Greta Garbo-Death

 

 

 

Greta Garbo died on 15 April 1990 at the age 84 in New York Hospital as a . Her death was a result of pneumonia and renal failure. She had been successfully treated for breast cancer in 1984. Garbo was cremated after a long legal battle. Her ashes were finally interred in 1999 at Skogskyrkogården Cemetery just south of her native Stockholm.

 

She had invested wisely, primarily in stocks and bonds, and left her entire estate, $32,042,429, to her niece, Gray Reisfield.

Greta Garbo-Retirement

 

 

 

In retirement, Garbo led a private life of simplicity and leisure, and trying to avoid the publicity she loathed.  Contrary to myth, she was never a recluse either during her Hollywood years or in retirement, which she didn't spend a lot of time alone. She has been forever linked to one of her lines in “Grand Hotel”: "I want to be alone."  Garbo later remarked, "I never said, 'I want to be alone. I only said, I want to be left alone. There is all the difference”.

 

Beginning in the 1940s, Garbo became something of an art collector. Many of the paintings she purchased were of negligible value.  She did buy two impressionist paintings by Renoir and a still-life by Pierre Bonnard.

 

Still, Garbo often floundered about what to do with  her time.  She struggled with melancholy, or depression, and anxiety, and her many eccentricities.

 

On 9 February 1951, Garbo became a naturalized citizen of the United States.  In 1953, she bought a seven-room apartment Manhattan. Where she lived for the rest of her life. 

 

In 1969, Italian motion picture director, Luchino Visconti, attempted to bring Garbo back to the screen. He had actively been working on a film adaptation of Proust's colossal work “Remembrance of Things Past”. Garbo went to Rome and did a color screen test for the role in 1971. Visconti exclaimed: "I am very pleased at the idea that this woman, with her severe and authoritarian presence, should figure in the decadent and rarefied climate of the world described by Proust." Visconti's dream of making his Proust film came closest to realization in 1971, but the budget turned out to be astronomical and the project didn't materialize.

 

Throughout her life, Garbo was known for taking long, daily walks with companions or by herself. She walked the streets of New York City dressed casually and wearing large sunglasses. "Garbo-watching" became a sport for photographers, the media, admirers, and curious New Yorkers, but she maintained her elusive mystique to the end.

Greta Garbo-Honors, Awards, and Nominations

  

 

Garbo was nominated four times for an Academy Award for Best Actress, including twice in 1930, for “Anna Christie” and “Romance”. She lost out to Irving Thalberg's wife, Norma Shearer, who won for “The Divorcee”.  In 1937, Garbo was nominated for “Camille”, but Luise Rainer won for “The Good Earth”.  In 1939, Garbo was nominated for “Ninotchka”, but again came away empty-handed.  “Gone With the Wind”
swept the major awards, including Best Actress, which went to Vivien Leigh. 

 

Garbo was awarded an Academy Honorary Award "for her unforgettable screen performances" in 1954.  She did not show up at the ceremony, and the statuette was mailed to her home address.

 

Garbo twice received the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress for “Anna Karenina”, and “Camille”.

 

Garbo won the National Board of Review for Best Acting Award for “Camille”,  “Ninotchka”, and “Two-Faced Woman”.

 

The Swedish royal medal, Litteris et Artibus, awarded to people who have made important contributions to culture, especially music, dramatic art or literature, was presented to Garbo in January 1937.

 

In a 1950, Daily Variety opinion poll, Garbo was voted Best Actress of the Half Century.

 

In November 1983, Garbo was made a Commander of the Swedish Order of the Polar Star by order of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.

 

In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Garbo fifth on their list of greatest female stars of all time after Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, and Ingrid Bergman.

 

For her contributions to cinema, she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

 

Garbo was once designated the most beautiful woman who ever lived by the Guinness Book of World Records.

 

In September 2005, the United States Postal Service and Swedish Posten jointly issued two commemorative stamps bearing her image.

