Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo , of its true name Greta Lovisa Gustafsson , was a Swedish actress , born the September 18th 1905 with Stockholm in Sweden, deceased the April 15th 1990 in New York (the USA).

It was called “ Divine the ”. Federico Fellini said of it: “ It was the founder of an religious order called cinema . ”

Biography

Greta Gustafsson is the benjamine of Karl Alfred Gustafsson (1871-1920) and of Anna Lovisa Johansson (1872-1944). It was born to the 32 from Blekingegatan with Stockholm. Its native house disappeared today.

His/her parents are modest people of conditions in the poor Sweden of the beginning of the 20th century. It had a sister, Alva and a brother, Sven.

Beginning of career

The father of Greta Garbo, bouncer of tubs, dies corroded by the disease whereas it is only fourteen years old, obliging it to leave the school and to work. Its first employment like “ soap girl ” in a hairdresser-barber, at whom her place soaps the cheeks of the customers, was followed of a place of saleswoman in a store of mode where she posed sometimes like model for publicities. It is while turning in a small publicity that it made its weapons as an actress, episode followed by an advertizing short film in 1920 in which the realizer Eric Petscher noticed it. It offered to a small role in the film Peter the vagrant to him in 1921, a film slightly rascal in whom she played in bathing suit.

It entered to the royal Academy of dramatic art of Stockholm - Dramaten - in 1922 and studied there until in 1924. It is there that it met the Swedish realizer Mauritz Stiller which located it, taught the cinematographic techniques to him and entrusted to him an important role in its film Saga de Gösta Berling , according to Selma Lagerlöf in 1924. It is on this occasion that it changed its name into Greta Garbo. The film was a failure, but Greta Garbo was noticed by the German realizer Georg Wilhelm Pabst with which it turned in 1925 '' the Street without joy ''.

Mauritz Stiller, called by Louis B. Mayer with the the United States to work for MGM, insisted that Garbo accompanies it and that him a contract is given. It followed it to Hollywood, but its fast glory separated them. Stiller was laid off by the MGM in 1928 and turned over to Sweden where he died little of time afterwards.

De Garbo with the Divine one: Hollywood years

Arrived at Hollywood, the career of Garbo took to an unexpected turning, on its arrival, it did not have anything a femme fatale - Louis B. Mayer called it then “ the large Scandinavian cow ” - but Arnold Genthe, a photographer of Vanity Fair, detects its important potential. It follows a slimming mode and it is " relookée" , cut hair, smoothed, released face, weighed down eyes, reduced eyebrows, glance emphasized.

Its first appearances in silent films, such the Torrent (The Torrent) in 1926, the Temptress (The Temptress) in 1926, the Flesh and the devil (Flesh and the Devil) in 1927 or Anna Karénine (Coils) in 1928, propelled it in top of the poster. The renewal of its contract is the occasion of a long arm wrestling with Louis B. Mayer and leads so that it becomes the actress best paid of America.

It is in these first years that it met John Gilbert, star of the Silent film, with which it continued a relation which defrayed the chronicle. The legend wants that it left it in front of the furnace bridge, having changed opinion as for their marriage, but the MGM abundantly uses the scenes of love which it interprets with John Gilbert to feed the gazettes people.

Its career, contrary to that of much of others, did not stop with the end of the silent film. Greta Garbo was one of the rare stars Hollywood to cross the course of the talking films. It is in Anna Christie in 1930 that the public hears for the first time its serious and sensual voice, tinted of a light Swedish accent. The film was promoted besides with the slogan “Garbo speaks” ( “Garbo Talks” ) and was a real success, although Garbo was not convinced of its own performance. John Gilbert, as for him, whose popularity dropped, never makes a success of the transition towards the talking films and its career stopped in the Années 1930.

As from this time, one composes to him, a new solitary, enigmatic character. It becomes serious, sometimes mutine, sometimes apprehensive, sometimes intellectual. It does not attend only the first, does not grant any more but of rare interviews, voyage under a name of loan. It stops also the many photo sessions of outside and does not make any more that portraits of art, realized in studio by two appointed portraitists - Ruth Harriet Louise until in 1929, then Clarence Sinclair Bull - and intended to be reproduced that in small size to be sent to the admirors. Even for the promotion of films, it does not grant any more that one single sitting ten hours maximum with 150 photographs per meeting realized.

