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SPEAKER_00: This Pride Month, Womanica is brought to you exclusively by Mercedes-Benz. Together, we're honoring people who've expanded the norms of gender and sexuality in the performing arts. Mercedes-Benz embraces the freedom of individual expression and continues to support and stand with the LGBTQIA Plus community. Listen all month long as we share stories of proud individuals whose authentic expression in their lives and bodies of work have challenged norms, driving society forward. Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan and this is Womanica. Today we're talking about one of the greatest and most mysterious actresses of the silver screen. Her fame came as much from her onscreen accolades as from her secretive life out of the public eye. Please welcome a well-known recluse, Greta Garvey. She's a famous actress who has been a huge fan of the silver screen, a well-known recluse, Greta Garbo. Greta was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson on September 18th, 1905 in Stockholm, Sweden. She was the third and youngest child of Anna and Carl Gustafsson, rural laborers. Greta was particularly close to her father. When he fell ill, she helped to make rounds at charity hospitals. But he died when she was just 14 years old. To support the family, Greta worked as a lather in a barber shop and later in a department store modeling and selling hats. Greta was shy and solitary, but she was enamored with acting. She'd stand outside local feeders to watch performers come and go. When she was 15 years old, she got her first break acting in an advertisement for the department store she worked at. By the time she was 17, she'd left to study at Stockholm's Royal Dramatic Theatre. There, she was taught to analyze movement and gesture, lessons that would come in handy in Stockholm's thriving silent film scene. In 1923, Greta was scouted by Moritz Stiller, a Swedish film director, to play the lead in his new movie. Moritz became Greta's mentor, even coming up with her now infamous stage name, Garbo. In 1925, Greta secured a deal with Louis B. Mayer of MGM Films. Greta and Moritz set sail for Hollywood. Upon her arrival, Greta found herself isolated in her new surroundings. She hardly spoke English, and she found out that her older sister had died back in Sweden. To make matters even worse, Moritz was not chosen to direct Greta's first American picture and was fired from the second. Despite her rocky start in Hollywood, Greta was an instant success. Her debut films, Torrent and The Temptress, hailed her screen presence as a revelation. Motion Picture magazine wrote, "'She's not so much an actress as she is endowed "'with individuality and magnetism.'" Greta was a strong actor, and she was a natural on film. She cemented her stardom in 1927 with her third film, Flesh and the Devil. She followed it up by transitioning from silent films to talkies, a jump many of her contemporaries lost their careers to. By the 1930s, Greta was a box office star. The country was engulfed in garbomania. In 1939, she even shed her melanin calic persona to star as a rom-com heroine in Ninochka. That movie won her a third Oscar nomination and garnered more than 400,000 moviegoers during a three-week run at Radio City. Greta was a commanding presence in Hollywood. By the mid-1930s, she was making $450,000 a year. She was the highest paid actor in America. She negotiated a contract that gave her the ability to veto co-stars' scripts and directors. It was a highly unusual responsibility in the Hollywood studio system. On screen, Greta played a vamp, a sexually liberal archetype we'd probably call a man-eater today. Off screen, she played an entirely different persona. She dressed in men's clothes and hardly spoke about love affairs publicly. She was so private that she was famous for how little people knew about her. Greta shunned celebrity. She once told a reporter, "'I will no longer shake hands with prizefighters and egg and milk men so they will have pictures to put in the papers.'" She also rejected the femme fatale persona the studio gave her. Paparazzi only ever caught her in cardigans and trench coats, men's shoes and ties, and a slouchy hat and large sunglasses that covered her face. In referencing herself, Greta would call herself a fellow and sometimes sign her letters as hairy or hairy boy. Contemporaries and historians alike have theorized about Greta's sexuality, which she kept as private as the rest of her life. She had a publicized romance early in her career with co-star John Gilbert. She's rumored to have had affairs with Mercedes de Acosta, Tallulah Bankhead, Billie Holiday, Louise Brooks, and Marlene Dietra, most of whom we've talked about on Wamanica. Newspapers at the time referred to Greta's sexuality coily using coded language. They often referenced Sappho and violets, words associated with lesbians. So when a gossip of the era wrote that a bunch of violets were always to be found at the head of Greta's bed, they were insinuating more than Greta's decoration preferences. Greta's on and off-screen personas came to a head in 1933's Queen Christina, a partially true film about the 17th century monarch. In it, she wore tunics and tight trousers as she kissed her lady in Waiting on the Lips and delivered the ever iconic line, "'I shall die a bachelor.'" By the end of the 1930s, Greta was one of the many stars labeled box office poison. She was well liked by studios, but her audience turnout was dwindling. In 1941, at 36 years old, Greta Garbo retired from acting. She had made 28 movies over the course of 16 years. Greta moved to New York's Upper East Side and lived the rest of her life in relative quiet. She collected art and became a naturalized citizen of the US. She'd often go on walks around her neighborhood. When people stopped her on the street, she'd simply reply, "'No,' or put her index finger to her mouth and say, "'Sh.'" ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] In 1954, Greta received an Academy Honorary Award, but she did not attend the ceremony. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] She died on April 15th, 1990, from natural causes. She was 84 years old. All month, we're highlighting queer stars at the stage and screen. For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram, at Wamanica Podcast. Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator. As always, we'll be taking a break for the weekend. Talk to you on Monday.
SPEAKER_05: ["The Star-Spangled Banner"]
SPEAKER_04: ["The Star-Spangled Banner"]
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