On 13th december 1993 Sotheby's in London sold at auction a Greta Garbo exceptionally important and revealing series of over forty letters and cards signed "Greta", "G" or "Gurra" to Mimi ("Mimmi", "Mimosa", "Mimosasan" or "Misse") including three or four to her father Julius Pollak.
The letters
The majority of these letters were written in Swedish, up to eight pages in length, in pencil and ink with variations of handwriting which Garbo herself thought was "as bad as ever" and give a vivid insight into her feelings. The series included ten telegrams and an autograph poem in English sent by Garbo to Mimi Pollak in 1975 and paying tribute to their friendship.
Experts from the Letters
About Mimi's letter
(taken from a 1924 letter)
“The letter from you has aroused a storm of longing within me.”
About Hollywood
(taken from a 1926 letter)
"I am so tired, so tired ...I am so fed up with everything and so afraid because I am not old enough for all of this. I have also been very stupid. I have stayed at home from the studio for a while because I don't want to go there.
They tried to get a hold of me and threatened me but I still did not go. I hate being tied to the studio. Since I left, they have not paid me which I think is really cheap! ...I don't know what the outcome will be ...I do not know what will happen to me and to the studio situation.”
When Mimi was married
(taken from a 1928 letter)
“I dream of seeing you and discovering whether you still care as much about your old bachelor. I love you, little Mimosa.”
When Mimi was pregnant
(taken from a 1930 letter)
“We cannot help our nature, as God has created it. But I have always thought you and I belonged together.”
When Mimi gave birth to her son
(taken from a 1930 letter)
“Incredibly proud to be a father.”
Confused and unhappy
(taken from a late 1920s letter)
"You have no idea how it hurts to be as confused and unhappy as I am"
Garbo on her forthcoming film with John Gilbert
(taken from a 1926 letter)
"... there has been a lot in the papers about us but I cannot do what they expect me to. It does not suit me to be married...whoever did marry me would soon find out how brainless I am. He is very sweet though... He has everything, swimming pool, servants, a lovely house and I still go home to my ugly hotel room. Why??... "
Before a performance at the Dramaten
(taken from earliest letter, in 1923)
In the earliest letter, in 1923, writing in her Dramaten dressing room before a performance at the Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern in Stockholm.
"This time I will not just put some black around my eyes so I look like an owl... "
About being bored and being alone
(taken from a 1923 letter)
In one letter she complains about how dead and boring life is in the capital and declares how much she hates being alone, reflecting on their life at drama school:
"I keep thinking of you Mimi and thinking that I will meet you any second in the corridor...
About Mimi's engagement to Nils Lundeel
(taken from a 1923 letter)
"I love you and if you love Nisse then I love him too..."
In another letter…
(taken from a 1924 letter)
She comments in one letter, on having had a jolly time with a dinner date; she sends a drunken letter declining an invitation; she asks about an actor named Kiel-Moller and tells Mimi's father how much she would love to live in the country and longs for piece and calm, as well as how she adores Mimi.
About her travel to America
(taken from a 1925 letter)
In June 1925 she writes of her preparations for travelling in America:
"I leave as a rather unhappy young lady, as you can imagine... I am so pleased that Nisse loves you so. You deserve to be happy. You are the only one whom I confide in and I want to keep you as my friend... Don't forget me...".
From America
(taken from a 1925 letter)
From America a few weeks later she writes to console the sorrowful Mimi on the illness of her fiancé and gives a remarkably vivid and uncompromising account of her reactions to Hollywood:
"If you only knew how homesick I am. I suppose I will just fade away here. I wrote to you that I was going to marry. I still can't quite describe my feelings in letters, but I don't think that I will ever marry. You have no idea how it hurts to be as confused and unhappy as I am. I don't want to see anyone. This is the way I spend my day: I have just started on a new film with an American director.
Up at 6.00 am and home again at 6.00 or 7.00 in the evening and straight to bed and unable to sleep. And always so alone, so alone. Oh God, it is so awful. This ugly, ugly America, all just machinery, it is soul destroying. I never go out, only home to my boring little hotel... The only thing that gives me pleasure is to go to the bank and send some money to my family...
I don't want to meet people from the films and drink and talk about things I don't wish to talk about... People are very curious about me in the studio. Everyone stares at me and asks questions... I am sure they think I am a bit strange... the glamour with which we surround the American film world hardly exists here. There is nothing elegant or beautiful here... "
On her acting
(taken from a 1925 letter)
On the subject of her own acting she claims to feel quite uninspired: "I probably can't act that well"
On man and woman
(taken from a 1925 letter)
"Isn't it strange, Mimi, I never look at any man or woman for that matter. I would never be interested in them ever. For me there is only old Moje (Mauritz Stiller), sad isn't it? I suppose I will end up an old spinster. What do you say to that?"
On happiness
(taken from a 1925 letter)
Subsequent letters repeat the constant refrain of how she misses Mimi, longs for old times and feels lost:
"I have been so low but I suppose it is my nature which makes it so difficult for me. I am sure I will never be happy again..."
Her trip to Berlin
(taken from a 1925 letter)
She refers to her trip to Berlin with Stiller for the première of Gosta Berling's Saga; she mentions learning German; comments on the filming of Die Freudlose Gasse : "I am sure I will be so terrible"
In one letter she discloses something of her relationship with Stiller: "It is so complicated and difficult to delve into. But I am sure most of it is my fault. I do not want to adjust myselt to life as it is... I kill everything with my awful temper... " .
About her second MGM film
(taken from a 1926 letter)
She sends accounts of the filming of her second film, which she finds so "tiring", and of her problems with MGM:
"Americans are really wonderful, they never wish to understand anyone else, they never sympathise... directors... know nothing about soul and feelings... "
Then she sends news of Stiller's departure from MGM and of his subsequent activities and companionship: "Thank God I have him to talk to...".
More on working in America
(taken from a 1926 and 1927 letters)
In other letters she talks of Saxons's wish to merry her, of her indifference to her work ("only factory work") and of her sister's death.
She also talks of filming Anna Karenina : "….but the director is no good and so I will be no good either..."
And again of her devotion to Mimi: "…no one will ever take your place" .
Greta on her perpetual unhappiness
(taken from a 1926 and 1927 letters)
"I don't think any woman can feel as inferior and sad as I have felt... I have humiliated myself, been bitter, mean, mad but I can never get away from what fate has decided for me. I seem empty of everything... I have no wish, no particular longing... But I am so ungrateful. My film has just been shown and the critics were wonderfully kind but I wasn't impressed with myself at all... It is suddenly as if life has ended and something has died within me...
I have sold myself and have to remain here. If only things were not so cheap and vulgar... They call us Swedes stupid because we are so honest and don't want to talk about money. Which is really stupid... least of all I feel like a film star... I have stopped feeling... But I do have a dream: a small bachelor flat... Finally I will be so alone, because I can do nothing else..."
The letters two decades later
(taken from 1960s and 1970s letters)
After a gap of nearly two decades, she writes briefly and somewhat distractedly in the 1960s and 1970s ( generally in English ) of living on carrots and of not daring to come home to Sweden ( since she would be recognized ).
In 1975 she sends a poem about not being able to touch the hand of her beloved friend with whom she might have been walking through life.
Her last letter to Mimi
(taken from a 1984 letter)
In her very last letter to Mimi, written in 1984 over sixty years after the earliest letter, she writes, in childish capital letters:
"I am sad-and not very well-and afraid... How is this for a letter ?”
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