Greta Garbo
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GRETA GARBO
ORIGINAL ITEMS FROM MGM VAULT
Shooting script and Continuity script for
 "Susan Lenox: Her Fall & Rise", 1931Greta Garbo's fourth sound film,
 It was Clark Gable's 10th and with"A Free Soul"
opposite Norma Shearer and Susan Lennox he became the
HUGEST box office star in movie history!
Garbo/Gable 1
Two Original, Vintage 8 x 10 Lobby cards from 1931
"Anna Karenina"
Mag ad in Perfect condition
(moire pattern not on the original)
GRETA GARBO
8 X 10 Original photo, Not a copy!
"Camille"
Museum mounted this poster more than 35 years ago.
I cannot trace its heritage. A good clue is the artist's
name "Willy" upper left corner. Many tiny imperfections,
altho not apparent without magnification. Poster was folded.
Very Rare Danish Original
Vintage Poster 24.5" x 33.5"
"Anna Christie"
This is the extremely rare Jumbo Lobbycard 14"x17"
Card is a photograph not a litho from 1930.
GARBO TALKS !!!
"Gif me a visky and don't be stingy!"
"Grand Hotel"
Above poster will be included FREE
to FIRST buyer of one of above items.
NEW ITEM
ORIGINAL VINTAGE 8 x 10 PHOTO
from 1937 movie "Conquest"
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Mini biography
In "Anna Karenina" (1935) the train pulls into the Moscow train station, a cloud of steam envelopes the exit of a first class car and then a woman emerges from the cloud. The figure is aristocratic, the face is a                              vision. But it's the eyes that enthrall the viewer and Vronsky who has expected his mother to be the first woman off the train. Bosley Crowther, New York Times film critic from 1940 to 1967, had this to say about the                              Garbo eyes: "Set in the face of classic structure were large, sad, luminous eyes that expressed a limited but intense emotional range". Crowther did not include this film in his short list of Garbo's major                              artistic achievements. His list: "Anna Christie" (1930) where Garbo "made the role of the cynical dockside ex- prostitute a thing of poetic beauty;" "Camille" (1936) where she played the                              Paris courtesan who had inspired novels, concertos and an opera with "alabaster loveliness;" "Ninotchka" (1939) where Garbo "demonstrated that she had the wit and flexibility to be a fine                              comedienne;" "Grand Hotel" (1932) where Garbo, then only 26, played a fading ballerina; and "Queen Christina" (1933) where Crowther was impressed by how she "deftly romped in masculine                              costumes". All of Garbo's films were in black and white and black and white enhanced her mystery and romantic allure. In real life, Garbo knew when to make her exit from Hollywood and the public eye. Her sense of                              timing, when to make her entrance and her exit -- perhaps she learned something from Tolstoy whose "Anna Karenina" must have been based on a woman just as real as Maureen O'Sullivan's Kitty in that film whom a                              man like Tolstoy won when Kitty lost Vronsky to a woman who could reveal so much through her eyes.
