Customer Reviews

Garbo

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a wonderful biography!

It has such a 'clean' and rational feel about it, and it is chock-full of information regarding Greta Garbo's daily life and habits as well as going into great ( and interesting) detail about her career and working life.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend this book!

I am a huge fan of the authors Louise Brooks book and had high expectations - and I was not letdown at all!

I look forward to future offerings by Mr. Parris!

On the cover: Garbo in MATA HARI, magnetism in her cat's eyes. A fat volume - but not heavy-handed. Infotainment on paper. 4 years of preparation on both sides of the Atlantic. Hundreds of persons interviewed. 200 000 pages of documents sorted over. A success all along the line. This must be the definite from-cradle-to-grave biography of Greta Garbo. Some glimpses: Garbo's shyness during her early Hollywood years may have been simple embarrassment because she was ashamed of her past as "soap girl" in a barber's shop. Her affair with Gilbert: True love or did she use him to advance her career? Lots of delightful gossip about her films and her partners. Intimate details from her affairs, thorough psychological analysis and then - the sudden end of her career. It was not planned. Garbo made a screen test for Balzac's "The duchess of Langeais", but the project was frustrated when the italian producers backed out. Was it really a great loss for the film industry that she never played George Sand opposite Liberace as Chopin?

The most interesting part of Garbo's life - at least the most fun to read about - came after her career. By all accounts the last 50 years of her life were b-o-r-i-n-g but the way Barry Paris describes them is not. Cecil Beaton, who wanted to marry her said that no one would spend more than 10 minutes with her if she weren't Garbo - but then she was GARBO and everyone around her got an enormous kick out of being with her - even when her main interests were theosophy and health food and her main occupation during her last 30 years consisted in walking the streets of New York in search of comfortable shoes. For some years a Mr. Green was one of her best friends, the one who walked with her. They often spoke over the telephone. He told her, of course, that he recorded their conversations, and she gave her consent. Of course. This is why Barry Paris can cite from a hundred of hours of Garbo's private conversations which sound at times like an absurd play by Samuel Beckett. After finishing this book I really had the feeling of knowing Garbo - but I doubt that Garbo herself would have liked the idea...