Acting A to Z (Revised Second Edition): The Young Persons Guide to a Stage Or Screen Career

The Young Person's Guide to a Stage Or Screen Career Katherine Mayfield. REVISED 2ND EDITION The Young Person's Guide to a Stage or Screen Career .
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On the way to the screening, Mayer said to his daughter "This director is wonderful, but what we really ought to look at is the girl… The girl, look at the girl! I'll take her with him.

Leslie Howard

Number one is the girl. In , Garbo, then 20 and unable to speak English , was brought over from Sweden at the request of Mayer. They decided to travel to Los Angeles on their own, but another five weeks passed with no contact from the studio. According to author Frederick Sands, "the result of the test was electrifying. Thalberg was impressed and began grooming the young actress the following day, arranging to fix her teeth, making sure she lost weight, and giving her English lessons.

During her rise to stardom, film historian Mark Vieira notes, "Thalberg decreed that henceforth Garbo would play a young but worldly wise woman… " [37] However, according to Thalberg's actress wife, Norma Shearer , Garbo did not necessarily agree with his ideas:. Miss Garbo at first didn't like playing the exotic, the sophisticated, the woman of the world.

She used to complain, "Mr. Thalberg, I am just a young gur-rl!

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With those elegant pictures he was creating the Garbo image. She replaced Aileen Pringle , 10 years her senior, and played a peasant girl turned singer opposite Ricardo Cortez. After only one film, she was given top billing, playing opposite Antonio Moreno. Stiller, who spoke little English, had difficulty adapting to the studio system [48] and did not get on with Moreno, [49] was fired by Thalberg and replaced by Fred Niblo.

Reshooting The Temptress was expensive and even though it became one of the top-grossing films of the —27 season, [50] it was the only Garbo film of the period to lose money.


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After her lightning ascent, Garbo went on to make eight more silent films and all were hits. She was a sensation. The impact of Garbo's acting and screen presence quickly established her reputation as one of Hollywood's greatest actresses. Film historian and critic David Denby argues that Garbo introduced a subtlety of expression to the art of silent acting and that its effect on audiences cannot be exaggerated.

She "lowers her head to look calculating or flutters her lips," he says. Worlds turned on her movements. During this period, Garbo began to require unusual conditions during the shooting of her scenes. She prohibited visitors—including the studio brass—from her sets and demanded that black flats or screens surround her to prevent extras and technicians from watching her.

When asked about these eccentric requirements, she said "If I am by myself, my face will do things I cannot do with it otherwise. Despite her popularity as a silent star, [66] the studio feared that her Swedish accent might impair her work in sound and delayed the shift for as long as possible. Sixteen minutes into the film, she famously utters her first line, "Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side, and don't be stingy, baby. Her nomination that year included her performance in Romance After filming ended, Garbo—along with a different director and cast—filmed a German-language version of Anna Christie that was released in December In her follow-up film, Romance , she portrayed an Italian opera star opposite Lewis Stone.

She was paired opposite Robert Montgomery in Inspiration , and her popularity was used to boost the career of the relatively unknown Clark Gable in Susan Lenox Her Fall and Rise Although the films did not match Garbo's success with her sound debut, she was ranked as the most popular female star in the United States in and Garbo followed with two of her most famous roles.

When the film was released, it "caused panic with police reserves required to keep the waiting mob in order. The film won that year's Academy Award for Best Picture. Both films had been MGM's highest-earning films of and , respectively, and Garbo was dubbed "the greatest money-making machine ever put on screen. The film's screenplay had been written by Viertel, and although MGM had been reluctant to make the movie, they relented at Garbo's insistence.

Greta Garbo - Wikipedia

The studio balked at the idea of casting Gilbert, fearing his declining popularity would hurt the film's profits, but Garbo prevailed. Publicized as "Garbo returns", the film premiered in December to critical acclaim and box office triumph and became the highest-grossing film of the year. The movie, however, met with controversy upon its release; censors objected to the scenes in which Garbo disguised herself as a man and kissed a female co-star. Although her domestic popularity was undiminished in the early s, high profits for Garbo's films after Queen Christina in depended on the foreign market for their success.

