“Audiences were mesmerized by her beauty and titillated by her love scenes with Gilbert. She was a sensation.”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
Figure timeline
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo was a Swedish and American film actress. She was a leading star during Hollywood's silent and early golden eras. Regarded as one of the greatest screen actresses of all time, she is known for her melancholic and somber screen persona, her film portrayals of tragic characters, and her subtle and understated performances. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Garbo fifth on its lis…
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
entertainment · Swedish and American actress (1905–1990) · actor · film actor · stage actor · dancer · also Greta Garbo, Greta Gustafsson, Garbo
Born 18 September 1905 · Died 15 April 1990 · Q5443
71 published statements · 0 followers
See & hear
Photos & media
14 photos · 1 audio
🔊 How to say “Greta Garbo”
Listen
Sv-Greta Garbo
Media from Wikimedia Commons, hotlinked at the source under its own licence — see each file for author and terms.
Live now
In the news
Pulling headlines from trusted outlets — this usually takes a few seconds
Checking the wires…
Feed scan
These are live links, not archived citations — they only join the timeline once a collect run verifies and archives them.
Live pulse
Recent highlights
Most recent outstanding titles, awards, and quotes
- Quote
- Quote
2026· 2 entries
Okdiario: Greta Garbo: anyone who keeps a permanent smile on their face is hiding something, and what she names is not sadness
- #news
- #headline
2025· 2 entries
Yahoo: Why Greta Garbo really disappeared – and her five films you have to see
- #news
- #headline
The Guardian: Greta Garbo documentary reveals star as ‘a relaxed, silly, funny person’
- #news
- #headline
2024· 1 entry
The Guardian: Alone time: reassessing Greta Garbo, 100 years after her screen debut
- #news
- #headline
2023· 2 entries
New York Post: Greta Garbo’s onetime Beverly Hills residence lists for $10M
- #news
- #headline
Notable artist William Kentridge included a drawing of Garbo in his solo museum exhibition at The Broad in Los Angeles
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
2022· 2 entries
Yahoo: Home of the Week: Inside Greta Garbo’s Elegant $7.25 Million NYC Home
- #news
- #headline
The Guardian: Asta Nielsen, the silent film star who taught Garbo everything
- #news
- #headline
2021· 1 entry
The Guardian: From the archive: looking back at Greta Garbo’s private world, 1979
- #news
- #headline
2020· 2 entries
The Cheat Sheet: Adolf Hitler Was Obsessed With Greta Garbo, Who Wanted to Kill Him
- #news
- #headline
Fox News: ‘30s star Greta Garbo ‘had social anxiety and a fear of crowds’ but was not ‘a reclusive figure,’ author says
- #news
- #headline
2019· 2 entries
The Guardian: From the archive: the story of how Greta Garbo became a star
- #news
- #headline
The Guardian: ‘I go nowhere, I see no one’: Garbo letters reveal lonely life of film icon
- #news
- #headline
2017· 2 entries
The Guardian: Loneliness of Greta Garbo laid bare as letters put up for sale
- #news
- #headline
The Guardian: Actresses now prefer the word actor, but Greta Garbo was an actress
- #news
- #headline
2011· 1 entry
To the film archives at Wesleyan University
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
2005· 2 entries
Mimi Pollak's estate released 60 letters Garbo had written to her in their long correspondence
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
Voted the 30th-most memorable movie quote of all time, "I want to be alone; I just want to be alone
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1999· 2 entries
The American Film Institute ranked Garbo fifth on its list of the greatest female stars of classic Hollywood cinema
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
At Skogskyrkogården Cemetery just south of her native Stockholm
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1990· 4 entries
Died 1990-04-15.
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #death
“I was born. I had a mother and father. I lived in a house. I went to school. What does it matter?”
- #wikiquote
- #saying
- #undated
- #lang:pt
“I never said, "I want to be alone." I only said, "I want to be let alone! There is all the difference.”
