GARBO - PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDY WARHOL

It is written that American artist Andy Warhol trailed Garbo for years (mid 1960s to 1970s) and took pictures of her on the sly. But the pics never went to public and msut be still unreleased.

STILLS FROM GARBO IN EN LYCKORIDDARE & KARLEKENS ÖGON (1921/1922)

En Lyckoriddare: Greta and Alva Gustafsson appear as extras in this Swedish Historical drama, which features Gösta Ekman, from 1921. No stills from Garbo or her sister were ever published but one picture is excisting. TJ from GarboForever saw it and it is truly something ultra rare.

The Gay Knight (English title)

Karlekens Ögon: Greta and Alva Gustafsson appear as extras in this Svensk Filmindustri drama, which features (again) Gösta Ekman, The movie was made in Sweden 1922. Unfortunately, we never saw any still from Greta or Alva from this film but we are sure one or two stills are floating around somewhere too.

A Scarlet Angel (English title)

More info  HERE!

UNRELEASED SCREENPLAYS (1920s -1980s)

During her carrer, many screenplays or stageplays have been written for Garbo. Some were started but many may even have been completed. Sadly no screenplay has seen the light of day. The list is long:

Odalisken från Smolna (1924)

After the success of Gösta Berling Saga in march 1924, Stiller had another project in mind with Greta and his “Gösta” team. He wrote the screenplay, based on a story by Vladimir Semitjov and wanted to produce the picture for Svensk Filmindustri.

Some time later Stiller got an offering from the German film company Trianon A.G. to make this film. The film was never made and Stiller later wanted to make this film with Garbo in Hollywood. He re-wrote the script but MGM didn't like it, so the project had to be dropped once again. The scripts are lost.

German version of Romance (1930)

Director Jacques Feyder was signed to direct two Garbo pictures in German. The first one was Anna Christie and the second one was Romance. Arthur Loew, vicepresident of Loew's Inc., had recently announced that MGM was budgeting $2 million for foreign-language versions.

Only the German version of Anna Christie materialized. No other infos are known but the German language version (Romanze) has been scripted, but it also never saw the light of day.

Swedish version of Anna Christie (1930)

It is said that a Swedish version of the screenplay was also written and considered to be turned into a movie. Sven Hugo Borg write the screenplay.

Desperate (1931/32)

Mercedes de Acosta was eager to write a script for Greta. One day Thalberg gave his okay and Mercedes started writing a screenplay. Some time later she gave him her finished script, entitled Desperate. Great Story but Irving Thalberg turned Desperate down.

He thought that it sounded too uncommercially and he prefered to do Luigi Pirandello's play As You Desire Me with Garbo next. The screenplay has been released to public at some ocassion. You can read more about it  HERE!

The Life of Jehanne D'Arc (1931/32)

Mercedes also hoped to do Jehanne D'Arc with Greta for MGM.  It was her dream project. Mercedes script was based on her own play – Jehanne de Arc. After hard work Thalberg informed Mercedes that Garbo didn't like the finished product and that they will not do the film.

Mercedes was unhappy and hurted most of all ‘cos Garbo didn't tell her personally but it is said that it may have been Mayers influence.He hated the thought that Garbo wanted to do the film without make up and with fully cut hair. The original screenplay de Acosta was sold at an auction in 2001.

Madame Curie (1938)

In 1938, MGM announced that Garbo's next picture will be a film about Marie Curie, the female scientist who discovered radioactivity.

The story of the Nobel Prize – winning husband-and-wife research team of Pierre and Marie Curie was based the 1936 biography - Madame Curie , by their daughter, Eve.  Salka Viertel wrote the script and even travelled to Paris to meet Curie's daughter who couldn't see Garbo as her mother in a bio-pic film.

The film was again suggested to Garbo in 1939 - 1941 but was never made. The screenplay by Viertel was never released to public.

The Girl from Leningrad (1941)

The film was a remake of the Viktor Eisymont's 1941 film – Frontovyye podrug. Garbo was to play Natasha, a Russian Resistance Fighter in Nazi occupied territory.

“It was a moving, simple story about a wounded soldier and a nurse, made during the Russian- Finnish war, but changed into the Soviet-German conflict,” Salka recalled.  “The menacing presence of the Nazis was not so much seen as constantly felt ...”

On December 20, 1942, Garbo signed a one-picture contract with MGM offering her the same basic terms as her Two-Faced Woman agreement but it was never made and Garbo left MGM. The script still must be somewhere at MGM's archives.