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Mini biography
Greta                              Lovisa Gustafsson was born in Stockholm, Sweden on September 18, 1905. She was 14 when her father died, leaving the family destitute. Greta was forced to leave school and go to work in a department store. The store used                              her for her modeling abilities for newspaper ads. She had no film aspirations until she appeared in an advertising short at that same department store while she was still a teenager. This led to another short film when                              Eric Petscher, a comedy director, saw the film. He gave her a small part in the film, PETER THE TRAMP (1920). Encouraged by her own performance she applied for and won a scholarship in a Swedish drama school. While                              there she appeared in two films, EN LYCKORIDDARE in 1921 and LUFFARPETTER the following year. Both were small parts, but it was a start. Finally famed Swedish director, Mauritz Stiller, pulled her from drama school for                              the leading role in THE ATONEMENT OF GOSTA BERLING in 1923. At 18, Greta was on a roll. Following DIE FREUDLOSE GASSE (1925) both Greta and Stiller were offered contracts with MGM. Her first US film was THE TORRENT in                              1925. It was a silent film where she didn't have to speak a word of English. After a few more films, such as THE TEMPTRESS (1926), LOVE (1927), and A WOMAN OF AFFAIRS (1928), Greta starred in 1930's ANNA CHRISTIE (her                              first 'talkie') which not only gave her a powerful screen presence, but also gave her an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress. Unfortunately she didn't win. Later that year she filmed ROMANCE which was somewhat of a                              letdown, but bounced back as lead role in SUSAN LENOX: HER RISE AND FALL with Clark Gable. The film was a hit and led to another exciting title role in MATA HARI in 1931. Greta continued to give intensified performances                              in whatever was handed her. The next year Greta was cast in another hit GRAND HOTEL. But it was MGM 1935's ANNA KARENINA where she, perhaps, gave the performance of her life. She was absolutely breathtaking in the title                              role as a woman torn between two lovers and her son. In 1939, Greta starred in NINOTCHKA which showcased her comedic side. It wasn't until two years later she made what was to be her last film that being TWO-FACED                              WOMAN, another comedy. After World War II, Greta, by her own admission, felt that the world had changed perhaps forever and she retired, never again to face the camera. She would work for the rest of her life to                              perpetuate the Garbo mystique. Her films, she felt, had their proper place in history and would gain in value. She abandoned Hollywood and moved to New York City. She would jet-set with some of the world's best known                              personalities such as Aristotle Onassis and others. She spent time gardening flowers and vegetables. In 1954, Greta was given a special Oscar for past unforgettable performances. She even penned her biography in 1990.                              On April 15, 1990, Greta died of natural causes in New York and with it the "Garbo Mystique". She was 84.
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Interred at Skogskyrkogï¿½rden Cemetery, Stockholm, Sweden.
Lived the last few year of her life in absolute seclusion.
(October 1997) Ranked #38 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.
Was warned to pay ex(lesbian)lover, Mercedes De Costa who was broke, or Garbos love letters to her would                              be made public. Garbo allegedly never paid but the fact remains that letters were kept secret. Ms De Costa died in 1968. 10 years after Garbos death (April, 2000) Philadelphia, Pa (USA)] Rosenbach Museum and Library                              putting letters on display
Garbo according to movie director Jacques Feyder: "At 9 o'clock AM 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 rushes nor goes to the premiï¿½res 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".
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Personal 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."
"Anyone who has a continuos smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening."
"I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said, 'I want to be left alone.' There is a whole world of difference."
"She gave you the impression that, if your imagination had to sin, it could at                              least congratulate itself on its impeccable taste." - Alastair Cooke sin, it could at least congratulate itself on it's impeccable
Biography from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia:
Actress. (b. Sept.                              18, 1905, Stockholm, as Greta Louisa Gustafsson; d. Apr. 15, 1990.) Few screen personalities have been totally successful in isolating their private lives from their public personas, but this enigmatic Swedish beauty                              certainly accomplished it. What's most amazing is that, in avoiding media scrutiny and public contact, she did so in a way that actually enhanced the mysterious allure that had been so vital an element in her success.                              Born into poverty, she worked as a shopgirl in a large department store and was chosen to appear in a short film promoting it. She made a few other such commercial appearances before deciding that acting might be her                              ticket out of the working class. Remarkably, she won a scholarship to the Royal Dramatic Theater acting school and, while doing some minor stage work, was spotted there by film director Mauritz Stiller. He tested her                              for and then signed her to play a role in The Story of Gosta Berling (1924).
Garbo's feature-film debut, while wellreceived, hardly made her an overnight sensation. But Stiller believed in the young actress, and                              took her under his wing. She played second female lead in G. W. Pabst's The Joyless Street (1924, which also included Marlene Dietrich as an extra) before going to America with Stiller, who had been offered a Hollywood                              contract by MGM's Louis B. Mayer. The highly regarded director used his influence to get Garbo signed as well, a move initially resisted by Mayer. She was assigned to play the female lead, a Spanish prima donna, in                              Monta Bell's The Torrent (1926), opposite Ricardo Cortez, and although studio brass at first had little faith in her, they were amazed by the quality of her work. Moreover, studio publicity men crafted hard-sell                              promotional materials that not only sold the film but launched the Garbo mystique, creating an air of mystery surrounding the naturally quiet, reticent woman.
