Greta Garbo - a Swedish actress

When Garbo was 14 years old, her father, to whom she was extremely close, died. She was forced to leave school and go to work. Her first job was as a soap-lather girl in a barbershop.

She then became a clerk at the department store PUB in Stockholm, where she would also model for newspaper advertisements. Her first motion picture aspirations came when she appeared in two short film advertisements (the first for the department store where she worked). They were eventually seen by comedy director Erik Arthur Petschler and he gave her a part in his upcoming film Peter the Tramp (1922).

Garbo studied at the prestigious Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. While there, she met director Mauritz Stiller. He trained her in cinema acting technique, gave her the stage name "Greta Garbo", and cast her in a major role in the silent film Gösta Berlings saga (English: The Story of Gösta Berling) in 1924, a dramatization of the famous novel by Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf

Europa
Luffar-Peter (Peter the Tramp), Sweden, 1922
The Saga of Gosta Berling, Sweden, 1924
The Joyless Street, Germany, 1925

USA, MGM
Torrent, 1926
The Temptress, 1926
Flesh and the Devil, 1927
Love, 1927
The Divine Woman, 1928
The Mysterious Lady, 1928
A Woman of Affairs, 1928
Wild Orchids, 1929
The Single Standard, 1929
The Kiss, 1929
Anna Christie, 1930
Romance, 1930
Anna Christie (German Language), 1930
Inspiration, 1931
Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise, 1931
Mata Hari, 1931
Grand Hotel, 1932
As You Desire Me, 1932
Queen Christina, 1933
The Painted Veil, 1934
Anna Karenina, 1935
Camille, 1936
Conquest, 1937
Ninotchka, 1939
Two Faced Woman, 1941

She and Stiller were brought to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by Louis B. Mayer when Gösta Berlings Saga caught his attention. Unfortunately, her relationship with Stiller came to an end as her fame grew and he struggled in the studio system. He was fired by MGM and returned to Sweden in 1928, where he died soon after.Garbo's sister Alva died of cancer in 1926 at the age of 23 after appearing in one feature film in Sweden, adding to the melancholy Garbo felt at being in Hollywood. MGM refused to allow Garbo to return to Sweden for her sister's funeral, and Garbo was only able to return to Sweden for a visit in 1928.

The most important of Garbo's silent movies were The Temptress (1926), Flesh and the Devil (1926), and Love (1927). She starred in the latter two with the popular leading man John Gilbert. Her name was linked with his in a much publicized romance, and she was said to have left him standing at the altar in 1926, when she changed her mind about getting married.

Greta Garbo Swedish-American Film Actress Framed Photographic Print
24.3125 in. x 34.0625 in.



Greta Garbo Photo
11 in. x 14 in.
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Ninotchka was a successful attempt at lightening Garbo's image and making her less exotic, by the insertion of a scene in a restaurant in which her character breaks into uninhibited laughter which subsequently provided the film with its famous tagline, "Garbo laughs!". The follow-up film, Two-Faced Woman (1941), attempted to capitalize by casting Garbo in a romantic comedy, where she played a double role that featured her dancing, and tried to make her into "an ordinary girl". The film, directed by George Cukor, was a critical (though not a commercial) failure. It was Garbo's last official screen appearance.

It is often reported that Garbo chose to retire from cinema after this film's failure, but already by 1935 she was becoming more choosy about her roles, and eventually years passed without her agreeing to do another film. By her own admission, Garbo felt that after World War II the world changed, perhaps forever.

In 1941, MGM costume-designer Adrian also left the studio, later saying:

"It was because of Garbo that I left MGM. In her last picture they wanted to make her a sweater girl, a real American type. I said, 'When the glamour ends for Garbo, it also ends for me. She has created a type. If you destroy that illusion, you destroy her.' When Garbo walked out of the studio, glamour went with her, and so did I."

Garbo was considered one of the most glamorous movie stars of the 1920s and 1930s. She was also famous for shunning publicity, which became part of her mystique. Except at the very beginning of her career, she granted no interviews, signed no autographs, attended no premieres, and answered no fan mail.

In 1953, she bought a seven-room apartment in New York City at 450 East 52nd Street, where she lived for the rest of her life.

Garbo lived the last years of her life in absolute seclusion. She had invested very wisely, particularly in commercial property along Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, was known for extreme frugality, and was very wealthy.

She died in New York Hospital on 15 April 1990, aged 84, as a result of pneumonia and renal failure, which had shut down her stomach and kidneys. She had previously been operated on and treated for breast cancer, which required a partial mastectomy, from which she recovered.[citation needed]

She was cremated and her ashes were finally interred after a long legal battle at the Skogskyrkogården Cemetery in her native Stockholm.