Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson on September 18, 1905, in Stockholm, Sweden, and died on April 15, 1990. A Swedish and American film actress, she was a major star in Hollywood’s silent and early golden eras. Often considered one of the finest screen actresses ever, she was famous for her sad, serious on-screen presence, her roles as tragic figures, and her restrained, delicate acting style. In 1999, the American Film Institute placed her fifth on its list of the greatest female stars of classic Hollywood cinema.

Her career began with a small part in the 1924 Swedish film *The Saga of Gösta Berling*. This caught the eye of Louis B. Mayer, the head of MGM, who brought her to Hollywood in 1925. Her first American silent film, *Torrent* (1926), generated interest, but it was her third U.S. movie, *Flesh and the Devil* (1926), that made her an international star. By 1928, with *A Woman of Affairs*, she had become MGM’s top box-office draw, surpassing the long-reigning Lillian Gish. Other notable silent films include *The Mysterious Lady* (1928), *The Single Standard* (1929), and *The Kiss* (1929).

Her first sound film, *Anna Christie* (1930), was promoted with the tagline “Garbo talks!” That same year, she appeared in *Romance*, and her performances in both earned her a combined first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress (she would receive three total). By 1932, her success allowed her to control her contracts, and she grew very picky about her roles. She continued with films like *Mata Hari* (1931), *Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise)* (1931), *Grand Hotel* (1932), *Queen Christina* (1933), and *Anna Karenina* (1935).

Many critics and historians see her role as the doomed courtesan Marguerite Gautier in *Camille* (1936) as her best work, earning her a third Oscar nomination. However, her career began to fade, and she was labeled “box office poison” in 1938 along with other stars. She revived her career with the comedy *Ninotchka* (1939), which brought a fourth Academy Award nomination. Her final feature film was *Two-Faced Woman* (1941), which got poor reviews. After that commercial failure, she was offered many movie roles but turned down most. The few she accepted never came together, either due to a lack of funding or because she quit during production. In 1954, she received an Academy Honorary Award “for her luminous and unforgettable screen performances.”

Garbo never returned to the screen. In retirement, she avoided publicity, lived a very private life, and collected art, including works by Renoir, Bonnard, and van Dongen. She never discussed her reasons for quitting with friends, but four years before her death, she told Swedish biographer Sven Broman: “I was tired of Hollywood. I did not like my work. There were many days when I had to force myself to go to the studio … I really wanted to live another life.”

She was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in the Södermalm district of Stockholm at 7:30 p.m., the youngest of three children. Her mother, Anna Lovisa, worked in a jam factory, and her father, Karl Alfred Gustafsson, was a laborer. She had an older brother, Sven Alfred, and an older sister, Alva Maria. For her first ten years, she was nicknamed Kata, a mispronunciation of her first name.

Her parents met in Stockholm, where her father had moved from Frinnaryd to become independent, working as a street cleaner, grocer, factory worker, and butcher’s assistant. He married Anna, who had moved from Högsby. The family was poor, living in a three-bedroom cold-water flat at Blekingegatan No. 32 in a working-class slum. As a child, Garbo was shy and a daydreamer. She disliked school, preferred playing alone, and was a natural leader who became interested in theatre early on. She directed friends in pretend games and performances and dreamed of being an actress. She later took part in amateur theatre and often went to the Mosebacke Theatre. She finished school at 13, and like many Swedish working-class girls, did not go to high school, later admitting this gave her an inferiority complex.

In the winter of 1919, the Spanish flu hit Stockholm. Her father, to whom she was very close, got sick and lost his job. Garbo cared for him, taking him to the hospital weekly. He died in 1920 when she was 14.

Her first jobs were as a soap-lather girl in a barber shop and then at the PUB department store, where she ran errands and worked in the millinery department. After modeling hats for store catalogs, she got a better job as a fashion model at Nordiska Kompaniet. In 1920, a director of store commercials cast her in ads for women’s clothing; her first commercial premiered on December 12, 1920. In 1922, director Erik A. Petschler noticed her and gave her a credited part as Greta Gustafson in his short comedy *Peter the Tramp* (released as *Luffar-Petter*).