Garbo by Robert Gottlieb
Greta Garbo stands apart from the female stars of her time. Ever aloof from the Hollywood shenanigans, she exited at the pinnacle of her career with no regrets. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she never guest-starred on “Columbo” or any other ‘70s show. Garbo was done. And around the comfortable New York seclusion of the remaining 50 years of her life, legends were born and maintained.
That most elusive star of Hollywood’s golden age is the subject of a beautifully written, gorgeously illustrated new biography. Simply titled Garbo, it’s a book lover’s dream by Robert Gottlieb, an esteemed New York writer and editor whose previous subjects include biographies of George Balanchine and Sarah Bernhardt. The prose is as elegant and durable as a fine set of silverware. The lustrous black and white photos, many of them Hollywood studio portraits or film stills, add a bright polished glow to the pages.
Garbo isn’t the plodding recitation of most biographies. While following the usual chronological framework, Garbo is alive with well-grounded interpretations and subtle wit. About a preposterous sounding early Swedish movie halted for lack of funds, Gottlieb remarks: “Perhaps we need not regret that this film was never made.”
The author describes the mysterious aura that encircled Garbo and suggests several explanations. Although rigorously trained in acting at Sweden’s Royal Academy, her previous education ended in middle school. She came from a poor family and had to work after her father died. Her motion picture debut was in an advertisement screened in Stockholm theaters, modelling a line of fashionable women’s hats.
Garbo’s discomfort—masked by a show of impenetrable indifference—was only compounded by the language barrier. She was brought to the U.S. by M-G-M as a promising European star before she knew more than a word or two of English. Although she never returned to Sweden except to visit, she never became culturally American. Garbo was contentedly marooned somewhere in the mid-Atlantic.
Even before her Hollywood debut, Garbo was insistent on negotiating a favorable contract, exercising control over her movies and having it her way. Perhaps she succeeded in writing the rules because she didn’t care if she was fired. She enjoyed acting but stardom was, if anything, an annoyance. Investing her income with the shrewd sensibility learned in a penniless childhood, Garbo retired when she had enough.
Gottlieb concludes his account by assessing Garbo’s triumph over circumstances, “the mostly trashy stories, and inferior leading men” she was given. “Yet again and again … her eyes and her smile, her self, remind us that life is not only difficult and painful but also worth living.”
Garbo is published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
