Greta Garbo was a Swedish actress that started out in silent features at the cusp of Hollywood’s
Golden Age before eventually becoming one of the biggest movie stars of the 1930s.
In 1941, Greta unceremoniously retired from the entertainment industry in her mid-30s.
After this, she lived a life of seclusion in Manhattan in the years leading up to her
death many, many decades later.
In the many years that Greta spent in her Manhattan seclusion, she became a legend around
the area and was often spotted walking around.
However, she chose to remain out of the spotlight after her 1941 retirement and never again
returned to it before her 1990 death.
Many years after her death, some personal letters were revealed that shed light on the
mysterious star’s life.
Join Facts Verse as letters reveal the secrets of Greta Garbo’s mysterious private life.
Greta Garbo passed away in 1990, after having retired from the entertainment industry in
1941.
In the years between her retirement and her death, the actress lived an incredibly mysterious
and isolated life in Manhattan.
Though she was often spotted publicly, not much was known about what the actress was
really up to.
She was never married during her lifetime, and seemingly never worked after her retirement.
Her mysteriousness only made her that much more of a legend, and she remained a celebrated
figure in the years after her death.
A few decades after her passing, a series of letters were uncovered from the 1930s and
1940s that revealed a good deal about what Greta was up to in the years after her retirement.
Though these letters didn’t reveal everything, they did suggest that Greta was never entirely
satisfied with her Hollywood fame and would’ve preferred to live a life of seclusion in the
Swedish countryside.
Greta was born and raised in Sweden, and that is where her remains reside.
However, she spent the majority of her life in America.
After choosing to end her days of Hollywood stardom, Greta moved to Manhattan and spent
her remaining decades there.
However, in the time after her retirement, she wrote letters to her friends back in Sweden
expressing that she wished she could be back there.
It remains uncertain what kept the actress in America, or why exactly she retired from
show business.
The letters also revealed that Greta did indeed spend most of her time alone, with the actress
claiming that she would often talk to herself to pass the time.
She apparently enjoyed taking walks on the beach alone and preferred to spend her time
in isolation as much as possible.
The actress never married throughout her life, and never had children.
Though she was romantically involved with a few figures of the course of her lifetime,
her sexuality remains just as mysterious as most of the actress's other attributes.
Greta Garbo’s final film was 1941’s Two-Faced Woman, and the letters also revealed that
Greta wasn’t entirely happy with some creative decisions that had been made on the picture
without her approval.
This may have been another part of why the actress chose to call it quits on the entertainment
industry.
Following the unceremonious release of the feature, the actress chose to retire from
Hollywood after having starred in nearly 30 pictures over 15 years.
After her 1941 retirement, Greta continued living in Beverly Hills for a period of time
before her relocation to Manhattan.
Even during the height of the actress’s fame, she was notoriously aloof.
She didn’t like doing interviews, and she never answered fan mail.
The Golden Age actress liked to let her work speak for itself.
During Greta’s decades as a mysterious legend living in New York City, fans walking the
streets could often spot her.
These appearances became the stuff of legends, and the actress even sometimes turned up in
crowds in the background of photographs taken within the city.
Fans cherished these sporadic appearances, as these were the only appearances that the
actress designed to make in the years between her retirement and later death.
Greta Garbo only worked in the entertainment industry for 15 years, though she remained
alive for nearly five decades after her 1941 retirement.
Despite the relatively short amount of time that Greta worked in entertainment, the star
managed to make an incredible impression on audiences.
Greta Garbo remains a mystery to audiences to this day, and people are still trying to
figure out what exactly made the beloved star tick.
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Greta Garbo was born in Sweden on September 18, 1905.
As a young woman, she worked in a barbershop while studying acting at a nearby institution
called the Royal Dramatic Theatre Acting School.
In 1924, a director by the name of Maurtiz Stiller discovered Greta and cast her in a
film by the name of The Saga of Gosta Berling.
