Garbo, Greta

22 autograph letters signed, in Swedish, and 1 typescript letter signed, in English; 85 pages in pencil with some headed "Miramar hotel", "Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios", "450 East 52nd Street, New York", and 20 envelopes; formerly folded. 

Copyright 2006 Derek & Gray Reisfield, 2015 Derek Reisfield

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Greta Garbo’s letters to fellow actress, Mimi Pollak, are perhaps the only extensive personal record of the future screen legend during the pivotal period of her arrival in Hollywood and the earliest years of her film career. Writing candidly to her closest friend, Garbo covers her stay in New York, the impact of the tragic death of her sister, Alva, the devastating failure of her mentor, Mauritz Stiller (Moje), her affair with John Gilbert and her thoughts on marriage and love, as well as her difficulties in adjusting to the Hollywood studio system, and the cultural dissonance of America for a European.

Deeply conflicted about her personal life and trapped in the Studio System, a lonely Garbo writes from “cheap and vulgar” Hollywood, longing for home. A remarkable archive of her early years in America.

Culver City, October 4, 1925: “I haven’t started yet. We lived in New York for two months and were just at the point of returning home. Everything went sort of haywire. Stiller has been unlucky lately. It has been a pity for him.” 

Christmas letter, December 16, 1925 on Miramar Hotel Stationary: “But it is sad that no one, no one is allowed to be really happy. If you knew how I long for home (...) Let me tell you how I exist. I started my first film (Torrent) with an American director (Monta Bell). Up at 6 and home at six or seven. Fall into bed and sometimes can’t sleep. And alone, alone. God how terrible it is. This ugly, ugly America, all machines. It is soul destroying in the highest degree. I never go out at night – just home to my dreary hotel. I never dress so people here must believe I live on starvation wages. Soon I won’t care about anything. If I only had a little money, I would go home. (...) You must believe that all the brilliance with which we surround the American film is dimmed here. There isn’t a trace of elegance or style.”

16 Dec 1925: “Isn’t it awful Misse, but I never even look at men (and of course not at women either). I would never be interested in them, never. For me, there’s only my old Moje. Isn’t that tragic? I’ll become a little ‘spinster.’ What do you think about that descriptive word? Couldn’t you make a trip here? (...) I feel expelled from Paradise…" 

Death of her sister Alva, June 3, 1926: “Can you understand that those we love leave us and even if we should live for a hundred years ourselves, we would never get to see them again. Never - can you understand that? I was not even given the chance to do something for her. (…) The feeling you experience when you say that you were not given the time that feeling cannot be expressed by any human tongue. (...) I have been working and working so hard, it is too much for a woman. After this movie (Temptress) I intend to take the consequences and ask for permission to go home. I cannot stand it. I have to go home and see my mother and Alva’s grave. (…) I am not able to put any feeling into my work now anyway so I am going to work and then I am going home again, like a machine. “

Stiller is been fired, June 3, 1926: “You know that Stiller was supposed to be the director of my second movie, the one I am making right now. But only a week after my little sister’s death another punch hit me. Moje, poor Moje. It has been like a living hell for him here. The Americans have been awful. They do not allow him to make movies the way he is used to. They interfere and all his inspiration disappears.  Poor Moje, he was so wearied and tired that he just left everything. He was such a nice guy, you know, he did not shout. Did not quarrel. He subsided and ruined things for himself.”

Garbo goes on strike, Nov 23, 1926: “My last film that is showing now was so poor and I was rotten. You will pity me when you see it. I am so tired of everything and so afraid because I have not grown up enough for everything. I’ve done stupid things. I have stayed home from the Studio now for a little while because I didn’t want to go there. They tried to reach me, threatened me, but I haven’t gone there. (...) This is America where one can’t and shouldn’t do such things. They think I am crazy. They have convinced themselves that it is bravery I’m exhibiting. But oh what a little mistake. (…) I don’t know what will happen between me and the Studio. They insist on only giving me vamp roles and the whole thing disgusts me. (…) I was given a vamp role a while ago and I just went home to my hotel and I haven’t gone back since. (…) They wanted to pay me more but then I would have to sign for a longer time, but I am afraid I don’t want to. I hate to be tied to the studio. (…) But it is sad to waste away one’s time in this country, if you are not getting paid. I don’t know how it will turn out.”

Her romance with John Gilbert, 23 Nov 1926: “You ask about Gilbert. Yes. There has been a lot in the newspapers but I can’t do what the newspapers expect. I am not suited to be married. I am too temperamental and too nervous. And soon enough the man who married me would discover that I am brainless. (...) He is very sweet and angry because I don’t want to get married. I have been very bad towards him. Without knowing what I wanted, I’ve promised things, which now make him unhappy because I can’t go through with them. He has a very attractive home with everything you could want – tennis, swimming pool, servants, cars and everything to make life easier. But I still return home to my old, ugly hotel room. Why?”

Sept 17, 1927: “You know I see red when I think that there you are at home and everything around you that I also like, and I have sold myself and have to stay here. If it wasn’t so terribly tasteless and cheaply vulgar and ugly here. But it can’t be described, it has to be seen. God how we complain we Europeans. And I shouldn’t have anything to say since I haven’t seen the world and I can’t point out its good points. But I am complaining the loudest. I must exist since I work. But I am like someone who has no idea of what one is doing and why. (...) Strange the whole thing. I continue to live very much alone. Still at my old hotel with suitcases on the floor so I can always see them and be reminded that one day we’ll go home. “

January 28, 1928: “I don’t put my foot in the studio unless it is necessary. You don’t know this little land, so you can hardly understand what I mean when I say that I am postponing life until I can go home again. It is so boundlessly uninteresting here that you can’t do anything else. The sad thing is I am not interested in my work. It is only a factory here."

These letters represent the genuine Garbo with the direct honesty possible only between the closest of friends.