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In the midst of the Great Depression , American screen audiences seemed to favor "home-grown" screen couples, such as Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. In , David O. Selznick wanted to cast her as the dying heiress in Dark Victory , but Garbo chose Leo Tolstoy 's Anna Karenina in which she played another of her renowned roles. The film was internationally successful and did better than MGM expected domestically. Thalberg cast her opposite talents Robert Taylor and former co-star, Lionel Barrymore. Cukor carefully crafted Garbo's portrayal of Marguerite Gautier, a lower-class woman, who becomes the world-renowned mistress Camille.

Production was marred, however, by the sudden death of Thalberg, then only thirty-seven, which plunged the Hollywood studios into a "state of profound shock," writes David Bret. Her grief for Thalberg, some believe, was more profound than for John Gilbert , who died earlier that same year. When the film premiered in New York on 12 December , it became an international success, Garbo's first major success in three years.

Garbo's follow-up project was Clarence Brown 's lavish production of Conquest opposite Charles Boyer. The plot was the dramatized romance between Napoleon and Marie Walewska. After the box office failure of Conquest , MGM decided a change of pace was needed to resurrect her declining popularity. For her next movie, the studio teamed her with producer-director Ernst Lubitsch to film Ninotchka , her first comedy. The film was one of the first Hollywood movies which, under the cover of a satirical, light romance, depicted the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin as being rigid and gray when compared to its prewar years.

Ninotchka premiered in October , publicized with the catchphrase "Garbo laughs! Despite the film's critical favoritism and box office success in the United States and abroad, it was banned in the Soviet Union and its satellites. With George Cukor 's Two-Faced Woman , MGM attempted to capitalize on Garbo's success in Ninotchka by casting her in a romantic comedy which sought to portray her as a chic, modern woman. She played a "double" role that featured her dancing the rumba, swimming, and skiing.

The film was a critical failure, but, contrary to popular belief, performed reasonably well at the box office. Although Garbo was humiliated by the negative reviews of Two-Faced Woman , she did not at first intend to retire. Salka Viertel , Garbo's close friend and collaborator, said in "Greta is impatient to work.

But on the other side, she's afraid of it. It's not the same anymore, being able to pull it off. That's a grotesque oversimplification. It certainly threw her, but I think that what really happened was that she just gave up. However, the financing failed to materialize and the project was abandoned. In , she was offered the role of fictional silent-film star Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. However, after a meeting with film producer Charles Brackett , she insisted that she had no interest in the part whatsoever. She was offered many roles in the s and throughout her retirement years but she rejected all but a few of them.

In the few instances when she accepted, the slightest problem led her to drop out. I did not like my work. There were many days when I had to force myself to go to the studio… I really wanted to live another life. From the early days of her career, Garbo avoided industry social functions, preferring to spend her time alone or with friends.

She never signed autographs or answered fan mail, and rarely gave interviews. In an interview in , she explained that her desire for privacy began when she was a child, stating "as early as I can remember, I have wanted to be alone. I detest crowds, don't like many people. Because Garbo was suspicious and mistrustful of the media, and often at odds with MGM executives, she spurned Hollywood's publicity rules. She was routinely referred to by the press as the "Swedish Sphinx. MGM eventually capitalized on it, for it bolstered the image of the silent and reclusive woman of mystery.

In retirement, Garbo generally led a private life of simplicity and leisure. She made no public appearances and assiduously avoided the publicity she loathed. But, contrary to myth, she had, from the beginning, many friends and acquaintances with whom she socialized, and, later, traveled. Still, she often floundered about what to do and how to spend her time "drifting" was the word she frequently used , [] always struggling with her many eccentricities, [] [] and her lifelong melancholy and moodiness.

Beginning in the s, she became something of an art collector. Many of the paintings she purchased were of negligible value, but she did buy paintings by Renoir , Rouault , Kandinsky , Bonnard , [] and Jawlensky. On 9 February , she became a naturalized citizen of the United States [] and, in , bought a seven-room apartment at East 52nd Street in Manhattan , New York City, [] where she lived for the rest of her life. On 13 November , just nine days before the assassination of President Kennedy, Garbo was a dinner guest at the White House. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum , quoted in a press release: Italian motion picture director Luchino Visconti allegedly attempted to bring Garbo back to the screen in with a small part, Maria Sophia, Queen of Naples , in his adaptation of Proust 's Remembrance of Things Past.

