Greta Garbo: A Hollywood Mystery from the Golden Age of Cinema

Greta Garbo was an early Hollywood starlet who valued her privacy above all else. Unlike other major studio stars, Greta Garbo kept far away from the public eye. She refused to attend the premiers of her own films or grant interviews to reporters, let alone sign autographs for fans. She insisted on having her choice of leading men, and often demanded directors leave the set during her romantic scenes. MGM let her define the terms of her stardom, because her very inaccessibility added to her mystery, and she remained a valuable asset for the studio.

After making 27 movies over her 19 years in Hollywood and transitioning from silent films to talking films with unprecedented success, she mysteriously retired at the age of 36. Despite her retreat from Hollywood, she remains one of the most famous actresses of all time, even garnering her picture on a 37-cent U.S. stamp.

So who was Greta Garbo really, and why did she insist on privacy when she had the public wrapped around her little finger? This is a question that still plagues Hollywood today, although there are a few theories that attempt to clear up the mystery.

The tamer of the two theories explaining Greta Garbo’s need for privacy is that she was simply ashamed of her humble roots and ordinary life outside the realm of the cameras. Greta Garbo was born in Stockholm, Sweden as Greta Lovisa Gustafsson to a sometimes-employed peasant father and distant mother. She quit school at the age of 13 to care for her ailing father, who couldn’t afford the health care he desperately needed. When he died a year later, Garbo went to work.

After working as a face-latherer in a barbershop, Greta Garbo started work at the Swedish department store where she was discovered. After appearing in a couple Swedish films and attending the Royal Dramatic Theatre, she came to the U.S. to become an MGM starlet.

Although her rise to international fame is a rags-to-riches story the American public would have loved, some speculate that Greta Garbo’s early years were a source of shame. From her letters released in Sweden in 2005, it can be assumed that she was “ashamed of her latrine-cleaner” father.

Greta Garbo’s sexual life is (of course) the main reason many cite for her penchant for privacy. Despite being linked to many male co-stars over her brief career, as well as having a failed engagement to John Gilbert, she was also reported later to have lived as an active bisexual (if not an all-out lesbian). Greta Garbo never married, and when she died in 1990, she had been living with a female companion for many years.

During her on-screen years and shortly thereafter, Greta Garbo was romantically involved with many other powerful Hollywood women, including Marlene Dietrich, Claudette Colbert, Joan Crawford, and Ona Munson. From 1931-1944, Garbo and Mercedes de Acosta carried on a secret love affair. While this is an incredibly possible reason for Garbo’s need for privacy, many other gay and bisexual actors were public figures despite their private affairs.

Supposedly, Greta Garbo wrote an autobiography before she died in 1990. While this autobiography has never seen the light of day, perhaps the answer to the Garbo mystery is contained within its pages. Meanwhile, we are left to speculate on why a beautiful woman at the height of fame would hide from an adoring public and retire into an ordinary life.