Movie Classic (Sep-Dec 1931)

♦ INSOMNIA HAS ROBBED HER OF ROMANCE AND HAPPINESS ♦ Garbo Never Sleeps This Is Her Tragedy--The Real Explanation Of Her Strange Life And Her Broken Romance By FAITH SERVICE THERE is a woman in Hollywood who never sleeps. A woman who is unutterably tired. A woman exhausted. A woman who cannot rest — GRETA GARBO. From one woman in Hollywood who is a close friend of Garbo's I heard this one authentic explanation of Garbo. There have been so many. ''She is dumb . . . She is perverse . . . She is temperamental . . . She is acutely conscious ot the business values of her sphinx-like seclusion . . ." All wrong. All guesses. The reason why she does what she does, the reason why she doesn't do the things that other people do, the reason for her famous eccentricities and hermitlike existence, her lack of response to the social life, her lack of response to eager lovers is this — Garbo is an insomniac. She never sleeps. Leslie Howard has said to me, "By our physical disabilities should we be judged." This is diabolically true of Garbo. How can one judge a woman so mortally tired? At the most, at the best, Garbo knows fifteen minutes of sleep at a stretch. She doesn't go out, she doesn't entertain, she doesn't mingle or know friendships — because, she says, an evening with people is an evening of possible sleep lost. It is, at best, only possible. The faces of people she has seen keep coming back to her, in procession, over and over again, gesticulating, grimacing, laugh For years, the famous Garbo eyes have remained open many a night ing. And so she doesn't see people. The words she has heard spoken repeat themselves in her mind, over and over again, with endless variations. The mannish clothes she affects — the drab tailored suits, the heavy shoes, the slouch hat — are worn partly for purposes of exercise, but more for purposes of disguise. When she walks along the Boulevard, she doesn't want people to recognize her, to stop her, to try to interview her. When she dines in downtown Hollywood, she selects some little-known, out-of-theway cafe, where there are no celebrity-chasers. And if anyone recognizes the unobtrusive diner as Garbo, she is likely to leave abruptly. Such forced encounters haunt her. Insomnia is why Garbo takes her endless walks, up and down the beach, miles and miles of beach, in rain as in sunshine — tramping, tramping — in the hope that physical exhaustion will induce oblivion. Mental exhaustion never does. Insomnia is why Garbo takes her constant sun-baths. Sitting in the sun — as near a somnolent condition as possible— is the nearest Garbo ever comes to a protracted rest. Garbo has been an insomniac off and on for years. To begin with, the malady was mild. With the death of Mauritz Stiller, the famous director who brought her to America, it became chronic and hideous. Since that tragedy, the deepest in her life, arho wears a slouch hat so that passersby will not recognize her. Forced encounters with people haunt her her eyes stare open through the long hours of the night as, preceding his death, Stiller's eyes stared open through the long hours of the night. Stiller, who had to have a house with several bedrooms in it, hoping that if sleep would not come to him in one room it might in another. There is no room where sleep will come to Garbo. It may be this hitherto unknown secret in Garbo's life that prevents her from love. It was death-like exhaustion that sent so ardent a lover as John Gilbert away with a heartbreaking refusal. Gilbert, whose heart is broken, who still speaks of Garbo with the naivete of a boy knowing his first love: "I saw Garbo on the set to-day — she spoke to me!" Of no other woman in his life does Gilbert speak as he speaks of Garbo. Garbo, too tired for love. No other star in Hollywood has such a reputation for fascinating her leading men. Romance is continually beckoning to the sad-eyed Swedish girl, but she turns her head away. She is too tired. Is there no medicine, no magic of science that might bring her rehet? She never thinks of sleeping potions, never will. That is the easy way. Garbo prefers the hard way, the Spartan way. Some night, perhaps, sleep will come as it did when she was a child. . . 41