Greta Garbo Net Worth

#Fact1According to director Albert Lewin "[on casting the leading role in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)]: One day, I received a message from Cedric Gibbons, who wanted to see me on a matter of urgency and secrecy. Gibby was the only close friend of Greta Garbo around the studio, and he had been deputed to tell me that Garbo wanted to play Dorian. Indeed, it was the only role she would come back to the screen for. Of course, I moved heaven and earth to set it up. But everyone had a fit: the censorship problem, formidable anyway, would have become insurmountable with a woman.2Norwegian Air Shuttle has a portrait of Greta Garbo on the tail of one of their Boeing 737's. It is one of their many "Tail Fin Heroes".3Mentioned in the song "She Keeps On Coming" by The Bee Gees.4Mentioned in the song "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes.5First Swedish actress to be nominated for an Academy Award. The others are Ingrid Bergman, Lena Olin, Ann-Margret, and Alicia Vikander who won the Oscar. The only Swedish actor to be nominated is Max von Sydow.6She was the last surviving person mentioned in the song "You're the Top" featured in the 1934 Cole Porter musical "Anything Goes".7At the Swedish School of Drama, where she studied from 1921-24, she made a close friend with Vera Schmiterlöw, which grew into a lifelong friendship. The intimate correspondence between the two are saved in the National Archives of Sweden. In 2005 three of these numerous letters were stolen from the archives and have not yet been found.8According to a 1974 Michael Parkinson interview with Orson Welles, Garbo did two bread commercials for theater use before she changed her name. The films existed at a Stockholm archive at that time.9Director Clarence Brown said of her, "Working [with her] was easy because she trusted me. I never directed her in anything above a whisper. She was very shy, so we'd go through the changes I wanted in a little quiet whisper off in the corner, without letting others know what I was telling her. I learned through experience that Garbo had something behind the eyes that told the whole story that I couldn't see from my distance. Sometimes I would be dissatisfied with a take, but would go ahead and print it anyway. On the screen Garbo multiplied the effect of the scene I had taken. It was something that no one else ever had.10In 1924 Mauritz Stiller planned to shoot a film in Turkey titled "The Odalisque from Smyrna" and had hired Conrad Veidt and Einar Hansen as stars. Stiller, along with Hansen and protégé Garbo, left for Istanbul but the promised financing vanished. Stiller reportedly returned to Berlin to raise backing, but failed. Garbo remained in Turkey sulking, not even communicating with fellow Swede Hansen. Eventually she returned to Berlin.11For her last acting role of Siobhan O'Dea on Murder, She Wrote: Wearing of the Green (1988), Jean Peters modeled her character after Garbo, as she was portraying a reclusive foreign actress who goes into seclusion following the demise of her lover at the height of her career.12Mentioned in the song "Perfect Skin" by Lloyd Cole & The Commotions.13Is going to be on the 50 Kronors banknote in 2015.14Was offered the role of Mama Hanson in I Remember Mama (1948), but she turned it down. Irene Dunne was cast instead and went on to receive a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance.15A photograph of Garbo, probably cut from a movie magazine, was one of several images of movie stars, royalty, pieces of art, and family members used as decoration by Anne Frank on the wall of her room in the "Secret Annex" in Amsterdam where she and her family hid from July 1942 until their capture by the Nazis in August 1944.16Was offered the role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd. (1950), but she turned it down. Gloria Swanson was cast instead and she went on to receive a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance.17Mentioned in the song "Celluloid Heroes" by The Kinks.18Mentioned in The Killers' "The Ballad of Michael Valentine".19When she heard that David O. Selznick, who had produced her hit Anna Karenina (1935), was leaving MGM in 1935 to start his own studio, she begged him to stay, promising that she would let him personally supervise all of her pictures exclusively. He said that it would be a great honor, but he had other plans. Ironically, the usually very finicky Irving Thalberg, Garbo's other favorite producer, was the first person to give Selznick money to start his company ($200,000).20In late 1934, after Queen Christina (1933) and The Painted Veil (1934), which were both huge hits in Europe (making twice their budget in the UK alone) but underwhelming US successes, Garbo signed a contract with MGM saying that she would only make films under David O. Selznick and Irving Thalberg. Her next two films, Anna Karenina (1935) and Camille (1936), were notable hits at the US box office, and produced by Selznick and Thalberg respectively. In 1937 her contract had to be revised, as Selznick left the studio in 1935 and Thalberg had died. She made only three films after "Camille".21She was Adolf Hitler's favorite actress.22Throughout her MGM career she insisted that William H. Daniels be cinematographer on her pictures. This may not have been purely superstition, as the two notable films she made without him--Conquest (1937) and Two-Faced Woman (1941)--were her only notable flops.23Gary Cooper was reportedly one of her favorite actors. She requested him for several of her films, but nothing ever materialized.24In Italy, her first films (like Mata Hari (1931) and Grand Hotel (1932)) were dubbed by Francesca Braggiotti. Because Braggiotti had been living in the United States for many years and had a slight American accent, the Italian public didn't really accept her voice so the very Italian Tina Lattanzi was chosen as Garbo's official Italian voice instead (she even re-dubbed Mata Hari (1931)). For her last two films Ninotchka (1939) and Two-Faced Woman (1941), she was dubbed by Andreina Pagnani. When some of Garbo films were re-released in Italy in the 1960's, they were re-dubbed once more. This is how stage actress Anna Proclemer lent her voice to the divine Garbo.25Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume Two, 1986-1990, pages 316-319. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999.26Is portrayed by Kristina Wayborn in The Silent Lovers (1980)27Her greatest confidante was Salka Viertel, a German friend who had known her back in Sweden. Viertel proved to be very manipulative of her, including relationships (particularly with Mercedes de Acosta), film choices and general living. It was Viertel, in fact, who persuaded her not to return to films. Ironically, Viertel was friendly with Marlene Dietrich, Garbo's enemy, whom Salka had known back in the period of Germany's Weimar Republic, and she had a lot of dirt on Dietrich's deepest secrets and past. Garbo's film choices were largely determined by Salka's persuasion; they co-starred in the German version of Anna Christie (1930), and shortly after that Garbo insisted that Salka be placed on the MGM payroll as a writer for her films.28Her performance as Ninotchka in Ninotchka (1939) is ranked #25 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).29Her first film appearance ever was in a short advertising film that ran in local theaters in Stockholm.30Grandaunt of Derek Reisfield and Scott Reisfield, children of Gray Reisfield and Donald Reisfield.31Aunt of Gray Reisfield (daughter of Sven Gustafson).32Once lived in the famed Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles (8221 Sunset Boulevard).33Pictured on a 37¢ USA commemorative postage stamp issued 23 September 2005, five days after her 100th birthday. On the same day, Sweden issued a 10kr stamp with the same design. The likeness on the stamps was based on a photograph taken during the filming of As You Desire Me (1932).34Is one of the many movie stars mentioned in Madonna's song "Vogue"35Spanish sculptor Pablo Gargallo created three pieces based on Garbo: "Masque de Greta Garbo36Was named #5 Actress on The American Film Institute's 50 Greatest Screen Legends37She was voted the 8th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Premiere Magazine.38Her first "talkie" film was Anna Christie (1930).39Her favorite American director was Ernst Lubitsch, although Clarence Brown, directed her in six films, including the classics Flesh and the Devil (1926), A Woman of Affairs (1928), Anna Christie (1930) and Anna Karenina (1935).40Sister of Sven and Alva.41She was voted the 25th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.42According to her friend, producer William Frye, he offered Garbo $1 million to star as the Mother Superior in his film The Trouble with Angels (1966). When she declined, he cast Rosalind Russell in the part--at a much lower salary.43Popularized trench coats and berets in the 1930s.44She was originally chosen for the lead roles in The Paradine Case (1947), My Cousin Rachel (1952) and "The Wicked Dutchess". She turned down these roles, with the exception of "The Wicked Dutchess", which was never shot due to financial problems.45Although it was believed that Garbo lived as an invalid in her post-Hollywood career, this is incorrect. She was a real jet setter, traveling with international tycoons and socialites. In the 1970s she traveled less and grew more and more eccentric, although she still took daily walks through Central Park with close friends and walkers. Due to failing health in the late 1980s, her mobility was challenged. In her final year it was her family that cared for her, including taking her to dialysis treatments. She died with them by her side.46Related to Anna Sundstrand of the Swedish pop group Play.47Never married, she invested wisely and was known for her extreme frugality.48She was as secretive about her relatives as she was about herself, and, upon her death, the names of her survivors could not immediately be determined.49Garbo actually hoped to return to films after the war but, for whatever reason, no projects ever materialized.50Her volatile mentor/director Mauritz Stiller, who brought her to Hollywood, was abruptly fired from directing her second MGM Hollywood film, The Temptress (1926), after repeated arguments with MGM execs. Unable to hold a job in Hollywood, he returned to Sweden in 1928 and died shortly after at age 45. Garbo was devastated.51Except at the very beginning of her career, she granted no interviews, signed no autographs, attended no premieres and answered no fan mail.52Garbo was prone to chronic depression and spent many years attacking it through Eastern philosophy and a solid health food regimen. However, she never gave up smoking and cocktails.53Garbo was criticized for not aiding the Allies during WWII, but it was later disclosed that she had helped Britain by identifying influential Nazi sympathizers in Stockholm and by providing introductions and carrying messsages for British agents.54Garbo's sets were closed to all visitors and sometimes even the director! When asked why, she said: "During these scenes I allow only the cameraman and lighting man on the set. The director goes out for a coffee or a milkshake. When people are watching, I'm just a woman making faces for the camera. It destroys the illusion. If I am by myself, my face will do things I cannot do with it otherwise."551951: Became a US citizen.56In the mid-'50s she bought a seven-room apartment in New York City (450 East 52nd St.) and lived there until she died.57During filming, whenever there was something going on that wasn't to her liking, she would simply say, "I think I'll go back to Sweden!", which frightened the studio heads so much that they gave in to her every whim.58Before making it big, she worked as a soap-latherer in a barber's shop back in Sweden.59Left John Gilbert standing at the altar in 1927 when she got cold feet about marrying him.60She disliked Clark Gable, a feeling that was mutual. She thought his acting was wooden while he considered her a snob.61Her personal favorite of all her movies was Camille (1936).62Her parents were Karl and Anna Gustafson, and she also had an older sister and brother, Alva Garbo and Sven Garbo. Her father died when she was 14 of nephritis, and her sister was also dead of lymphatic cancer by the time Greta was 21 years old.63Once voted by The Guinness Book of World Records as the most beautiful woman who ever lived.64Garbo, according to director Jacques Feyder: "At 9 o'clock a.m. 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 at rushes nor goes to the premieres 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.65Letters and correspondence between Garbo and poet, socialite and notorious lesbian Mercedes de Acosta were unsealed on April 15, 2000, exactly 10 years after Garbo's death (per De Acosta's instructions). The letters revealed no love affair between the two, as had been rumored.66October 1997: Ranked #38 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list.67Lived the last few years of her life in absolute seclusion.68Interred at Skogskyrkogården Cemetery, Stockholm, Sweden.

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