Greta Garbo: The Modern Woman

Garbo was the most important woman of the first half of the twentieth century, and her impact remains important to this day. Greta Garbo should properly be remembered as a woman who broke down barriers and through her art helped to create the Modern Woman. What she achieved guided two generations of women. While some authors have written on her art and her impact, the focus has been more on her celebrity and her quest for privacy.

The full story of Greta Garbo is a feminist story hidden in plain sight. What is important is not just the twenty-six films she made for MGM. Her real story is undiscovered and relevant to women today. Garbo helped women become modern, she transformed their lives. If you enjoyed books like; Radium Girls, A Woman of No Importance, Hidden Figures, The Woman They Could Not Silence, Fierce Poise and Eleanor, then this book should be on your bookshelf.

Greta Garbo: The Modern Woman places Garbo in the proper context, telling the story of how she transformed the world for women. Meticulously researched, it strips away erroneous information and adds vital new analysis to paint the first complete picture of the most important woman of the first half of the twentieth century. Garbo transformed acting and photography in the way she appeared before the camera. She brought a naturalistic style that would sweep all before it. Hollywood was changed forever.

Garbo was blessed with immense natural talent, which was honed by one of the finest theater schools in the world and then further refined in two spectacular European films made by two great European directors. MGM brought her to America to be a Hollywood star. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Garbo’s naturalist style of acting resonated with the audience, and transformed film acting forever. Her fans believed that they could understand her thoughts, even in silent film. Fellow actors were in awe of her acting, and sought to copy it.

The audience fell in love with her immediately. Where most actors took a decade to work their way up to stardom, Garbo instantly created a large and dedicated fan base. Garbo’s audience was modern women. The rising numbers of clerks transforming the industrial office were its core. These were the women who drove the transformation from the Victorian to the Modern. The intensity of their fandom was breathtaking. For example, in 1930 Garbo received two thousand seven hundred fifty letters a day.

Not content to just attend her movies and collect her photographs they copied her clothes and hairstyles. Entire fashion cycles were driven by Garbo. The national hairstylist association once pleaded with her to return to a permed haircut so they could stay in business.

Under the surface, Garbo changed the way women thought of their role in society and their relationships with men. She achieved this both in the way she acted a role, and, once she began working on a project basis, in the roles she selected.

To achieve this Garbo stood up for herself against MGM, demanding and getting contacts that recognized her value. When only twenty-one, she walked away from the studio for six months until MGM relented.

Several of her films were on the cutting edge of the censorship issues of the day. Garbo’s acting transcended the censorship. Only Garbo could throw herself in front of a train at the end of a film and still inspire her audience.

Then in 1941 censorship caught up with Garbo. The Legion of Decency condemned Two-Faced Woman and called for a national boycott. MGM caved into the pressure, editing the film for re-release. Censorship had triumphed and would be ascendant for thirty years. During that time the Production Code Administration would reject scripts for two major proposed Garbo projects. Despite fifteen years of effort, Two-Faced Woman would remain her final film.