Saint Joan (1942)

After leaving MGM, Producer Pascal Gabriel offered Garbo the chance to make Shaws Saint Joan.

On May 1943, Hedda Hopper announced that Greta Garbo finally got the role she's been waiting for. Hopper wrote that Garbo would sail sometime in September for England to play Joan of Arc in George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan. Clarence Brown was rumoured to direct and Salka Viertel was hired to write the screenplay along with Gottfried Reinhardt's brother, Wolfgang.

Due of the war, the project was put on hold and Pascal told Garbo that the project should be on hold till the war is over. It is very likley that the Viertel/Reinhardt screenplay has been completed but unfortuneatly no info can be found.

Woman of the Sea aka The Violent Sea (1944)

A movie set in World War II. Written by Vladimir Pozner, Salka Viertel and Joris Ivens. The project was  known as The Violent Sea. Garbo was to be featured as the woman skipper of a Norwegian merchant navy ship. She liked the script, but negotiations never got beyond the preliminary stage.

Salka said that after two-thirds of the script was finished, Cowan decided that this and a synopsis of the rest should be sufficient for Garbo to make up her mind but Garbo said no. It is very likley that the Viertel screenplay has been completed but unfortuneatly no info can be found.

Lover and friend aka The Duchess of Langelais (1949)

All fans know the story surrounding this project. sadly, the screenplay was never published somewhere. Read more about it  HERE!

More Screenplays?

PHOTO OF GARBO IN HAMLET COSTUME  (1929)

Garbo's most celebrated ‘drag' appearance was at a legendary costume party of 27 April 1929, soon after she returned from Sweden to begin work on The Single Standard.

The story reveals much about her relationship with Adrian: she came in for a fitting one day and found him designing a disguise for himself to wear to a gala hosted by Basil Rathbone and his wife, Ouida Bergere.

Costume parties were the Rathbones' passion; they had recently hosted one at the Victor Hugo restaurant as Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Garbo, in Cinderella fashion, sighed pathetically and said she wished she too might go, but the thought of so many people....

  
Photos from the late 1920s

Adrian pleaded with her to no avail, but she asked him to stop by her house and show her the finished costume on his way to the party. He did so – having taken a chance and fashioned a Hamlet costume for her in the hope of luring her along.

Garbo tried it on, added the mask, and Adrian assured her she'd never be recognized. Garbo went to the Beverly Hills Hotel in her Adrian-designed black satin trousers, full-sleeved blouse, and circular collar – the melancholy Swede disguised as the melancholy Dane.

All evening, fellow stars tried to guess the identity of the slender young man clutching protectively at the dagger in his belt, while Garbo moved unknown among them, perhaps eavesdropping on some gossip about herself (and perhaps also flashing to that fatal masked ball of King Gustav III).

In any case, she was happily into the spirit of the occasion when Lilyan Tashman walked up, tapped her shoulder, and said, "Well, look who's here – if it isn't Garbo in person!"

Annoyed and disappointed, she sought out a corner and soon slipped away. The added subplot was that John Gilbert was also there, parading his bride Ina Claire. When Garbo's presence was revealed, everyone assumed (and relished the idea) that she had come in a kind of retaliation.

It is not known if any photos were made with Garbo in this costume.

Sources: Barry Paris - Garbo

QUEEN CHRISTINA - COSTUME TEST  (1933)

On Friday, July 21, 1933, in preparation for the production of Queen Christina,  Garbo sat for a costume test with cinematographer William H. Daniels. Its  a nine-minute long test.

The costume test was preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012 through “Project Film-to-Film,” aimed at preserving as many films on film as possible over a two-year period. The project allowed the Academy to make new elements for over 500 projects in the Archive’s collection.

The full test hasn't been released yet.

THE SOTHEBY'S APARTMENT VIDEO (1990)

In October 1953, Greta purchased a seven-room apartment. It is located on the fifth floor of the Campanile at 450 East Fifty-second Street in New York/USA.

Greta died in April 15, 1990, in New York. Her niece, Gray Reisfield was her sole heir. Part of Garbo's estate was sold in an 1990 Sotheby Auction. It was called: The Greta Garbo Collection. For this auction a video, which gave us a look into the apartment, was filmed and probably shown on TV just before the auction, as part of the promotion for the sale. The full video was never released or shown.

See a short video clip  HERE!

GARBO MEMENTOS BY MERCEDES DE ACOSTA (1930s - 1960s)

In 2001, the auction house Christie's East in New York sold at auction a unique and extensive archive of mementos relating to Greta Garbo that Mercedes de Acosta saved during the course of their friendship/relatioship.

