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Gallery
Filmography
Film Highlights
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The Legend
 arbo's
glamorous, Sphinx-like image carefully cultivated Mauritz Stiller and
her employer, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer captivated American and European viewers
of both the silent screen of the 20s and sound films of the 30s. Garbo's
personal decision to leave her film career in 1941 ( at age of 36) and
maintain a notoriously private, reclusive lifestyle has only further enhanced
her mystique.
As a young model, she made her first screen appearances in Swedish advertising
films and as an extra in features as early as 1921. While attending the
Royal Dramatic Theater School, she was chosen by noted film director Mauritz
Stiller to play the lead in THE ATONEMENT OF GOSTA BERLING (1924) and
he renamed his protégée "Garbo." She followed Stiller to
Hollywood (and MGM) in 1925. Metro was primarily interested in the services
of Stiller, but at his request they gave Garbo a modest featured player's
contract. As a Spanish peasant girl in THE TORRENT (1926) and a vamp in
THE TEMPTRESS (1926), Garbo received favorable reviews, but she seemed
indistinguishable from any number of other Hollywood actresses of the
time.
Her breakthrough came when MGM paired her with the silent screen's most
popular leading man, John Gilbert, in the unrestrained romance
FLESH AND THE DEVIL (1927). By all accounts, the two developed an
instant and intense romantic rapport that carried over on-screen (they
did four pictues together) and encouraged the publicity and gossip about
her off-screen life that has followed Garbo ever since.
Following the success of FLESH AND THE DEVIL, and a raise in her salary,
from $600 to $5,000 per week, she worked only with leading directors.
Most notably Clarence Brown (seven times), but also Sidney Franklin, fellow
Swede Victor Sjöström, Jacques Feyder, Edmund Goulding, George
Cukor and Rouben Mamoulian. More important, MGM captured the expressive,
enigmatic nuances of her now-famous face by employing her favorite (and
the studio's best) cinematographer, William Daniels, on almost all of
her films. Although MGM avoided ruthless typecasting, the parts developed
for its leading female star almost invariably presented her in period
costume as a melancholy exotic who sacrifices her happiness for an unattainable
love. She returned to the screen as the tragic Anna
Karenina (again opposite John Gilbert), in LOVE (1927) a role she
would reprise for Clarence Brown in 1935. In her six remaining silent
features Garbo co-starred with Gilbert once (A WOMAN OF AFFAIRS, 1928),
but she continued to shine opposite other leading men (Nils Asther, Conrad
Nagel) as the woman who must pay for her extramarital affairs, including
Hollywood's last major silent, THE KISS.
Finally, MGM permitted the last of its silent stars to speak on the screen,
releasing Clarence Brown's version of Eugene O'Neill's ANNA CHRISTIE (1930)
with the famous ad line "Garbo Talks!" But her career was again
bolstered by the acclaimed GRAND HOTEL
(1932), in which she uttered her trademark line, "I want to be alone,"
and QUEEN CHRISTINA (1933). In the latter,
opposite John Gilbert for the last time, Garbo received her best notices,
though she was essentially reprising her familiar role as the tragic diva
who sacrifices for her lover. Over the next three years, MGM built three
other expensive costume dramas around Garbo in this role ANNA
KARENINA (1935), CAMILLE (1937)
and CONQUEST (1937).
Having made ten silent and a dozen sound films at MGM, Garbo concluded
her career with a pair of comedies. Her winning performance as a Russian
spy in Ernst Lubitsch's NINOTCHKA
(1939) elevated her to a surprising new level of acclaim. But the disastrous
attempt to present Garbo as a domesticated American in George Cukor's
TWO-FACED WOMAN (1941) slowed her resurgence and the actress whose image
had captured the public imagination for two decades retired suddenly and
permanently.
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