Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo (
September 18,
1905 -
April 15,
1990) was a
Swedish film
actress, who retired at the height of her success and became famous for shunning publicity.
Garbo in the 1920s
She was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in
Stockholm, where she later worked in a department store. Discovered in a
beauty contest, she won a place at the city's prestigious drama school, and was soon a film star as a result of being spotted by Mauritz Stiller and given a major role in his film
Gösta Berling (
1924). It was Stiller who brought her to the
United States of America in the following year, but their relationship came to an end as her worldwide fame grew. Having achieved enormous success as a
silent movie star, she was one of the few who made the transition to
talkies - unlike her one-time fiancé,
John Gilbert.
She had love affairs with the American writer Mercedes de Acosta and the British photographer Cecil Beaton.
Her most successful films include:
- Anna Christie (1930)
- Queen Christina (1933)
- Anna Karenina (1935
- Camille (1936)
- Grand Hotel
- Ninotchka (1939)
She abandoned her career in
1941 when her star threatened to wane, and thereafter refused to appear in public. She continued to live in the USA, becoming an American citizen in
1951, but chose to live anonymously and dress dowdily in order to avoid media attention.
She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6901 Hollywood Blvd.
Greta Garbo died in New York City on April 15, 1990 and was cremated, her ashes buried at Skogskyrkogarden, in Stockholm, Sweden.