Garbo, if something displeased to him when it turned, said that it wanted to return in Sweden ( “I want to go home” ), threat which was worth to him to see each one of its wishes exaucé by its employers. Garbo was known to turn only to closed Studio, refusing the visitors when she played. Its appearance in Mata Hari in 1932 devoted it tempting, the censure offusqua even of the suggestive costume which it carried on the poster. It divided then the poster of Grand Hotel in 1932 in the high-speed motorboat with Joan Crawford and the brothers Barrymore (Lionel and John). It was annoyed with the MGM in 1932 and disappeared from the screens during almost two years. The reconciliation gave him a total control on the films which it made, and allowed him to make replace Laurence Olivier by John Gilbert for the turning of the Queen Christine in 1934. David O. Selznick had a presentiment of it to play the part of the heiress dying in Dark Victory in 1935, but she preferred to turn a new version of Anna Karénine .

Its interpretation of “the lady with the camellias” in the Novel of Marguerite Gautier (Camille) in 1937 was regarded as the best of all times, and was also the only one of its performances which found thanks to its eyes. After many tragedies, it was found vis-a-vis Melvyn Douglas in the comedy Ninotchka in 1939. In reference to a scene in a Parisian bar where heroin starts from a burst of laughter, the film was launched with the slogan “Garbo laughs! ” ( “Garbo laughs! ” ), a first in its career.

Greta Garbo one of the stars was adulated Années 1920 and 1930, but also one of most secret. Fleeing publicity and the gossip, it returned celebrates one of its tirades of Grand Hotel even in its public life: “I want that one leaves me quiet” ( “I want to calm Be alone” ). It granted neither autograph, nor interview (except with the whole beginning of its career), did not attend any first and did not answer its fans. This predilection for the secrecy did nothing but confirm the nickname which it kept all its life: “The Divine one”; beautiful, remote and inaccessible.

After the relative failure of its last film, the Woman with the two faces (Two Faced Woman) in 1941, Garbo definitively put a term at its career, with the ridge of its glory.

Private life

Garbo kept its private life out of fires of the slope. " I want to Be alone" ( I want to be alone ), one of its most famous tirades to the screen, in Grand Hotel, was wrongfully allotted to him to the city. Garbo rectified however after the film, asserting which she had never said that she wanted to be alone, but that she wanted that it is left quiet ( " I never said, “I want to Be alone.” I only said, “I want to Be let alone.” There is all the difference." ).

According to the private letters whose publication was authorized in Sweden in 2005 to mark the centenary of its birth, it would seem that it was locked up on itself and enough depressive.

It would also seem that Greta Garbo remained unmarried in the United States because of a homosexual love for the Swedish actress Mimi Pollak with which she maintained a correspondence which lasted 60 years. During the birth of the son of Mimi Pollack, it sends a telegram in these " terms to him; Incredibly proud to Be has father " (" Incredibly proud to be père").

Its hétérosexuelle connection most famous was with the actor John Gilbert. Sharing the first role for the first time in Flesh and the Devil , them intensity érotique" finds itself out of the studios. It is known as that Gilbert asked Greta Garbo in marriage three times and that it was not only. The Swedish editor Lars Saxon would have it also proposal, but accepted a letter to him which confirmed that Garbo " would remain any unmarried life. The word " épouse" is so much laid" ( " I will probably remain has bachelor all my life. " Wife" is such year uggly Word ".).

The writer Mercedes de Acosta, whose letters of Garbo being addressed him were published in 2000, said to have had a homosexual relation with it, but the contents of the letters do not make it possible to affirm it.

The sexuality of Greta Garbo remained source of rumors and of secrecies its life during and its death made it possible neither to dissipate, nor to confirm those.

Reprocess and disappearance

Of its own consent, Greta Garbo thought that the world had been upset by the Second world war, perhaps for always. Its films, thought it, had their own place in the history and would gain in value. She endorsed the American Citoyenneté in 1951. She bought an apartment with New York in the Années 1950, where she lived until the end of her days, far from the press and of the spangles. Separated from the Hollywood world, she categorically refused to appear in public.

She remained however friendly with many celebrities, and one often saw it in company of Aristote Onassis, Cecil Beaton or Cécile de Rotschild. She defended her private life however jealously. She known for her walks in the streets of New York was affublée of large black glasses, avoiding as much as possible the Médias.

She died in New York in 1990 at the 84 years age, of the continuations of a final impaired renal function and a Pneumonie. Its skin was incinerated and them ashes buried with the Skogskyrkogarden cemetery with Stockholm

Rewards and nominations

Greta Garbo forever gained Oscar but was named for the Oscar of the best actress for Anna Christie and Romance in 1930, the Novel of Marguerite Gautier in 1937 and Ninotchka in 1939. She accepted in 1955 a Oscar of honor for the whole of her career.

A commemorative star with its name (and its fame) was posed on the Hollywood Walk off Famed with Los Angeles (the United States) vis-a-vis the 6901 Hollywood Boulevard.

Anecdotes

She was named by the American Film Institute fifth better actress of legend of the cinema.