As Garbo's star rose, however, Stiller's fell. Slated                              to direct her next film, The Temptress he quarreled relentlessly with MGM management and was finally replaced with the prosaic Fred Niblo. Although the picture turned out to be a middling artistic success, Garbo's                              femmefatale characterization attracted curious moviegoers and made it a commercial hit. For her next film, Flesh and the Devil (1927), she was teamed with John Gilbert, then MGM's reigning male star, with whom she                              carried on a torrid affair that, not surprisingly, spilled over into their cinematic lovemaking. The release of Flesh her best film to date, saw Garbo a full-fledged superstar. Certainly there was no one else like her                              on American movie screens, although other studios rushed to import similarly exotic European beauties and shroud them in synthetic cloaks of secrecy. Love (also 1927) reunited Garbo with Gilbert; she played Anna                              Karenina in this Tolstoy adaptation, and once again moviegoers were treated to the sight of real-life lovers playing out their passion on the big screen.
Away from the cameras, though, Garbo began to have second                              thoughts about Gilbert (for reasons that were never made clear). They planned to marry, but she literally left Gilbert standing at the altar, which devastated him. (By this time her mentor Stiller had returned to                              Sweden.) The iconoclastic Garbo resolutely clung to her individuality; she really did, as she famously said in Grand Hotel want to be left alone. And that impenetrable aloofness became an integral part of her mystique.
She continued to make silent films, all successful. The Divine Woman, The Mysterious Lady, A Woman of Affairs (all 1928), Wild Orchids, The Single Standard and The Kiss (all 1929) depended almost entirely upon                              her presence alone. Her characters could be pure or sullied, willing or restrained, remote or accessible-it didn't much matter. It was Garbo people wanted to see. And hear. When MGM's publicity machine cranked out                              promotional material for her first talkie, Anna Christie (a Eugene O'Neill play that, in retrospect, was an ambitious and risky choice for the foreign-born, thickly accented actress), the dominant message was: "Garbo Talks!" And she did, in a husky voice that, although incongruous with her physical appearance, somehow suited her perfectly.
In unexceptional films like Romance (1930), Inspiration, Susan Lenox:                              Her Fall and Rise (both 1931, in the latter opposite Clark Gable), Mata Hari and As You Desire Me (both 1932) she rose above often mediocre material; her mere presence made the films worth seeing. In Grand Hotel (1932)                              she created an archetype for herself, as the fatalistic ballerina, and got to work opposite John Barrymore, whom she greatly admired. Queen Christina (1933), which, at her request, reunited her with Gilbert (whose                              career had taken a sudden and dramatic turn for the worse with the advent of sound) was perhaps her best sound film. It contained several memorable moments, including a wordless scene in which, one morning af ter a                              rapturously happy tryst with Gilbert, she lingers in the room, touching and feeling furniture and objects so as to indelibly etch every detail of the joyous experience in her memory. Who but Garbo could have made the                              gesture so affecting?
After finishing The Painted Veil (1934), Garbo took the title roles in Anna Karenina (1935, a remake of Love and Camille (1937, as the doomed heroine, one of her best-remembered talkies),                              delivering two more memorable performances in great parts perfectly suited to her persona. After Conquest (1937), she was off the screen for nearly two years, and when she returned, it was to star in a comedy-something                              she'd never tried before. "Garbo Laughs!" the ads declared, and they were accurate. Ninotchka (1939), directed by Ernst Lubitsch from a Billy Wilder-Charles Brackett script, starred her as a Russian Communist                              functionary who, while visiting Paris, falls in love with gay blade Melvyn Douglas. Lubitsch was the perfect choice to guide her through this territory, and she was charming in her comedy debut.
