Motion Picture (Aug 1933-Jan 1934)

The Real Secret of Why Garbo Returned (Continued from page 2g) This is how Greta looked when she returned on the motorship Annie Johnson — one of the very rare occasions on which Garbo ever posed for a news cameraman Sought a Similar Climate ""CRIENDS, I know, suggested that she L could find in North Africa — Algiers, I suppose — a climate almost exactly like Hollywood's. She seemed enthused over that for a while, but I'm sure she didn't even make a tentative plan to visit Africa on the trip South. Yet the question of climate seemed to interest her a great deal. She inquired of a widely-traveled real-estate man here about the weather on Soviet Russia's Crimean coast, asking if it is not like that of California. "There's something beyond thoughts of climate and health, however, in her nostalgia. Several times she actually referred to America as 'home.' Rather surprising, eh?" Decidedly! But they say, " He who tastes Nile water will return." Perhaps Hollywood has for Greta and many others a lure similar to that of mystic old Egypt. Greta's peculiar sentiment toward her old Santa Monica house makes me doubt the theory advanced by some of her friends that her work, and her work only — not for the money it brings her, but merely for the thrill and joy of expressing herself — was the lure that brought her back to America, and will probably keep her here more or less permanently. On the contrary, I think it's that old human sentiment which all of us, even the most hard-boiled, harbor sooner or later in life — the love of some particular geographical spot. Certainly, with Greta, it isn't a love of human contacts. She has friends here, but her friends in Sweden are both more intimate and more numerous. Friends Didn't Influence Her MOREOVER, it is true that Garbo is far from being a naturally sociable or gregarious person. Just as her circle of friends is a narrow one, and she has no inclination to enlarge it, her need for human contacts of any sort is slight, and yearning for absent friends and relatives is not an important factor in her emotional make-up. You'd hardly expect her to be more sentimental about a particular place or country, but unquestionably she is. From every source there come indications that America has claimed her at last — perhaps has won her entirely away from Sweden! Just from the few glimpses of her I have had, and the few words I have heard her speak, as well as from information given me by those who have had far more contact with her, I am sure that she has at last formed a sentimental attachment for America. She has always built illusions around places and things. She kept an old automobile far beyond its allotted rolling time, because she loved it. She is too sentimental about some of her favorite old coats, berets and so on, to part with them. A stable master from whom she once rented saddle horses told me an amusing anecdote about Greta. It seems that she was always very disappointed when a particular horse she liked wasn't available to ride. "He wasn't an especially good one, but she happened to get him when she first came here, and took a notion to him," he explained. "She didn't care for his riding qualities, I reckon. Just liked his personality." Stars and Stripes Thrilled Her /^APTAIN HOLMBERG of the Annie V_> Johnson, the motorship that brought Greta back from Sweden, noticed her joy at the sight of American shores, and thought it more than mere relief at nearing the end of a voyage. Many on board ship noticed that the American flags along the Panama Canal seemed to have an especial meaning for her. Did they symbolize to her approaching disembarkation on the shores of a nowbeloved land? She smiled as she looked at them, so evidently they didn't remind her of coming ordeals, such as enthusiastic American crowds and pestiferous American newspaper reporters. Don't be a cynic and suggest that behind the vision of the stars and stripes she saw the $250,000 per picture — for two pictures per year, for two years — said to be her monetary reward for returning to this country. Again I refer you to my Swedish friend, quoting from a communication months earlier than the one hitherto reproduced: "I think her reputation in your country for miserliness was earned by her real disregard for money and the things it buys. She never used to be interested in the salary paid her when touring with Stiller." (He referred to the late Mauritz Stiller, famous Swedish director and discoverer of Garbo.) "Any amount that supplied the necessities of life was all right. And there seemed to be little in the shops of Paris or Vienna that Greta cared to buy. "I am sure she hasn't changed much since then, in that respect at least. She saves her money, accumulating a big fortune — more than she can ever use — because spending it means nothing to her. She didn't, as once reported, lose most of her money in the Swedish Match King's crash, either. So if she goes back to America" (this was written before Greta's decision to return to Hollywood was known) "it will not be due to the lure of your American dollars." Why So Secretive Again? AND when the Annie Johnson docked at l San Diego, spectators were amazed to see Greta's bright smile, her animation as she waited for the gangplank to be lowered, and — most surprising of all! — her impulsive hand-waving at the crowd below her! Smiling happily, she talked to reporters. She posed for pictures. She didn't run away to the automobile that waited for her. Why has she been so secretive and unapproachable since then? Although Greta gained a little weight during her stay in Europe, her health is not robust now. She still tires easily, and spends much time in bed, just resting. At the studio they are guarding her health as a miser guards his gold, for they know from the past that her eagerness to work, once a story, cast, director and other details of a film production have pleased her, makes her oblivious to hardship and strain. This time, I am told, she seems more eager than ever to get "into the harness." In "Queen Christina," she is playing an old-time queen of Sweden who was as individual in her way as this present-day Swedish queen of films. That zealous guarding of her health by the studio is responsible for Greta's return to her old habits of silence and seclusion, in my opinion. This time, left to her own devices, Garbo would have come out of her shell. mim Here is a believe-it-or-not picture, which shows Greta Garbo smoking a pipe. It is expected that many other ladies will follow her lead in pipe smoking I'm convinced that she has become psychologically "Americanized." It is my prophecy that if Greta ever again says "I tank I go home," she will be referring to her home in Santa Monica, California, not to the one by the cold waters of the Baltic Sea! 66