With her astounding beauty and enigmatic persona, Greta Garbo is the ultimate Hollywood icon. Critic Kenneth Tynan once declared, "What, when drunk, one sees in other women, one sees in Garbo sober." Though many books have tried to unlock the mystique of the "Swedish Sphinx" by focusing primarily on her personal life, Greta Garbo: A Cinematic Legacy is the first book to pay serious attention to what made her an icon - her twenty-four Hollywood films. As MGM's highest-paid star, Garbo had approval over story, co-star, director, and cinematographer, wielding power that few others could match - yet she was often at odds with the system that made her such a phenomenon. Lavishly illustrated with luminous portraits, film stills, and behind-the-scenes photographs - many previously unpublished - and drawing extensively on interviews, letters, and studio production files, the book chronicles Garbo's stellar, yet turbulent, career. One hundred years after her birth, Garbo's captivating legend endures.
Mark A. Vieira was born in Oakland, California on October 28, 1950. He is a filmmaker, photographer, and writer specializing in the history of Hollywood. He makes portraits in George Hurrell's original studio in the historic Granada Buildings with Hurrell's own Verito lens. Mark celebrates his fortieth anniversary as a professional photographer in October 2009.
He has lectured at the University of Southern California, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Universal Studios, the University of California Los Angeles, the Hollywood Museum in the Max Factor Building, the Hollywood Heritage Museum, the Palm Springs International Film Festival, the Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, and the Balboa Theatre in San Francisco. He has appeared on camera in Photoplay Productions' "Garbo," TimeLine's "Complicated Women," Playboy's "Sex at 24 Frames per Second," Twentieth Century-Fox Home Video featurettes on Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, Warner Home Video's "Thou Shalt Not," Universal's "Forbidden Film," and on CBS Sunday Morning.
