Garbo: A Biography [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Barry Paris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 19, 1995

Drawing on interviews with Ingmar Bergman and Max von Sydow amongst others, Barry Paris examines the "brooding northern soul" that defined Garbo's work and personality and which was rooted in an unhappy childhood. Her later relationships with G.W. Pabst, Louis B. Mayer, John Gilbert, George Cukov and Ernst Lubitsch are explored as are some of her lesser-known friendships with women, notably Pola Negri, Lillian Gish and Ava Gardner. He also considers the question of whether Garbo actually intended to retire from the cinema - and brings to light the secret final years of her life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Greta Garbo's melancholy self-obsession, her paradoxical need to perform and withdraw, manifested themselves in her teens, shows Paris (Louise Brooks) in a moving biography that unearths connections between the private woman and the public actress. Recurring traumas of abandonment-the deaths of her father, Karl, a Stockholm landscapist, when she was 14, and of her beautiful actress sister Alva, victim of cancer at age 23-molded Garbo (1905-1990) into a high-strung, hypersensitive recluse pathologically afraid of betrayal, of commitment, of pregnancy, according to Paris. The Swedish sphinx moved to Hollywood in 1925 and became "the sex fantasy of the century," an androgynous, exotic persona on whom millions projected their desires, yet, by this account, she was a largely celibate narcissist who longed for an idealized hearth and home. Garbo found a substitute family in the home of her closest friend, actress Salka Viertel, and this revealing biography, featuring 180 photographs woven into the narrative, draws on the 50-year Garbo-Viertel correspondence, on firsthand reminiscences and on Garbo's taped conversations with her confidante, New York City art dealer Sam Green, which fills in details of her last decades of self-imposed exile in Manhattan and trips abroad. Movie/Entertainment Book Club alternate; author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

For all that has been written about the movies' most elusive goddess, Paris provides the first serious cradle-to-grave biography. His advantage over previous miners of the inexhaustible Garbo lode is access to 50 years of correspondence with screenwriter Salka Viertel and 100 hours of taped phone conversations with confidant Sam Green, a New York art dealer. Paris was well equipped for this task; his superb portrait of another actress, Louise Brooks (LJ 9/15/89), also dealt with an aborted career and a long and mostly reclusive retirement. As revelation, Garbo doesn't measure up to Brooks, but, thankfully, its thoroughness precludes much speculation, especially in the inevitable area of Garbo's love life. This should stand for some time as the definitive biography.
Thomas Wiener, formerly with "American Film"
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd; illustrated edition edition (May 19, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0283999543
• ISBN-13: 978-0283999543
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,021,069 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly extraordinary biography., October 19, 2000

By 

Augustus Caesar, Ph.D. (Eugene, Oregon United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Garbo: A Biography (Hardcover)

Barry Paris' life of Greta Garbo is an extraordinary biography in many ways. First, it tells the story of one of Hollywood's most enigmatic and legendary icons without resorting to hyperbole or the sort of highblown psychobabble so many other, lesser writers would have stooped to. Second, it is meticulously researched and tells Garbo's story honestly, responsibly and thoroughly, including her mysterious days as New York's Most Famous Recluse. Finally, it delves deep into the heart of what made, and continues to make, Garbo one of the enduring figures in 20th century popular culture. Paris reveals the woman behind the dark sunglasses--and she turns out to be much more interesting than one might think. Garbo, it seems, was a woman of vast contradictions, who ultimately became the victim of both her own compulsive need for privacy and her vast emotional ambivalence. This is the biographical art at its finest, and highly recommended.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Biography, April 14, 2001

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Garbo: A Biography (Hardcover)

Paris has done a great job in shedding light on the reclusive Garbo. It probes into her life, but is not needlessly intrusive. Endlessly fascinating.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Garbo Bio, January 15, 2005

By 

S. Twiselton - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Garbo: A Biography (Hardcover)

Paris truly has an affection for Garbo, which sprung from researching his subject matter. The most entertaining bio of Garbo, honest, but not trashy.