "I have no dress" murmured Greta. "Then it will be an informal party", said Wallis with a glance at her husband, who nodded eagerly. All right. Tomorrow at eight in the harbor. The general conversation languished.
Greta never contributed much anyway, Schlee did his Russian best. Jimmy wasn't in form. And yet, Wallis had brought up a subject that ought to have interested all actors and actresses. "Who will portray us on the screen when the time comes?" she asked. "Because there certainly will be a film about us, won't there?"
No doubt. "Well, then, who will play us? What do you think?" We didn't know; we hesitated. This was slippery ground. "My part is easy to cast," said Wallis, "because the won't show me as I was, forty years old and God knows no beauty. They'll choose some curly bond mooncalf of a vamp a la Theda Bara with a long cigarette holder, to make our story plausible."
One of us said, "Whom would you choose, if it were up to you?" "Katherine Hepburn" said the Duchess without hesitation. "And to play the Duke?" Wallis didn't answer. But Windsor nodded politely in Rex's direction and said: "I think perhaps you would be the best choice." Rex pulled hard at his nose and muttered something gratified, if inaudible. That subject having been laid to rest, what next? I had something in reserve in case the silence threatened to become deafening. duchess, who was the most fascinating man you ever met? Present company excepted. Wallis thought for a few seconds, then broke the expectant silence during which Windsor, too, had been watching his wife with curiosity. "Kemal Ataturk" she said firmly.
Photographers!
Next day we collected Greta and Schlee from their yacht, which was tied up at night at the farthest, stinkingest end of the harbour, where they hoped, in vain as usual, to escape notice. Her entire life was devoted to finding some way to spend her days unrecognized and anonymous as other people do.
The harder she tried, the more persistently the press and the general public pursued her. Garbo hadn't made a picture in twenty years, but people still felt the urge to stare as closely as possible into her face. The rented yacht could dock only at night. During the day it drifted half a mile or so from shore, the deck shielded by canvas awnings, as though they were expecting a cloudburst. Photographers and reporters circled the yacht in rowboats and dinghies. We went out to Greta's yacht in our small Cris-Craft, the Lilli-Maria, and quickly climbed aboard by the ladder their sailors lowered for us.
Greta and Schlee were sitting, somewhat cramped, under the awnings. "Maybe if you'd pose just once for the photographers," I said, "give them five minutes, perhaps they'll leave you alone." A cross Swedish frown appeared between Greta's eyebrows. "No use," she said. "They won't go away. I've tried everything". So we all sat under the canvas and sweated. From time to time I peeped through a crack to see whether the boats had finally given up. There were only a few left, their occupants green in the face, because the sea was rising. "Won't be long now", said Schlee, the voice of experience.
We waited. I wanted to wash my hands and climbed down the narrow stairs to the cabin. Looking for Greta's bathroom., I went into the first one on the right, attracted by all kinds of pleasant smells. The glass shelves were loaded with bottles of cologne and perfume, and there were soaps of all colors, bath salts, and oil beside the tub – and an electric razor. Wrong one. I thought, this is George's bathroom. I tried the opposite one. This was Greta's all right; her swimsuit was hanging on a hook.
Otherwise the room was practically bare: a toothbrush, a comb with a couple of teeth missing, half a bar of Lux soap. When I got back on deck, the last dinghy had disappeared. We all climbed into our motorboat and dashed back to the dock at top speed, trying in vain to tie up between two strange yachts without being recognized. The photographers were triumphantly waiting for us, surrounded by a crowd of people. Greta realized that is was hopeless, and climbed stony-faced behind me up the steps to the dock. At the top the crowd was waiting. For the first time in my life, I was physically afraid. I thought that any minute I would be crushed, smothered, or at best thrown into the water.
The furious jostling of the people at the back thrust those in front hard up against us, and we couldn't give way, for there was nothing behind us, just boats and water a few feet below. Fortunately the photographers at the front of the crowd were as badly off as we were; they were being pushed into us and thus couldn't take any pictures. They had a hard enough time protecting their cameras. "La Divina!" yelled the frenzied crowd, surging forward. A minute more and we'd have all been in the water, with the photographers and the fans on top of us.
Schlee had his arm around Greta, Rex was punching anyone within reach – but the rescue came from the photographers, who hit out at the crowd with their tripods, yelling wildly in Italian. Finally we made an opening and fought our way through to the jeep, kicking anyone who got in the way. For once, the jeep started immediately and we roard off, panting and completely unnerved. It was much worse than I had imagined it. "I only know the rear entrances of the hotels I stay in," Greta had once said to me. "I always have to climb over garbage cans and hampers full of dirty linen and sneak up to my room on foot or in the service elevator".
She had tried everything to be able to spend at least her holidays in peace. When Garbo-hunting was at its height and she was travelling in Italy for the first time with Leopold Stokowski, she was advised to come to a gentleman's agreement with the press: she would meet them for an hour, be interviewed, and pose without dark glasses, in return for a few days peace in Venice.
The reporters enthusiastically accepted, both sides gave their word of honour, and Greta patiently answered questions and posed for pictures. When she said good-bye to them and hour later and left the hotel, on foot, the laughing, howling horde of photographers pursued her just as before. When the news leaked out that she was coming to visit us in Portofino, the post office engaged extra mail carriers to stagger up the steep path to our house with hampers of letters and packages.
"What shall I do with them?" I asked her. She didn't even glance at the pile of baskets, in the entrance hall. "Throw them in the sea," she said. 'But the packages. They're marked "Gift" and they've all got return addresses. 'Throw them in the sea. Up at our house she was safe. Only the jeep could negotiate the path, and a high wire fence kept mountain climbers at a distance. We spend the days on the terrace, chatted, sat quietly in the sun, or went for Greta's beloved walks in the olive groves behind the house.
Her daily walks were her religion!
Her daily walks were her religion; she withered when she was deprived of them. I once collected her from Onassis's giant boat and she moaned, "It is too small! I cannot go for my walks!" For years she had lived in New York, because that was the only place were she was left more or less in peace. There she could take her regular morning walk in Central Park, though always disguised in an old hat and raincoat and dark glasses. The story goes that when she asked Stokowski to come with her, the Maestro said in astonishment, 'But I have rehearsals every morning with the New York Philharmonic. "Cancel them," said Greta.