Following her appearance in the film, Greta continued appearing in films under the director's
guidance for a few years before she eventually came to Hollywood.
It was Louis B. Mayer of MGM who was the one who brought Greta Garbo to Hollywood.
At the insistence of the infamous studio head, Greta learned English and altered her appearance
slightly to appeal to the American audience.
She lost a little bit of weight, straightened out her hair, and had her teeth straightened.
After this, Greta was ready to make her first appearance in a Hollywood feature film!
Greta Garbo made her Hollywood debut in 1926.
The actress appeared in three Hollywood features that were released over the course of the
year, with those three being titled Flesh and the Devil, The Temptress, and Torrent.
Throughout the 1920s, Greta starred in a total of 11 silent features for MGM, with her final
silent feature being 1929's The Kiss.
By that point, the sound was being introduced to motion pictures, and it remained to be
seen whether or not the Swedish actress was going to have the voice to pull off continued
stardom.
Thankfully, she did!
By the 1930s, Greta’s English had become good enough that she was able to continue
her career once sound became the norm in film.
The actress first revealed her voice to the public in Anna Christie, and the film proved
that Greta could still remain a selling point in the age of sound.
Following her appearance in Anna Christie, Greta went on to appear in several more hit
pictures during the early 1930s, including Mata Hari and Grand Hotel.
By 1933, Greta's star power had risen so considerably that she was given an unprecedented deal with
MGM that saw her not only earning more money but also having a greater level of control
of her own projects.
Despite this fact, the previously mentioned letters that were posthumously revealed expressed
that Greta wasn't happy with decisions that were made beyond her control on her final
picture.
That final picture was the aforementioned Two-Faced Woman.
Critics received the risqué comedic film poorly, and it served as the perfect opportunity
for Greta to abandon Hollywood.
Many give the failure of Two-Faced Woman sole credit for causing Greta Garbo to leave behind
the entertainment industry, but there seems to have been a variety of other factors at
play.
For one thing, Greta’s star power was waning considerably towards the end of the 1930s,
and the actress likely didn’t feel supported by her own community.
Secondly, the actress simply never felt very much at home in Hollywood, as expressed in
the posthumously revealed letters.
After her unceremonious retirement in 1941, numerous people tried to bring Greta back
to the screen.
One of the Hollywood figures that tried to bring Greta out of retirement was Billy Wilder,
who offered the actress a part in the feature film Sunset Blvd.
The actress turned down the proposed part in the film, choosing instead to remain out
of the spotlight.
A few years later, she relocated to Manhattan and made her removal from the entertainment
industry permanent.
Technically, the actress’s final on-screen appearance was in a 1974 film by the name
of Adam and Yves.
The film was located in New York City and featured several establishing shots of Manhattan.
One of the establishing shots incidentally happened to include Greta Garbo, though the
inclusion wasn’t purposeful.
In 1955, Greta Garbo was given an Academy Honorary Award at that year’s ceremony.
It was the star’s first and only win, having been nominated four times previously but never
taken the award home.
By this point in time, the actress was already becoming a legend in her own time and was
well on her way to becoming the incredibly mysterious figure that she ended up being
by the time of her death.
Greta Garbo ended up passing away on April 15, 1990.
At the time of her death, she was 84 years old.
As established, the actress had never married nor had children and died relatively alone,
though it seems that was what she wanted.
Despite the fact that the actress was never married, there are a few lovers that she was
known to have had over the course of her lifetime.
The most notable of these lovers was British fashion photographer Cecil Beaton, though
she was also engaged to actor John Gilbert for a period of time.
Although Greta Garbo was only a public figure for just a fraction of her life, her mysterious
withdrawal from the spotlight only made her that much more interesting to the public.
Now it's time to hear from you: did you know that Greta Garbo retired from the entertainment
industry during her mid-30s and that she spent the rest of her life in isolation in Manhattan?
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