One of the most famous GG rumor is of course the question about her sexuality. Was she straight or bisexual? Some even wrote and/or think that she was a lesbian. Well, as always there is no proof that Garbo had love affairs with both sexes, woman and men.
When the rumor did first came up?
Between 1930 and 1931. But remember Bisexuality was fashionably chic in sophisticated Hollywood circles during this period. “Everyone had to be a lesbian in the thirties” told Garbo’s friend Sam Green to Karen Swenson (Garbo - A life Apart, 1997), “even if they didn’t want to be. They certainly dressed up and went to lesbian bars – it was the thing to do. And it was the logical step in women’s liberation.”
Her friendship with Mercedes de Acosta was a main reason also supported this ‘Lesbian rumor’ in the early 1930s.
Garbo’s letters from Mercedes deAcosta
Mercedes was a Spanish-American poet, playwright, costume designer and socialite, she knew many famous celebrities of the show business. She had rumored love-stories with actresses like Marlene Dietrich, Eleonora Duse, Isadora Duncan. But it is said that the woman she loved most of all was absolutely Garbo.
In 1960 Mercedes De Acosta sold her Garbo papers to the Rosenbach Museum and library of Philadelphia that had to keep them sealed until 10 years after the death of Garbo. So in the year 2000, the so called "love letters" of Garbo to Mercedes d'Acosta to be unsealed, it came as great disappointment for many reporters and even some fans, that no lesbian attitude could be detected.
It is fact that the letters gave no evidence of a love story! One day Mercedes told Cecil Beaton (both were friends of Garbo) that, to her knowledge, Greta wasn’t “so far a Lesbian but might easily be one.” (Source: Karen Swenson - A life Apart)
Read more about the letters HERE!
What did Garbo’s family say?
In 2005, Scott Reisfield, Garbo's grand-nephew declared during promotion for Garbo: TCM Original Documentary (Bird and Brownlow), that to say that Garbo was bisexual or lesbian would be just conjection.
He also said that she clearly had a set of relationships with some very interesting men over time, and he thinks that is the actual focus of her interest.
