#screen goddess

"Distinctive among the greater personalities of the screen, Joan Crawford has won a lasting place in the hearts of the movie-going public. The Great Day is her newest picture." M.G.M. - Hurrell

In memoriam: eternally inscrutable, impossibly photogenic Swedish screen goddess Greta Garbo (née Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, 18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990) died on this day. If you read only one biography about her, make it Garbo (1995) by Barry Paris. (His earlier 1989 Louise Brooks biography is also essential). Paris is exceptionally great at unpicking Garbo’s fiercely reclusive “hermit-about-town” later years in New York. His coup was to gain the trust of her Swiss housekeeper of three decades, Claire Koger and her long-term “walking companion”, art dealer Sam Green, who spoke to him exclusively. Anyway, some of my favourite anecdotes: in the seventies Garbo visited a fabric shop and requested some swatches to take home. Her heart sank when the employee explained she needed to sign for them. “She wrote “G. Garbo”, whereupon the maladroit saleswoman exclaimed, “Oh! My mother used to take me to your movies when I was a little kid!” Garbo’s comment to Sam Green on the way out was spiced with a rare and funny vulgarism: “Did you hear what that old fuck said?”” Another time, when Garbo admired an item at an antique shop, the owner inquired, “Do you really like it, Miss Dietrich?” “Said Garbo, outside: “She obviously didn’t get a look at my legs.” Less happily, the designer Halston once invited Garbo and her friend Cécile de Rothschild to his atelier for what was promised to be an entirely private and confidential preview of his new line. Garbo thoroughly enjoyed herself, but the same day, Halston promptly betrayed her trust by blabbing the whole story to Women’s Wear Daily, who ran a front-page story. “I can’t go anywhere,” Garbo despaired to Green. Pictured: rare glimpse of Garbo (aged 36) in colour photographed by Clarence Sinclair Bull in 1941 to promote her catastrophic last-ever film Two-Faced Woman. As film historian John Kobal notes, “Aided by hindsight, we can now sense a weariness and lack of interest behind the older yet still beautiful face, and this must have made it easier for her to retire when the film itself flopped and her new contract with the studio failed to provide the incentives for her to stay on.”

Deborah Kerr

Elizabeth Taylor (1955)

Photographer: Earl Moran (1946)

Frances Dee was a brilliant comedic actress. Scene from “Meet The Stewarts” (1942)

The inimitable Bridget Bardot.

The impossibly beautiful Miss Leigh.