Short Biography

Greta Garbo (18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990) was a Swedish-born actress during Hollywood`s silent film period and part of its Golden Age.

Regarded as one of the greatest and most inscrutable movie stars ever produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the Hollywood studio system, Garbo received a 1954 Honorary Oscar "for her unforgettable screen performances" and in 1999 was ranked as the fifth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute.

Early life

Garbo was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in Stockholm, Sweden, the youngest of three children of Karl Alfred Gustafsson (1871–1920) and Anna Lovisa Johansson (1872–1944).[3] Garbo`s older sister and brother were Sven Alfred (1898–1967) and Alva Maria (1903–1926).

[edit] Becoming an 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 stated in the book Garbo On Garbo (p. 33) that her relationship with her mother was not strained.

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).

From 1922 to 1924, 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. She starred in Gösta Berling opposite Swedish film actor Lars Hanson, then appeared in the German film Die freudlose Gasse (The Joyless Street, 1925), directed by G. W. Pabst and co-starring Asta Nielsen.

She and Stiller were brought to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by Louis B. Mayer when Gösta Berlings Saga caught his attention. On viewing the film during a visit to Berlin, Mayer was impressed with Stiller`s direction, but was much more taken with Garbo`s acting and screen presence. According to Mayer`s daughter, Irene Mayer Selznick, with whom he screened the film, it was the gentle feeling and expression that emanated from her eyes which so impressed her father.

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 was also close friends with Einar Hanson, a Swedish actor who worked with her and Pabst on Joyless Street, and then came to Hollywood to work at MGM and Paramount Pictures. Einar Hanson was killed in an auto accident in 1927, after leaving a dinner with Garbo and Stiller. 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.

Life in Hollywood

The most important of Garbo`s silent movies were The Temptress (1926), Flesh and the Devil (1926), and Love (19

Miscellaneous Information

Measurements

Bust: 35"   Waist: /2"  Hips: /2"

Friends and Family

Dorothy Lamour [Friend]

Ernest Lubitsch [Friend]

Hjodoris Niven [Friend]

Viveca Lindfors [Friend]

David Niven [Friend]

Cecil Beaton [Friend]

Sven [Brother]

Alva [Sister]

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