A special range of instruments of writing Montblanc (pen) was created in its homage.

Catalog of films

1920 Herr och fru Stockholm (literally: Mister and Mrs Stockholm) of Ragnar Boxing ring; (Greta Garbo in a short advertizing film)
1921 Konsum Stockholm Promotion (Promotions of the stores Konsum Stockholm) of Ragnar Boxing ring; (Greta Garbo in a short advertizing film)
1921 In Lyckoriddare (the knight of happiness) of John W. Brunius
Greta Garbo interprets a maidservant
1922 Kärlekens ögon (eyes of the love) of John W. Brunius; (role of figuration)
1922 Luffarpetter (Pierre the vagrant) of Erik A. Petschler
Greta Garbo interprets the role of Greta
1924 the Legend of Gösta Berling (Gösta Berlings Saga) of Mauritz Stiller
Une young countess Italian, Elizabeth Dohna
1925 the Street without joy (Die freudlose Gasse) of G.W.Pabst
Greta Rumfort, the girl of a civil servant (Greta Garbo is not mentioned with the credits)
1926 the Torrent (Torrent) of Monta Beautiful will
Leonora Moreno, farm young person, who becomes Brunna, celebrates professional singer
1926 the Temptress (The Temptress) of Fred Niblo
Elena, a femme fatale of the large world
1926 the Flesh and the devil (Flesh and the Devil) of Clarence Brown
Felicitas, a young widow which will marry the best friend of the man than she likes, which killed in duel her husband
1927 Anna Karénine (Coils) Edmund Goulding
Anna Karenina, an young woman of the aristocracy of Saint-Petersbourg, bride, which fall in love with count Vronski
1928 the divine woman (The Divine Woman) of Victor Sjöström (of which it does not remain any more that only one reel)
Marianne, an English young person which wants to become actress in Paris
1928 Beautiful Dark the (The Mysterious Lady) of Fred Niblo
Tania Fedorova, a Russian spy
1928 Intrigues (Woman Affairs has off) of Clarence Brown
Diana Merrick Furness, a woman of the English aristocracy which marries by spite a man that she does not like which will commit suicide
1929 Ground of pleasure (Wild Orchids) of Franklin Sidney
Lillie Sterling, a young person and beautiful woman married to a man much older than it which will be continued by a seducer without scruples
1929 the Right to like (The Single Standard) of John Robertson
Arden Stuart Hewlett, a woman of good and conventional company which wishes another thing of the life
1929 the Kiss (The KIS) of Jacques Feyder
Irene Guarry, a married woman in love with another man
1930 Anna Christie of Clarence Brown
Anna Christie, the girl of a sailor, disillusioned by the life, who falls in love with a sailor….its first role or one hears finally his famous voice
1930 Romance of Clarence Brown
Rita Cavallini, a singer of opera with which fell in love a évèque future
1931 the Inspirer (Inspiration) with Clarence Brown
Yvonne Valbret, a Parisian mannequin
1931 the Courtesan ( Susanne Lenox (Her Rise and Fall) ) of Robert Z. Leonard
Susan Lenox, orphan which one wants to force to marry a man that she does not like
1931 Mata Hari George Fitzmaurice
Mata Hari, a German spy during the First World War which uses of its charms to obtain information
1932 Grand Hotel of Edmund Goulding
Grusinskaya, dancer which will be let allure by a robber
1932 As you want me (Ace You Desire Me) of George Fitzmaurice will
Zara, entraîneuse in a cabaret, alcoholic
1933 the Queen Christine (Queen Christina) of Rouben Mamoulian
La Christine queen of Sweden like her alter ego the count Dulan, who falls in love with another man that envisaged by the crown
1934 the Veil of the illusions (The Painted Veil) of Richard Boleslawski
Katrin Koerber Fane, which marries by loneliness a associate of its father, forsaken at the time of their stay in China and which takes a lover
1935 Anna Karénine (Anna Karenina) of Clarence Brown
Anna Karenina, an young woman of the aristocracy of Saint-Petersbourg, bride, who fall in love with the count Vronski
1936 the Novel from Marguerite Gautier (Camille) with George Cukor
Marguerite Gautier, a Parisian courtesan who gives up marrying the man that it likes, Armand Duval
1937 Marie Walewska (The Conquest) of Clarence Brown
Une Polish countess, Marie Walewska, who falls in love with Napoleon
1939 Ninotchka from Ernst Lubitsch
Nina Ivanovna Yakushova (Ninotchka), a Russian senior official sent on mission to Paris
1941 the Woman to the two faces (Two Faced Woman) of George Cukor
Karin Borg Blake, a married ski instructor allured by a New Yorkean

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