Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 16, 1990 TAG: 9004160088
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Long
"New York Hospital announces with great sadness the death of Miss Garbo," said hospital spokesman Andrew Banoff.
At the family's request, he provided no other information other than that she died Sunday. He declined to say when she entered the hospital or at what time she died.
Ben Buttenweiser, a neighbor and friend of Garbo, said the actress hadn't been well lately and had dialysis treatments, but didn't know the nature of her illness. Banoff declined to say whether Garbo had been treated for kidney trouble.
The Swedish-born star began her career in silent films and reigned as the supreme movie queen throughout the '30s. Some critics considered her the finest screen actress of all time.
Actor Jimmy Stewart recalled Sunday night that Garbo had a certain mystique about her.
"It was a combination of the way she looked, her voice and the beautiful way she moved," Stewart said. "As an actress and as a person she had this very special thing about her that I think sort of set her apart, and it was something very special."
He said he never really got to know Garbo, but was always a fan.
After her retirement at age 36, Garbo never acted again, but her luminous performances in 24 films kept her name alive and made her a favorite of younger generations who saw in her an ethereal ideal of the ultimate woman.
While "Camille," and "Ninotchka" became film festival staples, the woman known worldwide simply as "Garbo" remained shuttered in her Manhattan apartment or at various retreats in France and Switzerland.
She suffered little illness through most of her life, and was a health enthusiast who enjoyed long walks.
When she traveled it was with the air of a phantom, slipping in and out of airports, wearing dark glasses and a slouch hat pulled down. She was usually only a few steps ahead of persistent photographers who stalked her incessantly and occasionally managed to steal a quick shot of "The Face."
Her most-remembered line was in "Grand Hotel" when she said, "I want to be alone." She was also reputed to have said the same to reporters, although she once insisted to a friend that what she had said was, "I want to be let alone."
In comments published in Life magazine in 1989, Garbo described herself as a "sour little creature."
Rumors of love affairs were plentiful but she never married and in her later years allowed only a few long-time friends to penetrate her solitude. Few would discuss the star, knowing they would lose her friendship if they did. But those who did comment indicated they had never been allowed to know her secrets.
She was born Greta Lovisa Gustaffson in Stockholm on Sept. 18, 1905, the daughter of an uneducated laborer who was often ill or unemployed. After her father died when she was 14, she left school to become a barber's helper and later a $25-a-month department store clerk.
While clerking in the hat department, she was chosen to appear in a filmed hat advertisement. Stagestruck, the 17-year-old Greta enrolled in Stockholm's Royal Dramatic Theater Academy and haunted film studios seeking work. She won several bit parts, the first in a 1923 comedy titled "Peter the Tramp."
But her big break came when Mauritz Stiller, then Sweden's leading director, visited the academy and discovered the tall, angular beauty. He made her his protege, changed her name to Garbo and starred her in his 1924 silent movie, "The Atonement of Gosta Berling."
The film depicted her wrapped in furs and huddled in a horse-drawn sled as it sped away from a pack of pursuing wolves. At the first sight of Garbo on film, Stiller said, "Her face. You only get a face like that in front of a camera once in a century."
Stiller's film caught the attention of Hollywood movie tycoon Louis B. Mayer, who offered the director a contract at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios. Stiller agreed on the condition that Garbo be signed, too.
She stepped onto American soil in 1925, and from her first American appearance in the silent film, "The Torrent," Garbo captivated audiences.
Her career soared with such silent films as "Flesh and the Devil," "The Divine Woman" and "Woman of Affairs" but when talkies began studio officials feared her voice might not please audiences. They were wrong.
Talking pictures revealed her throaty, sensual voice and further enhanced her appeal. She became an international sensation, drawing rave reviews in "Mata Hari," "Grand Hotel," "Queen Christina" and many more.
Many film buffs can recite her first spoken line, to a bartender at a waterfront saloon in "Anna Christie":
"Gimme a viskey - ginger ale on the side - and don't be stingy, baby."
Response to the sight of her chisled features and lithe body sometimes was so frenzied that the phenomenon became known as "Garbomania."
By the 1930s, she was reportedly earning between $250,000 to $300,000 a picture.
Her leading men included some of the greatest stars of the time - Clark Gable in "Susan Lennox," John Barrymore in "Grand Hotel," Fredric March in "Anna Karenina," Robert Taylor in "Camille," and Charles Boyer in "Conquest."
At various times she was reported to be ready to marry actor John Gilbert, maestro Leopold Stokowski, health food enthusiast Gayelord Hauser and director Rouben Mamoulian. But as she had said early in her career, "Marriage? I have said over and over again that I do not know."
Her career began to wane in the late 1930s but bounced back with the comedy "Ninotchka," which prompted marquees across America to blaze "Garbo Laughs!" But her next attempt at a humorous role in "Two-faced Woman" flopped and Garbo announced her retirement in 1941.
by CNB