Known to her fans simply as Garbo, she remains the quintessential female movie star. No other actress of either the silent or sound era has had such a profound and lasting effect on audiences. She is, as David Shipman wrote in The Great Movie Stars, "the standard against which all other screen actresses are measured." Born Greta Louisa Gustafson to a poor family in Stockholm, Sweden, she began to make her living in a barber shop, lathering men's faces with shaving cream. Her film career began when she later worked for a department store and was used in a short film advertising the company wares.
After appearing in several other short films, she won a scholarship to the Royal Stockholm Theater School. It was there that she began her association with Mauritz Stiller, who cast her in his movie The Atonement of Gösta Berling (1924). While traveling in Europe, MGM's LOUIS B. MAYER saw the film and tried to hire Stiller. The great L. B. Mayer wasn't impressed with Greta Garbo, however, whom he thought to be too overweight for American audiences. Stiller insisted that he wouldn't go to Hollywood without her—if Mayer wanted him as a director, he would have to have Greta Garbo as an actress. Reluctantly, Mayer agreed to hire both of them.
Once in Hollywood, MGM tried to find a way to promote her, so the studio called Greta Garbo the Norma Shearer of Sweden. It was "sheer" hype, until they cast her in what they thought would be a minor movie, The Torrent (1926). The film proved to be a sensation, and Greta Garbo received excellent reviews, becoming a star in America with her very first production.
Stiller hadn't directed her in The Torrent, but he planned to direct her in her next feature, The Temptress (1926). To both his and Greta Garbo's dismay, he was fired from the film and never made another movie with the star he had discovered. He died in 1928. Greta Garbo's career, however, continued to flourish. She often played a wronged woman who nobly submits to her fate, usually dying at the end of the movie. 1927 was a banner year for Greta Garbo. Flesh and the Devil (1927) was a massive hit, thanks to her pairing with JOHN GILBERT. The reported off-screen romance between the two stars helped ticket sales to soar. MGM wisely paired them again in Love (1927). Her several films in the late 1920s included another match-up with John Gilbert, A Woman of Affairs (1929). But when the sound revolution hit Hollywood, Greta Garbo's career was at a crossroads.
After considerable coaching of their star, MGM released Anna Christie (1930) with the advertising slogan "Greta Garbo talks!" Her first lines were, "Gimme a visky vith chincher ale on the side—and don't be stinchy, beby." Greta Garbo had already established her aloof personal style, rarely giving interviews to the press. Called the Swedish Sphinx by some, the air of mystery that surrounded her made her that much more intriguing to the public. Rumored affairs with famed conductor Leopold Stokowski and director ROUBEN MAMOULIAN fueled the gossip columnists' fires.
The enigma of Greta Garbo is, of course, one of the elements that has contributed to the world's lasting fascination with her. It would be wrong to suppose that all of Greta Garbo's movies were box-office bonanzas. Her first few sound movies did respectable business, but she was by no means MGM's biggest money-maker. Audiences, however, did line up to buy tickets to see her with brash new star CLARK GABLE in Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise (1931), and she was at the peak of her popularity in 1932 when she made Mata Hari and Grand Hotel.
The latter part of Greta Garbo's career saw some of her best films, but fewer people went to see them. Her modest appeal at the box office, coupled with her huge salary, made her a liability at MGM. The studio stuck by her, though, because of her popularity in Europe. Queen Christina (1933), in which she costarred with John Gilbert for the last time, was highly praised but was not the gigantic hit MGM was hoping for. Anna Karenina (1935) and Camille (1936) also won accolades from critics but merely respectable audience response. Her next film, Conquest (1937), was a bomb. Like MARLENE DIETRICH, she was labeled "box-office poison" in a theater owners' poll, and, like Dietrich, she turned to comedy to save her career.
If the decade had begun with "Greta Garbo talks," it ended with the advertising slogan "Greta Garbo laughs!" The film was ERNST LUBITSCH's Ninotchka (1939), and her performance as the communist who is wooed and won by the dashing capitalist (Melvyn Douglas) ranks among her best movies. Based on the success of Ninotchka, Greta Garbo starred in another comedy, Two-Faced Woman (1941), but the movie was neither funny nor successful. At this time Greta Garbo decided to retire—but not forever, as is generally supposed. She merely intended to wait until the war in Europe was ended and theaters there (where she was most admired) reopened.
But the war lasted much longer than she expected. She came close to remaking Flesh and the Devil in 1945 and tentatively considered several other film projects throughout the rest of the 1940s and early 1950s, all of which were eventually aborted. In one case, she was actually signed to star in a 1949 Max Ophuls film, but the movie was never made because Greta Garbo would agree to meet the film's producers only in a dark room where they would not be able to see her face clearly. Greta Garbo had been nominated during her career for Best Actress Oscars for Anna Christie (1930), Romance (1930), Camille (1936), and Ninotchka (1939), losing every time. But Hollywood finally paid tribute to Greta Garbo in 1954 with a special Oscar for her "unforgettable performances."
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