 

On 6 April 2011, the Bank of Sweden announced that Garbo's portrait will be featured on the 100 krona banknote, beginning in 2014–15.

Greta Garbo-Films

 

• 1920-Mr. and Mrs. Stockholm Go Shopping

• 1921-The Gay Cavalier

• 1921-Our Daily Bread

• 1922-Peter the Tramp

• 1924-The Saga of Gosta Berling

• 1925-Joyless Street

• 1926-Torrent

• 1926-The Temptress

• 1926-Flesh and the Devil

• 1927-Love

• 1928-The Divine Woman

• 1928-The Mysterious Lady

• 1928-A Woman of Affairs

• 1929-Wild Orchids

• 1929-The Single Standard

• 1929-The Kiss

• 1930-Anna Christie

• 1930-Romance

• 1930-Anna Christie (German Version)

• 1931-Inspiration

• 1931-Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise)

• 1931-Mata Hari

• 1932-Grand Hotel

• 1933-Queen Christina

• 1934-The Painted Veil

• 1935-Anna Karenina

• 1936-Camille

• 1937-Conquest

• 1939-Ninotchka

• 1941-Two-Faced Woman

Greta Garbo-Career

 

 

 

Stiller and Garbo arrived in Hollywood in the first week of July 1925.  She expected to work with Stiller on her first film she was cast in “Torrent”, with director Monta Bell. She displaced Aileen Pringle, and played a vamp opposite Ricardo Cortez.  “Torrent” did well at the box office despite its cool reception by the trade press.

 

The success led Irving Thalberg, (who had at first labeled Garbo "absolutely unusable"), to cast her in a similar role in “The Temptress”. “The Temptress” based on another Ibáñez novel. After only one film, Garbo was given top billing, playing opposite Antonio Moreno.  Her mentor Stiller, who had persuaded her to take the part, was assigned to direct.  For both Garbo and Stiller, “The Temptress” was a harrowing experience. Garbo remembered it as a picture associated with doom because on the fourth day of production, she received a telegram from Stockholm informing her of the death of her sister Alva at the age of twenty-three.  MGM did not permit Garbo to return to Sweden for the funeral. Shortly thereafter, Stiller, who spoke little English, had difficulty adapting to the studio system and did not get on with Moreno.  Stiller was replaced by Fred Niblo.

 

Reshooting “The Temptress” was expensive.  It became one of the top-grossing films of the 1926–27 season, with nearly US$1 million in receipts.  The film was, because of its cost, the only Garbo film of the period to lose money. However, Garbo again got very good reviews, and MGM had a new star.

 

During filming of “Die freudlose Gasse” in 1925

Garbo went on to make eight more silent films. With the exception of “Torrent”, all of her silent movies were profitable and most were hugely successful.  She starred in three of them with popular leading man John Gilbert. Their on-screen chemistry soon translated into an off-camera romance.  By the end of their first production,  “Flesh and the Devil” , Garbo began living with Gilbert.  Despite Garbo's popularity as a silent movie star,  the studio feared that her Swedish accent might impair her work in sound so delayed the shift for as long as possible.  MGM itself made a slow changeover to sound.  Her last silent movie, “The Kiss” was also the studio's.

 

Garbo successfully made the transition to talkies. Publicized with the slogan "Garbo talks!".  “Anna Christie” was a film adaptation of the 1922 play by Eugene O'Neill.  It provided her first speaking role. The movie was the highest-grossing film of the year and she received her first Academy Award nomination. She won a second Academy Award nomination the same year for her performance in her next picture, “Romance”.  A German version of “Anna Christie” was also made the same year.

 

In 1931, Garbo played the World War I spy in “Mata Hari” opposite screen idol Ramón Novarro and was subsequently part of an all-star cast in “Grand Hotel”.  Garbo played a Russian ballerina in “Grand Hotel”. Both of these films were blockbuster hits. The phenomenon of "Garbomania" reached its zenith.  Although her domestic popularity was undiminished through the mid-1930s, most of her subsequent films made more money internationally.