- #wikiquote
- #saying
- #undated
- #lang:en
By film historians Leonard Maltin and Jeanine Basinger
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1985· 2 entries
Awarded Illis quorum (1985).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
Was awarded the Illis quorum by the government of Sweden
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1981· 1 entry
After being falsely told that Green had played the tapes to friends
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1977· 3 entries
Saw Garbo in the street and ran after her, in hopes of meeting her and telling her she was playing Anna Christie
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
Garbo wrote to Frederick Sands: "I am forever running away from something or somebody"
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
“I am forever running away from something or somebody”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
1975· 1 entry
Wrote a poem about not being able to touch the hand of her friend with whom she might have been walking through life
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1971· 2 entries
"I suppose I suffer from very deep depression
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
Garbo vacationed in Southern France at the summer home of her close friend Baroness Cécile de Rothschild who introduced her to Samuel Adams Green, an art collector and curator in New York City
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1970· 1 entry
Wrote: "I feel very tired and cannot seem to get myself together to plan where to go
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1969· 1 entry
With the small part of Maria Sophia, Queen of Naples in his adaptation of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1965· 1 entry
Told a frequent walking companion, "In a few days, it will be the anniversary of the sorrow that never leaves me, that will never leave me for the rest of my life
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1960· 1 entry
Was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6901 Hollywood Boulevard
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1957· 1 entry
Was awarded The George Eastman Award, given by George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1954· 3 entries
Awarded Academy Honorary Award (1954).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
Garbo was awarded an Academy Honorary Award "for her luminous and unforgettable screen performances"
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
However, she was awarded an Academy Honorary Award "for her luminous and unforgettable screen performances"
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1953· 1 entry
Bought a seven-room apartment at 450 East 52nd Street in Manhattan, where she lived for the rest of her life
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1949· 1 entry
Was offered the role of fictional silent-film star Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, directed by Ninotchka co-writer Billy Wilder
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1948· 1 entry
With producer Walter Wanger, who had produced Queen Christina, to shoot a picture based on Balzac's La Duchesse de Langeais
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1946· 1 entry
Told reporters, "I have no plans, either for the movies or anything else
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1942· 1 entry
To make The Girl from Leningrad, but the project quickly dissolved
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1941· 2 entries
And in his memoir, British photographer Cecil Beaton described an affair with her in 1947 and 1948
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
Garbo met the Russian-born millionaire George Schlee, who was introduced to her by his wife, fashion designer Valentina
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1939· 2 entries
With other leads), but she chose Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (1935), in which she played another of her renowned roles
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
Garbo was nominated for Ninotchka, but again came away empty-handed
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1937· 4 entries
Awarded Litteris et Artibus (1937).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
Garbo met Leopold Stokowski, then conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, with whom she had a brief, but highly publicized relationship while the pair traveled throughout Europe the following year; whether the relations
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
Garbo was nominated for Camille, but Luise Rainer won for The Good Earth
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
In a letter to her friend, Austrian actress and writer Salka Viertel, she wrote: "I go nowhere, see no one
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1933· 1 entry
That when he was allowed to sketch Garbo at a director's party in Hollywood some years earlier she told him she suffered from melancholia
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1931· 1 entry
Garbo befriended the writer and acknowledged lesbian Mercedes de Acosta, whom she met through Salka Viertel, and, according to Garbo's and de Acosta's biographers, began a sporadic and volatile romance
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1930· 4 entries
After learning of Pollak's pregnancy in 1930, for example, Garbo wrote: "We cannot help our nature, as God has created it.
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #life
- #relationships
A performer could receive a single nomination for their work in more than one film
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
For example, Garbo wrote: "We cannot help our nature, as God has created it
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
“We cannot help our nature, as God has created it. But I have always thought you and I belonged together.”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
- #corroborated
- #www.theguardian.com
1929· 1 entry
Reviewer Pierre de Rohan wrote in the New York Telegraph: "She has glamour and fascination for both sexes which have never been equaled on the screen
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1928· 2 entries
Explained that her desire for privacy began when she was a child, stating, "As early as I can remember, I have wanted to be alone
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
Garbo starred in A Woman of Affairs, which catapulted her to MGM's highest box-office star, surpassing the long-reigning Lillian Gish
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1927· 1 entry
Garbo was introduced to stage and screen actress Lilyan Tashman, and they may have had an affair, according to some writers
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1925· 1 entry
Garbo, who was unable to speak English, was brought to Hollywood from Sweden at the request of Mayer
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1924· 2 entries
By the Finnish director Mauritz Stiller to play a principal part in his film The Saga of Gösta Berling, a dramatization of the famous novel by Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf, which also featured the actor Lars Hanson
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
Studied at Dramatens elevskola (1922–1924).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #education
1922· 1 entry
Garbo caught the attention of director Erik A
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1920· 1 entry
A director of film commercials for the store cast Garbo in roles advertising women's clothing
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1905· 1 entry
Born 1905-09-18.
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #birth