Two more years                              passed before she made another movie. While willing to try another comedy, Two-Faced Woman (1941) was a poor choice. With European distribution curtailed during World War 2, MGM tried to Americanize and "humanize" the star, with disastrous results. Stinging from this failure, Garbo weighed other script offers carefully. Several projects were planned, then abandoned, during the 1940s, and in 1949 she even                              submitted to a screen test for the backers of a proposed film. But nothing came to fruition, and it was speculated that with each passing year, the idea of returning to the spotlight seemed less and less desirable to                              the erstwhile actress. For the remainder of her life she lived as a loner, vacationing in Switzerland, on the French Riviera, and in Italy but making home base her apartment on New York City's fashionable Upper East                              Side. Once in a while she would speak to passersby who saw her on the street, but by and large she avoided the public eye. The woman whose passionate love affairs once filled fan-magazine stories with speculation never                              married. In 1954 she received a special Oscar (amazingly, she'd never won any during her career, although she'd been nominated for Anna Christie, Romance, Camille and Ninotchka for "her unforgettable screen                              performances." Needless to say, she did not accept the statuette in person.
 
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Mini biography
She won a beauty contest at age fourteen. In 1920                              her mother, Edith Shearer, took Norma and her sister Athole Shearer (Mrs. Howard Hawks) to New York. Ziegfeld rejected her for his "Follies" but she got work as an extra in several movies. Irving Thalberg had                              seen her early efforts and, when he joined Louis B. Mayer in 1923, gave her a five year contract. He thought she should retire after their marriage, but she wanted bigger parts. Her first talkie was in Trial of Mary                              Dugan, The (1929); four movies later she won an Oscar in Divorcee, The (1930). She intentionally cut down film exposure during the thirties, relying on major roles in Thalberg's prestige projects: Barretts of Wimpole                              Street, The (1934), Romeo and Juliet (1936) (her fifth Oscar nomination). Thalberg died of pneumonia September 1936, aged thirty-seven. Norma wanted to retire but MGM more-or-less forced her into a six-picture contract.                              David O. Selznick offered her the part of Scarlett O'Hara, but public objection killed the deal. She starred in Women, The (1939), turned down the starring role in Mrs. Miniver (1942), and retired in 1942. Later that                              year she married Sun Valley ski instructor Martin Arouge, ten years younger than she (he waived community property rights). From then on she shunned the limelight; she was in very poor health the last decade of her                              life.
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Mini biography
Edith Norma Shearer was born on August 10, 1902 in Montreal, Quï¿½bec, Canada. Her childhood was very pleasant and active where she ski, swim, ice skate, and play musical instruments such as the piano. By the time she was nine she saw a local production and knew right there she wanted to be an actress. By the time she was fourteen                              she won a local beauty contest and felt this would be the thing to give her a start and send her on her way to stardom. In 1920, her mother took Norma and her sister to New York to try out for the Ziegfeld Follies. Even                              though the Follies rejected her she managed to find work as an extra in several films, the first being THE SIGN ON THE DOOR and THE FLAPPER both in 1920. Her mother being star-struck herself, encouraged Norma and her                              sister every step of the way. By the time she made it to California, MGM was established which was to become the greatest studio in history. Norma made a number of small films for them, but none received top treatment                              from the studio. The one thing they did do was to help enhance Norma's image and improve her acting. Finally, her big break came in the film THE STUDENT PRINCE IN OLD HEIDELBERG in 1927 with the role of Kathi. Motion                              pictures were changing and Norma had no problem making the transition from silent to "talkie" pictures. Her first sound movie was THE TRIAL OF MARY DUGAN. Norma had married studio head Irving Thalberg in 1927                              and many thought her marrying the boss could give her an unfair advantage in getting roles. Not so. She continued in "B" roles and finally the film industry thought she had paid her dues. Thalberg had very                              poor health and died in 1936. Norma continued to act but left films forever in 1942 with the film HER CARDBOARD LOVER. She had two children by Thalberg and later married Martin Arrouge, a ski instructor. She did                              maintain her ties with MGM and did a lot of traveling. There is no doubt had she stayed in films she could have gotten better and juicier roles but left while still ahead of the game. The retirement probably made Joan                              Crawford happy as she detested Norma. Most felt Joan was jealous because Norma was married to Thalberg. She often said, "How can I compete with her? She sleeps with the boss". Norma was smart enough never to                              engage Joan in confrontation unlike Bette Davis. She always remained dignified. Norma Shearer died at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, California on June 12, 1983.