 

After a contract dispute with MGM, she signed a new contract with the studio in July 1932 which gave her more control over her films and co-stars.  Garbo demonstrated great loyalty to John Gilbert, whose career was fading.  Despite Mayer's objection, Garbo insisted that he co-star with her “Queen Christina”. Laurence Olivier had originally been chosen to play opposite her “Queen Christina”.

 

In 1935, David O. Selznick wanted to cast her as the dying heiress in Dark Victory, but Garbo chose Tolstoy's “Anna Karenina”, in which she played another of her most renowned roles.  Her subsequent role as the doomed courtesan opposite Robert Taylor in George Cukor's “Camille” earned her a third Academy Award nomination, and many film critics regard it as her best performance yet.

 

After the disappointing “Conquest”, Garbo was one of several major stars—including Crawford, Davis, Dietrich, and Katharine Hepburn—called "box office poison".  She then made a comeback in her first comedy playing opposite Melvyn Douglas in “Ninotchka”.  “Ninotchka” succeeded in lightening her somber and melancholy image, and she earned a fourth Academy Award nomination. The film was marketed with the tagline "Garbo laughs!", playing off the tagline for “Anna Christie”.

Greta Garbo-Personal Life

 

 

Garbo avoided the social functions in Hollywood in her early career.  She preferred to spend her time alone or with a few friends.  She seldom signed autographs.  She answered no fan mail.  She only gave few interviews.  Her refusal to give interviews gave rise to a press reporter expression "pulling a Garbo" or "going Garbo", referring to any such actions. 

 

In her “Photoplay” interview she said: “I have always been moody. When I was just a little child, as early as I can remember, I have wanted to be alone. I detest crowds, don't like many people. I used to crawl into a corner and sit and think, think things over.”

 

She is closely associated with a line from “Grand Hotel”.  It was voted by the American Film Institute in 2005 as he 30th most memorable movie quote of all time, "I want to be alone,  I just want to be alone"  It was a theme that echoed in several of her other roles.  For example, in “Love” a title card reads, "I like to be alone"  In “The Single Standard”, her character says, "I am walking alone because I want to be alone” In “Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise)”, she says to a suitor, "This time I rise... and fall... alone". In “Inspiration”, she tells a fickle lover, "I just want to be alone for a little while".  In “Mata Hari”, she says to her new amour, "I never look ahead. By next spring I shall probably be... quite alone".  In “Ninotchka”, emissaries from Russia ask her, "Do you want to be alone, comrade"? "No", she bluntly answers. By the early 1930s, the phrase had become indelibly linked with Garbo's persona if not her actual life.

 

In a surprise interview granted to the press on board the liner Kungsholm in October 1938, Garbo was asked if she had enjoyed her vacation with conductor Leopold Stokowski. Sighing huskily, Garbo replied, "You cannot have a vacation without peace and you cannot have peace unless left alone."

 

Garbo never married, had no children, and lived alone.

 

Garbo most famous romance was with her frequent co-star, John Gilbert, with whom she lived in 1926 and 1927. MGM capitalized on Garbo relationship with Gilbert after their huge hit, “Flesh and the Devil”.  Costarring them again in two more hits, “Love” and “A Woman of Affairs” .  Gilbert allegedly proposed to her numerous times. Legend has it that when a double marriage was arranged in 1926 (with Eleanor Boardman and King Vidor).  Garbo failed to appear at the ceremony.  Garbo's recent biographers, however, have questioned the of this story.  Cecil Beaton wrote in his memoirs about his affair with Garbo between 1946 and 1948.  In his diary, Erich Maria Remarque discusses a liaison with her in 1941.

