Greta Garbo
Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, better known as Greta Garbo, was a noted Swedish actress and recluse. She was a major star in the United States during the silent film era and the Golden Age of Hollywood. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Garbo fifth on their list of greatest female stars of all time, after Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, and Ingrid Bergman.
Garbo launched her career with a major role in the Swedish film The Saga of Gosta Berling. Her performance caught the attention of Louis B. Mayer, who brought her to Hollywood in 1925 to work at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). She became a star of silent films.
Garbo was one of the few actresses to negotiate the transition to sound. Her first talking film was Anna Christie (1930), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. MGM marketers enticed the public with the catchphrase "Garbo talks!" In 1932, her popularity allowed her to dictate the terms of her contract, and she became increasingly choosy about her roles.
She received the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress for Anna Karenina (1935), but she considered her performance as the courtesan Marguerite Gautier in Camille (1936) her best performance; the role gained her a second Academy Award nomination. After working exclusively in dramatic films, Garbo turned to comedy with Ninotchka (1939) and Two-Faced Woman (1941). For Ninotchka, Garbo was again nominated for an Academy Award; Two-Faced Woman did well at the box office, but was a critical failure.
After 1941, she retired after appearing in 27 films, and became increasingly reclusive. She has been indelibly linked to one of her lines from the film Grand Hotel: "I want to be alone". She later remarked, "I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said, 'I want to be let alone.' There is all the difference." To the end of her life, Garbo-watching became a sport among the paparazzi and the media, but she remained elusive up until her death in 1990 at the age of 84.
“Bartender! Vring me some viskey with chincher ale on de side & don't be stingy, baby. (Garbo's first words in a talking picture)”
“I like the sea: we understand one another. It is always yearning, sighing for something it cannot have; and so am I.”
“There are some who want to get married and others who don't. I have never had an impulse to go to the altar. I am a difficult person to lead.”
“Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.”
“There are many things in your heart you can never tell to another person. They are you, your private joys and sorrows, and you can never tell them. You cheapen yourself, the inside of yourself, when you tell them.”
“I'm a completely worthless woman and no man should risk his life for me.”
“How can one change one's entire life and build a new one on one moment of love? And yet, that's what you make me want to close my eyes and do.”
“I'm not always sincere. One can't be in this world, you know.”
“Perhaps it's better if I live in your heart, where the world can't see me. If I'm dead, there will be no stain on our love.”
“Why should you care for a woman like me? I'm always nervous or sick, or sad or too gay.”
“Life would be so wonderful if we only knew what to do with it. ”
“Why haven't I got a husband and children?" mused Greta Garbo to the Dutchess of Windsor, "I never met a man I could marry.”
“I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said 'I want to be let alone!' There is all the difference.”
“I'm afraid of NOTHING except being bored! ”
“Every one of us lives this life just once, if we are honest, to live once is enough.”