Swedish actress who became one of Hollywood's greatest stars of the 1920s–1930s. Famous for her air of mystery and restrained acting style, she voluntarily stepped away from the screen in 1941 at the age of 36.
Greta Garbo(1905 — 1990)
Greta Garbo
États-Unis, Suède
9 min read
Frequently asked questions
Famous Quotes
« I want to be alone.»
Key Facts
- Born on September 18, 1905 in Stockholm, Sweden
- Made her Hollywood debut in 1925, during the silent film era
- Starred in Anna Karenina (1935) and Ninotchka (1939)
- Permanently retired from cinema in 1941 at age 36
- Received an honorary Oscar in 1954 for her lifetime achievement
Works & Achievements
Garbo's first major film, directed by Mauritz Stiller and based on Selma Lagerlöf's novel. Its success across Scandinavia opened the doors of Hollywood to her.
Garbo's first major American success, opposite John Gilbert. MGM leveraged their real-life passion on screen; Garbo brought to the role a sensual, internalized style of acting that was revolutionary for the era.
An adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's play and Garbo's first talking picture. The film's worldwide triumph proved that her deep voice and faint Scandinavian accent only heightened her magnetism rather than diminishing it.
A masterpiece of classical cinema in which Garbo portrays the seventeenth-century Queen of Sweden, a free-spirited woman who refuses to bow to convention. The final scene — her face motionless at the prow of the ship — is among the most celebrated in film history.
An adaptation of Alexandre Dumas fils's novel, widely regarded as Garbo's most accomplished performance. She received an Oscar nomination for the role, and critics were unanimous in praising her ability to transcend melodrama.
Ernst Lubitsch's comedy in which Garbo plays a rigid Soviet commissar won over by the charms of Paris. This comic turn, heralded by the tagline "Garbo Laughs!", revealed an entirely unexpected side of the actress.
Garbo's final film, a light comedy that proved a commercial and critical failure. She never explained the retirement that followed immediately afterward, but she never stood before a camera again.
Anecdotes
Greta Garbo was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in a poor neighborhood of Stockholm in 1905. It was Swedish director Mauritz Stiller who spotted her at the Royal Dramatic Theatre School and gave her the stage name “Garbo,” judging her real name too ordinary for a future star. Without Stiller, who negotiated her contract with MGM and insisted she be hired alongside him, Garbo might never have left Sweden.
When Garbo spoke her first words on screen in Anna Christie in 1930, MGM launched a worldwide advertising campaign with the slogan “Garbo Talks!” The event was so eagerly anticipated that movie theaters sold out from the very first screenings. Unlike many silent film stars whose voices disappointed audiences, her deep, slightly Scandinavian-accented voice only deepened her mystique.
In 1941, at just 36 years old and at the peak of her fame, Garbo permanently retired from cinema following the commercial failure of The Two-Faced Woman. She never offered a public explanation and turned down every offer made to her over the following fifty years, until her death. This voluntary, deliberate, and total withdrawal is unique in the history of cinema.
Her famous line “I want to be alone,” spoken in Grand Hotel in 1932, became the symbol of her public persona. Garbo later pointed out that she had actually said “I want to be left alone” — an important distinction, meaning she wished to be undisturbed, not that she sought absolute solitude. Yet the phrase nonetheless perfectly captured her way of life.
During World War II, Garbo quietly worked for British intelligence. Thanks to her fame and her connections in neutral Sweden, she was able to approach figures in European high society and pass information to the Allies. Her liaison officer was William Stephenson, head of British counter-espionage, and her role as a spy was confirmed after the war by declassified documents.
Primary Sources
I am trying to find myself as a person. Sometimes that is not easy. Perhaps I have been too strict, too demanding of myself. I am not very good at being a 'star'.
Autograph letter in which Garbo speaks of her need for solitude and her weariness of Hollywood life, expressing the wish to return to Sweden.
I am not a difficult woman. I am simply a woman who knows what she wants and what she does not want. Hollywood gave me a great deal, but took even more from me.
I never said 'I want to be alone.' I only said 'I want to be let alone.' There is all the difference.
Garbo's voice, low and throaty, matches her beauty and her acting. She has conquered the talkies as she conquered the silents.
Key Places
A working-class neighborhood in southern Stockholm where Greta Gustafsson was born and raised in a blue-collar family. This modest background stood in stark contrast to the star life that awaited her, and Garbo never forgot her roots, regularly sending money to her family back in Sweden.
The prestigious institution where Garbo trained from 1922 to 1924, before being discovered by Mauritz Stiller. It was here that she developed the foundations of her restrained, internalized acting style — the very quality that set her apart from every other Hollywood actress.
The vast Hollywood studio complex where Garbo filmed virtually all of her American movies between 1926 and 1941. She imposed strict conditions: closed sets, no visitors, and shooting halted if anyone brought out a personal camera.
The New York apartment where Garbo lived as a recluse for more than forty years after her retirement from cinema in 1941. She died there in 1990; New Yorkers would occasionally spot her on solitary walks through Manhattan, recognizable by her dark glasses and beret.
Garbo returned to Sweden regularly between film shoots, finding there an anonymity that Hollywood never afforded her. She was particularly fond of the Swedish coastline and lakes, where she could walk and swim without being recognized.
Liens externes & ressources
Références
Œuvres
Chair et le Diable (Flesh and the Devil)
1926
Ninotchka
1939
