Portrait
Greta Garbo
Born
18 September 1905Stockholm, Sweden
Died
15 April 1990New York City, USA · aged 84
ActorSweden

Greta Garbo

A Swedish film star whose guarded private life became almost as famous as her performances.

Greta Garbo was born in Stockholm in 1905. Born Greta Gustafsson, she worked in a department store before training at the Royal Dramatic Theatre’s school. The director Mauritz Stiller helped launch her screen career, and she moved to Hollywood in 1925.

Films such as “Flesh and the Devil” (1926) made her a major silent star. “Anna Christie” (1930) successfully introduced her voice to cinema audiences, while “Queen Christina” (1933) gave her a role that played with costume, authority and gender. “Camille” and “Ninotchka” showed the range between her tragic and comic performances.

After “Two-Faced Woman” (1941), Garbo stopped making films. Her later life in New York was private, but the legend of complete isolation exaggerated the reality of her friendships and routines.

She never married. Her relationships with men are documented, while affectionate correspondence with women including Mimi Pollak and Mercedes de Acosta has prompted different readings of her emotional life. The letters reveal intimacy without resolving every question about it. Garbo died in New York in 1990, aged 84.

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