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Greta Garbo spent the last half century of her life in total hermitage.

At the age of 18, she was taken in by Mauritz Stiller, the most famous Swedish director, who changed her name to Garbo (allegedly after the Transylvanian prince Gábor Bethlen), taught her the art of acting and, although he found her a bit dull, took her to Hollywood with him in 1925.

There, Garbo was 'groomed': she was put on a diet, had her eyebrows plucked, her teeth straightened and a new hairstyle. The studios cast her as the silent and mysterious femme fatale, the vamp, which was not far from her true form. Even in her prime, she never gave interviews, signed autographs or answered fan mail.

Even so, the public loved her, she could choose between roles, and once even 'replaced' Laurence Olivier, whom she disliked. Garbo became world famous in silent films with John Gilbert. The actor was proposed to three times and received three baskets with the line: 'wife is such an ugly word'.

Her star did not wane after the release of the talkies, with an unprecedented advertising campaign leading up to the changeover with the slogan "Garbo speaks", even making sure that his first words were spoken with a Swedish accent.

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Music: Bossa Antigua
Author: Kevin Macleod
Site: http://incompetech.com/
Music by Kevin MacLeod. Available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Download link: https://incompetech.com/music/royalty