Garbo: A BiographyGreta Garbo's melancholy self-obsession, her paradoxical need to perform and withdraw, manifested themselves in her teens, shows Paris (Louise Brooks) in a moving biography that unearths connections between the private woman and the public actress. Recurring traumas of abandonment-the deaths of her father, Karl, a Stockholm landscapist, when she was 14, and of her beautiful actress sister Alva, victim of cancer at age 23-molded Garbo (1905-1990) into a high-strung, hypersensitive recluse pathologically afraid of betrayal, of commitment, of pregnancy, according to Paris. The Swedish sphinx moved to Hollywood in 1925 and became "the sex fantasy of the century," an androgynous, exotic persona on whom millions projected their desires, yet, by this account, she was a largely celibate narcissist who longed for an idealized hearth and home. Garbo found a substitute family in the home of her closest friend, actress Salka Viertel, and this revealing biography, featuring 180 photographs woven into the narrative, draws on the 50-year Garbo-Viertel correspondence, on firsthand reminiscences and on Garbo's taped conversations with her confidante, New York City art dealer Sam Green, which fills in details of her last decades of self-imposed exile in Manhattan and trips abroad. |
Contents
CHAPTER | 3 |
Beauty and the Beast 19221924 | 33 |
Pabst and Berlin 1925 | 65 |
Copyright | |
17 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
actor actress Alexander Walker Anna Christie asked Bainbridge beautiful Billquist BP New York Brooks letter Camille Cecil Beaton Cécile Claire Clarence Brown Cukor David Diamond director film Garbo New York George GG letter GG to Green girl Gösta Berling Gray Reisfield Green to BP Greta Garbo Gronowicz Gustafson Hollywood Hotel Ibid interview Irene Mayer Selznick John Gilbert Kevin Brownlow Kevin Brownlow Collection knew later laugh look Louise Brooks Lubitsch March Mauritz Stiller Mercedes de Acosta MGM's Miss Garbo movie never November October once Pabst photograph Photography by William Photoplay picture play Produced Production days Queen Christina Quoted Raymond Daum recalled Reinhardt replied role S. N. Behrman Salka Viertel scene Schlee screen Screenplay script September sexual Sjöström star Stockholm story studio Sundborg Sven Sweden Swedish talk Thalberg theater things thought told took Victor Sjöström walked Wanger wanted William Daniels wrote