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Irving Thalberg (1927 - 1936) (his death); 2 children
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Children, with Thalberg, Irving Jr. (b. 1930) and Katherine (b. 1935)
Sister of Athole Shearer and twelve                              time Academy Award winning sound director Douglas Shearer
Daughter of Edith Shearer
Discovered both Janet Leigh and actor/producer Robert Evans.
Interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, California,                              USA, in the Great Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Benediction.
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"How can I compete with Norma when she sleeps with the boss?" - Joan Crawford
Biography from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia:
Actress. (b. Aug. 10, 1900, Montreal, as Edith Norma Shearer; d.                              June 12, 1983.) It would be easy (and more than a little cruel) to assert that Norma Shearer kept her job by marrying the boss. But MGM production chief Irving Thalberg couldn't have maintained Shearer's star status indefinitely if she hadn't been able to deliver the goods-and she did, time after time, in the vehicles he lovingly produced for her. A former child model who began her screen career in 1920's The Flapper she was signed                              by Thalberg in 1923 after making a strong impression in Lucretia Lombard He brought her to Metro (where he had recently set up shop after a stint at Universal) and groomed her for stardom, seeing that she got the best                              makeup, the smartest gowns, and the ablest cinematographers on the lot. (She had unconventional beauty and charm, but also had a pair of oddly focused eyes that had to be photographed just right.)
Shearer                              appeared in He Who Gets Slapped (1924), Pretty Ladies, Tower of Lies (both 1925), The Devil's Circus, Upstage (both 1926), Ernst Lubitsch's delightful The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927), A Lady of Chance and                              The Latest From Paris (both 1928), among other silent films. Thalberg married her in 1927, from which time she got preferential treatment, including first choice of hot properties bought for or developed by MGM. She                              made her talkie debut in The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929), and followed it up later that year with two better films, The Trial of Mary Dugan and Their Own Desire (for which she was Oscarnominated).
Shearer won an                              Oscar for her starring performance in The Divorcee (1930), playing a tolerant young society wife who finally tires of her husband's indiscretions and decides to match them with her own. She snagged another nomination                              for her turn as the spoiled lawyer's daughter who falls for exonerated racketeer Clark Gable in A Free Soul (1931). That same year she appeared with frequent costar Robert Montgomery in the delightfully witty adaptation                              of Noï¿½l Coward's Private Lives Thalberg guided Shearer's career choices, making sure she got the most sophisticated and elegant female parts MGM had to offer; he even took to buying established stage properties, such as                              Strange Interlude and Smilin' Through (both 1932), specifically for her.
The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), a literate, tasteful screen adaptation of the 19th-century romance between Elizabeth Barrett and                              Robert Browning, featured another Oscar-nominated Shearer performance, as did Romeo and Juliet (1936, opposite Leslie Howard) for which Shearer, who tried valiantly in the role, was far too old to be totally convincing.
Thalberg's untimely death in 1936 devastated Shearer, who nonetheless went ahead with the filming of Marie Antoinette (1938), the last project he had developed for her. She earned yet another nod from the                              Academy. In blond wig for her role in Idiot's Delight (1939), again opposite Clark Gable, she was annoyingly mannered and, for the first time, seemed ill at ease. The Women (1939) gave her a more down-to-earth                              characterization, which she carried off admirably. But her career was nearly over; after finishing Escape (1940), and a pair of duds, Her Cardboard Lover and We Were Dancing (both 1942), she retired from the screen.                              Left very well off by Thalberg, Shearer remarried happily and lived in contentment until mental problems plagued her in her final years. Her last contributions to movies were in the guise of talent scout: she spotted                              Janet Leigh's picture while vacationing at a ski resort and arranged for an MGM screen test in the late 1940s; then, in the 1950s, she spotted handsome garment center executive Robert Evans alongside a swimming pool,                              thought he bore a strong resemblance to her late husband, and suggested him to play Thalberg in the Lon Chaney biopic Man of a Thousand Faces launching Evans' short-lived acting career. Her brother Douglas was MGM's                              Sound Department head for decades, winning 12 Oscars for achievement on individual pictures and developing many technical innovations now considered commonplace.
 
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