Greta Garbo Net Worth

Greta Garbo's Quotes

• There is no one who would have me--I can't cook.
• Being a movie star, and this applies to all of them, means being looked at from every possible direction. You are never left at peace, you're just fair game.
• You don't have to be married to have a good friend as your partner for life.
• I wish I were supernaturally strong so I could put right everything that is wrong.
• Life would be so wonderful if we only knew what to do with it.

Interesting Facts about Greta Garbo

1. Interred at Skogskyrkogården Cemetery, Stockholm, Sweden.
2. Lived the last few years of her life in absolute seclusion.
3. In October of 1997 she was ranked #38 in "Empire" (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.
4. Letters and correspondence between she and poet/socialite/notorious lesbian Mercedes de Acosta were unsealed on April 15, 2000, exactly ten years after Garbo's death (per De Acosta's instructions). The letters revealed no love affair between the two, as had been rumored.
5. Director Jacques Feyder recalled working with her: "At 9 o'clock a.m. the work may begin. 'Tell Mrs. Garbo we're ready,' says the director. 'I'm here,' a low voice answers, and she appears, perfectly dressed and combed as the scene needs. Nobody could say by what door she came but she's there. And at 6 o'clock PM, even if the shot could be finished in five minutes, she points at the watch and goes away, giving you a sorry smile. She's very strict with herself and hardly pleased with her work. She never looks at rushes nor goes to the premieres but some days later, early in the afternoon, enters all alone an outskirts movie house, takes place in a cheap seat and gets out only when the projection finishes, masked with her sunglasses".
6. Once voted by The Guinness Book of World Records as the most beautiful woman who ever lived.
7. Her parents were Karl and Anna Gustafson, and she also had an older sister and brother, Alva Garbo and Sven Garbo. Her father died of nephritis when she was 14 and when she was 21 her sister died of lymphatic cancer.
8. Her personal favorite of all her movies was Camille (1936).
9. She disliked Clark Gable, a feeling that was mutual. She thought his acting was wooden while he considered her a snob.
10. Left John Gilbert standing at the altar in 1927 when she got cold feet about marrying him.
11. Before making it big, she worked in Sweden as a soap-latherer in a barber's shop.
12. During filming, whenever there was something going on that wasn't to her liking, she would simply say, "I think I'll go back to Sweden!", which frightened the studio heads so much that they gave in to her every whim.
13. In the mid-'50s she bought a seven-room apartment in New York City (450 East 52nd St.) and lived there until she died.
14. Became a US citizen in 1951.
15. Her sets were closed to all visitors and sometimes even the director. When asked why, she said, "During these scenes I allow only the cameraman and lighting man on the set. The director goes out for a coffee or a milkshake. When people are watching, I'm just a woman making faces for the camera. It destroys the illusion. If I am by myself, my face will do things I cannot do with it otherwise.".
16. She was criticized for not aiding the Allies during WWII, but it was later disclosed that she had helped Britain by identifying influential Nazi sympathizers in Stockholm and by providing introductions and carrying messages for British agents.
17. She was prone to chronic depression and spent many years trying to "cure" it through Eastern philosophy and a solid health food regimen. However, she never gave up smoking and cocktails.
18. Except at the very beginning of her career, she granted no interviews, signed no autographs, attended no premieres and answered no fan mail.
19. Her volatile mentor/director Mauritz Stiller, who brought her to Hollywood, was abruptly fired from directing her second MGM film, The Temptress (1926), after repeated arguments with studio execs. Unable to hold a job in Hollywood, he returned to Sweden in 1928 and died shortly after at age 45. Garbo was devastated.
20. She actually hoped to return to films after the war but, for whatever reason, no projects ever materialized.