Decades before Cher, Garbo was only known by her last name. “Garbo Talks!” said the advertisements for their first talkie, Anna Christie. “Garbo laughs!” shouted the advertisements for her comedy “Ninotschka” from 1939.
Yet 31 years after her death in 1990, Garbo remains shrouded in mystery, as she was when she was alive.
From Robert Gottlieb, a former editor of the New Yorker, “Garbo” is a fascinating biography of the film legend. Gottlieb, a critic, understands that much of Garbo’s life (her sexuality, her inner thoughts) remains mysterious.
But Gottlieb, a former editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster and former boss of Alfred A. Knopf, paints a revealing portrait of Garbo and her time.
An extensive selection of photos and film stills adds to the beauty of the book. A selection of articles by critics and contemporaries enriches our image of Garbo.
Garbo was born (given the name Greta Lovisa Gustafsson) in 1905 in a slum in Stockholm, Sweden.
Garbo was only 16 years and 24 films in Hollywood, writes Gottlieb.
At just 36 and still adored by her fans, Garbo suddenly retired from Hollywood. She didn’t give her audience a very revealing reason why she stopped making films.
“I’ve made enough faces,” Garbo told actor David Niven when he asked her about it, Gottlieb reports.
After leaving Tinseltown, Garbo lived mostly in New York City for almost half a century until her death in 1990.
Garbo wasn’t as popular as Charlie Chaplin or Mary Pickford, Gottlieb tells us in his lively introduction to the biography, Why Garbo, “but the impact she had on the world was as great as hers.”
The mystery of why Garbo lived in “self-imposed seclusion” after retiring from Hollywood was compelling, but “almost a distraction,” writes Gottlieb.
Many of her films are “clichéd or worse,” emphasizes Gottlieb. MGM initially presented Garbo as a vampire and “attracted men with her vampiric ways,” reports Gottlieb, “but she hated that.”
Eventually, Garbo became an icon. “But none of this explains,” Gottlieb writes, “why she has penetrated the audience’s subconscious more than any other star:”
Wherever you look in the period between 1925 and 1941, Gottlieb adds: “Garbo is in people’s minds, hearts and dreams.”
Garbo is mentioned in Ernest Hemingway’s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls and in the letters of the poet Marianne Moore. More recently, references to Garbo have appeared in the song “Bette Davis Eyes” and even in “The Simpsons.”
Her Hollywood peers loved Garbo just as much as film audiences. “Other Hollywood stars…were just as keen to meet them,” writes Gottlieb, “or just to get a glimpse of them like a regular fan.”
Her work is “pure witchcraft,” Bette Davis said of Garbo. “I can’t analyze this woman’s acting.”
While Gottlieb respects Garbo and is fascinated by her, his biography is not hagiography.
Garbo, who grew up in poverty as a child, could be cheap. In New York, she was known for being stingy with tips and salaries for people who worked for her and shopkeepers.
Perhaps because of her shyness or her lack of education (she had to leave school at 14 to support her family), she wasn’t a great conversationalist.
She’s had relationships with men and women from actor John Gilbert to queer fashion photographer Cecil Beaton to writer Mercedes de Acosta. But to what extent (or if) those relationships were sexual isn’t known, Gottlieb reports.
It is known that Garbo wore men’s pants, shirts and shoes in the off. “How ironic if ‘the most beautiful woman in the world’ really would rather have been a man,” writes Gottlieb.
Reading “Garbo” is like sipping whiskey (or ginger ale) with the iconic star. drink up!
‘garbo’
By Robert Gottlieb
c.2021, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
$40/448 pages
Few icons are more ubiquitous and at the same time more mysterious in the cultural landscape than queer icon Greta Garbo.
Even if you’ve never seen “Grand Hotel,” you probably know that Garbo said the famous line “I want to be alone” in this 1932 film.
Even the most ardent teetotaler would enjoy hearing Garbo say in the 1930 film Anna Christie, “Give me a whiskey, ginger ale and don’t be stingy baby!”
Decades before Cher, Garbo was only known by her last name. “Garbo Talks!” said the advertisements for their first talkie, Anna Christie. “Garbo laughs!” shouted the advertisements for her comedy “Ninotschka” from 1939.
Yet 31 years after her death in 1990, Garbo remains shrouded in mystery, as she was when she was alive.
From Robert Gottlieb, a former editor of the New Yorker, “Garbo” is a fascinating biography of the film legend. Gottlieb, a critic, understands that much of Garbo’s life (her sexuality, her inner thoughts) remains mysterious.
But Gottlieb, a former editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster and former boss of Alfred A. Knopf, paints a revealing portrait of Garbo and her time.
An extensive selection of photos and film stills adds to the beauty of the book. A selection of articles by critics and contemporaries enriches our image of Garbo.
Garbo was born (given the name Greta Lovisa Gustafsson) in 1905 in a slum in Stockholm, Sweden.
Garbo was only 16 years and 24 films in Hollywood, writes Gottlieb.
At just 36 and still adored by her fans, Garbo suddenly retired from Hollywood. She didn’t give her audience a very revealing reason why she stopped making films.
“I’ve made enough faces,” Garbo told actor David Niven when he asked her about it, Gottlieb reports.
After leaving Tinseltown, Garbo lived mostly in New York City for almost half a century until her death in 1990.
Garbo wasn’t as popular as Charlie Chaplin or Mary Pickford, Gottlieb tells us in his lively introduction to the biography, Why Garbo, “but the impact she had on the world was as great as hers.”
The mystery of why Garbo lived in “self-imposed seclusion” after retiring from Hollywood was compelling, but “almost a distraction,” writes Gottlieb.
Many of her films are “clichéd or worse,” emphasizes Gottlieb. MGM initially presented Garbo as a vampire and “attracted men with her vampiric ways,” reports Gottlieb, “but she hated that.”
Eventually, Garbo became an icon. “But none of this explains,” Gottlieb writes, “why she has penetrated the audience’s subconscious more than any other star:”
Wherever you look in the period between 1925 and 1941, Gottlieb adds: “Garbo is in people’s minds, hearts and dreams.”
Garbo is mentioned in Ernest Hemingway’s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls and in the letters of the poet Marianne Moore. More recently, references to Garbo have appeared in the song “Bette Davis Eyes” and even in “The Simpsons.”
Her Hollywood peers loved Garbo just as much as film audiences. “Other Hollywood stars…were just as keen to meet them,” writes Gottlieb, “or just to get a glimpse of them like a regular fan.”
Her work is “pure witchcraft,” Bette Davis said of Garbo. “I can’t analyze this woman’s acting.”
While Gottlieb respects Garbo and is fascinated by her, his biography is not hagiography.
Garbo, who grew up in poverty as a child, could be cheap. In New York, she was known for being stingy with tips and salaries for people who worked for her and shopkeepers.
Perhaps because of her shyness or her lack of education (she had to leave school at 14 to support her family), she wasn’t a great conversationalist.
She’s had relationships with men and women from actor John Gilbert to queer fashion photographer Cecil Beaton to writer Mercedes de Acosta. But to what extent (or if) those relationships were sexual isn’t known, Gottlieb reports.
It is known that Garbo wore men’s pants, shirts and shoes in the off. “How ironic if ‘the most beautiful woman in the world’ really would rather have been a man,” writes Gottlieb.
Reading “Garbo” is like sipping whiskey (or ginger ale) with the iconic star. drink up!