Some of the items of this collection are mentioned in her autobiography and included:

 Twenty black&white unpublished snapshots of a topless Garbo with their negatives taken  when the two had a
     tryst in Silverlake, Nevada.

 A number of negatives showing a nude de Acosta that Garbo took.

 Pressed flowers and a lock of Garbo's light brown hair in an envelope with de Acosta's handwritten notation
     reading Greta's hair, flowers, rememberances,

 Garbo's and de Acosta's elaborate astrology charts.

 A deteriorated leather sandal owned by Garbo.

 Two traced outlines of Garbo's feet.

 Christmas tags with Garbo's handwritten initials

 Numerous newspaper clippings, magazine articles and biographies about Garbo.

 A handwitten notebook filled with poetry that de Acosta wrote for Garbo from 1932 to 1944.

 The original screenplay de Acosta wrote for MGM (with the hopes that Garbo would star in it) titled The Life of
    Jehanne D'Arc".

Garbo "topless" by Mercedes
  

More  HERE!

Apart from all the listed above other things were sold too:

IN SEARCH OF A LOST TIME “COLOURED SCREENTEST” (EARLY 1970s)

Italian director and writer Luchino Visconti, wanted Garbo for this long planned picture based on Marcel Proust classic (also known as Remembrance of Things Past ).

Visconti

Luchino Visconti announced that Garbo has approached him to play the small part of  Queen Sofia of Neapel or the a part of the Duchess de Guermantes . Sir Laurence Olivier, Marlon Brando, Alain Delon and Madelina Renaud were all rumoured to be in the production too.

There is a rumour that Garbo made a colored screentest for this film but is not confirmed and we truly doubt that this is true.

Garbo in color, Sweden early 1970s
  

             More  HERE!

TURE SJOLANDER – PHOTOS & FILM (1970)

Swedish film producer Ture Sjolander released a book about Garbo in 1971. He followed her to Klosters/ Switzerland (probably early 1970s), were he shot many great candid pictures of Greta. Probably in the very early 1970s.

Garbo by Sjolander
  

More  HERE!

Ture said he still has over 70 unreleased colour pics he made, while Garbo was on vacation in her beloved Klosters, haven't been released yet.

Same goes for a 3 minute Super8 Film, which shows .....Garbo walking in Klosters !

THE TAPED CONVERSATIONS BY GARBO AND RAYMOND DAUM (1964 to 1989)

Daum is rumoured to have taped conversations with Greta, from 1964 to 1989. Raymond Daum released a book about the conversations in 1991 - Walking with Garbo.

The Original Taped conversations are unreleased.

THE TAPED CONVERSATIONS BY GARBO AND SVEN BROMAN (1979 to 1989)

Broman is rumoured to have taped conversations with Greta during the time 1979 to 1989. Sven Broman released a book about the conversations in 1992 - Garbo on Garbo (also known as Conversations with Garbo).

The original Taped conversations are unreleased.

TAPED CONVERSATIONS BY GARBO AND SAM GREEN (1979 to 1989)

Green is rumoured to have taped 100 hours of  phone conversations with Greta and other artists, between 1979 to 1989.

Some of Greens taped phone conversations with Greta were transcripted in the 1995 released Barry Paris Book Garbo.

The original taped conversations are unreleased.

GARBO LETTERS TO HER FAMILY (1930-1990)

Gray Reisfield, Greta's niece, said that she has over 200 letters written by Garbo. Letters that Greta wrote to her sister-in-law, Marguerite Baltzer Gustafson, known as Peggy. She was the wife of Sven Gustafson (GG's brother) and  mother of Gray (her niece).

Gray Reisfield 1999

Gray said that the depth of feeling for her family is in those letters. Greta was very concerned about everyone. The letters show a loving and caring Garbo. She was always there for her family.

Those letters are still unreleased.

UNRELEASED PHOTOGRAPHS

Garbo by Mercedes de Acosta, USA 1931
  

Twenty black&white unpublished snapshots of a topless Garbo with their negatives taken when the two had a tryst in Silverlake, Nevada, are still unreleased.

Garbo by  George Hoyningen- Heune, USA 1951

 Several outakes and unreleased photos made in 1951 by George Hoyningen- Heune.

Garbo by  Antony Beauchamp, England 1951

Several outakes and unreleased photos made in 1951 by Antony Beauchamp.

Garbo by Cecil Beaton, 1946-1966
  

Several outakes and unreleased photos made between 1946 - 1966  by Cecil Beaton, incl. a whole photosession which was made in london 1955/56.