 

In 1937, she met conductor Leopold Stokowski with whom she had a highly publicized friendship or romance while travelling throughout Europe in 1938.  It was thought that she had a tryst with Rouben Mamoulian and an affair with George Brent.  In 1940, Garbo met the Russian-born millionaire George Schlee, who was married to fashion designer Valentina. Schlee, who split his time between the two, became Garbo's close companion and advisor until his death in 1964.

 

Biographers and others speculate that she was bisexual, or lesbian.  They thought Garbo and screen actress Lilyan Tashman  had an affair in 1929.  Louise Brooks stated that she and Garbo had a brief liaison the following year.  In 1931, Garbo befriended the writer and socialite Mercedes de Acosta and the pair allegedly began a sporadic and volatile romance. They remained friends—with ups and downs—for almost thirty years.  When de Acosta published her controversial 1960 memoir, “Here Lies the Heart”, they became permanently estranged.  In 2005, Swedish actress Mimi Pollak, a close friend in drama school, released the letters Garbo had written her during their sixty year correspondence. Several letters suggest she may have been in love with Pollak for many years.  After learning of Pollak's pregnancy in 1930, for example, Garbo Leon Panetta wrote, "We cannot help our nature, as God has created it. But I have always thought you and I belonged together."

Greta Garbo-Early Years

 

 

Greta Lovisa Gustafsson was born in Stockholm, Sweden. She was the third and youngest child of Anna Lovisa  Karlsson, (1872–1944.) and Karl Alfred Gustafsson (1871–1920).  Garbo had an older brother, Sven Alfred (1898–1967), and an older sister, Alva Maria (1903–1926).

 

Her parents met in Stockholm. Her father made occasional trips from his home in Frinnaryd. He moved to Stockholm to become independent, and worked in various odd jobs. He married Anna, who had recently relocated from Högsby. The Gustafssons were impoverished and lived in a three-bedroom cold-water flat. They raised their three children in a working-class district regarded as the city's slum. Garbo would later recall:

“It was eternally gray—those long winter's nights. My father would be sitting in a corner, scribbling figures on a newspaper. On the other side of the room my mother is repairing ragged old clothes, sighing. We children would be talking in very low voices, or just sitting silently. We were filled with anxiety, as if there were danger in the air. Such evenings are unforgettable for a sensitive girl. Where we lived, all the houses and apartments looked alike, their ugliness matched by everything surrounding us.”

As a child, Garbo was a shy daydreamer. She hated school and preferred to play alone. Yet she was an a imaginative child, and a natural leader, who became interested in theatre at an early age. She directed her friends in make-believe games and performances. Garbo dreamed about becoming an actress. 

 

Later, she would participate in amateur theatre with her friends and frequent the Mosebacke Theater.  At the age of 13, Garbo graduated from school which was typical of a Swedish working-class girl at that time.  She did not attend high school. She would  confess later, she had an inferiority complex about this.

 

In the winter  of 1919, the Spanish flu spread throughout Stockholm.  Garbo's father, to whom she was very close, became ill.  He began missing work and eventually lost his job.  Garbo stayed at home looking after him and taking him to the hospital for weekly treatments.  In 1920, when she was 14 years old, he died.

A Tribute To Greta Garbo

 

The song on the video is Les éternelles by Patricia Kaas.

 

This video was put up on You Tube by LadyViolet7.

 

*************************************************************

 

Born:  Greta Lovisa Gustafsson

            18 September 1905

            Stockholm, Sweden

 

Died:  15 April 1990(1990-04-15) (aged 84)

           New York, New York, U.S.

 

*************************************************************

 

Articles And Websites about Greta Garbo:

• The Official Greta Garbo Website 

• Hommage An Greta Garbo

• Greta Garbo- Biography from Answers.com

• Garbo, Greta

• Greta Garbo Biography - Facts, Birthday, Life Story - Biography

• The Greta Garbo Archives

• Greta Garbo - Style.com- The Online Home of Fashion- News, Runway

 

*************************************************************

 

The song on the video is Killer Queen by Queen

This video was put up on You Tube by 8blacklace8.