In , Garbo ended the friendship when she was falsely informed that Green had played the tapes to friends. Although she became increasingly withdrawn in her final years, [] she had become close over time to her cook and house-keeper, Claire Koger, who worked for her for thirty-one years. Throughout her life, Garbo was known for taking long, daily walks with companions or by herself. In retirement, she walked the streets of New York City dressed casually and wearing large sunglasses.

Garbo was a Lutheran. Garbo never married, had no children, and lived alone as an adult. Her most famous romance was with her frequent co-star, John Gilbert , with whom she lived intermittently in and Gilbert allegedly proposed to her numerous times, with Garbo agreeing but backing out at the last minute.

I was afraid he would tell me what to do and boss me. I always wanted to be the boss. In , she met conductor Leopold Stokowski , with whom she had a highly publicized friendship or romance while traveling throughout Europe the following year. Nicholas Turner, Garbo's close friend for 33 years, said that, after she bought an apartment in the same building, "Garbo moved in and took Schlee right away from Valentina.

Recent biographers and others believe that Garbo was bisexual or lesbian , that she had intimate relationships with women as well as with men. In , Garbo befriended the writer and acknowledged lesbian Mercedes de Acosta , [] introduced to her by her close friend, Salka Viertel , and, according to Garbo's and de Acosta's biographers, began a sporadic and volatile romance. In , Mimi Pollak 's estate released 60 letters Garbo had written her in their long correspondence.

Several letters suggest she may have had romantic feelings for Pollak for many years. After learning of Pollak's pregnancy in , for example, Garbo wrote "We cannot help our nature, as God has created it. But I have always thought you and I belonged together". Garbo was successfully treated for breast cancer in A photograph appeared in the media in early , showing Koger assisting Garbo, who was walking with a cane, into the hospital. Greta Garbo died on 15 April , aged 84, in the hospital, as a result of pneumonia and renal failure.

Garbo was an international superstar during the late silent era and the " Golden Age " of Hollywood and is widely regarded as a cinematic legend. Garbo possessed a subtlety and naturalism in her acting that set her apart from other actors and actresses of the period. Film historian Jeffrey Vance said that Garbo communicated her characters' innermost feelings through her movement, gestures, and most importantly, her eyes. With the slightest movement of them, he argues, she subtly conveyed complex attitudes and feelings toward other characters and the truth of the situation.

You could see thought. If she had to look at one person with jealousy, and another with love, she didn't have to change her expression. You could see it in her eyes as she looked from one to the other. And nobody else has been able to do that on screen. Many critics have said that few of Garbo's twenty-four Hollywood films are artistically exceptional, and that many are simply bad. She was portrayed by Betty Comden in the film Garbo Talks. The film concerns a dying Garbo fan Anne Bancroft whose last wish is to meet her idol. Her son played by Ron Silver sets about trying to get Garbo to visit his mother at the hospital.

Garbo is the subject of several documentaries, including four made in the United States between and Writer, journalist and film historian Ephraim Katz: Of all the stars who have ever fired the imaginations of audiences, none has quite projected a magnetism and a mystique equal to Garbo's. American film actress Bette Davis: Her instinct, her mastery over the machine, was pure witchcraft. I cannot analyze this woman's acting. I only know that no one else so effectively worked in front of a camera.

The most extraordinary woman in art that I have encountered in my life. It was as if she had diamonds in her bones and in her interior light struggled to come out through the pores of her skin. American film director George Cukor: She had a talent that few actresses or actors possess.

In close-ups she gave the impression, the illusion of great movement. She would move her head just a little bit and the whole screen would come alive, like a strong breeze that made itself felt. Garbo was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In , a performer could receive a single nomination for their work in more than one film. Garbo received her nomination for her work in both Anna Christie and Romance. Finally, in , Garbo was nominated for Ninotchka , but again came away empty-handed. The Swedish royal medal, Litteris et Artibus , awarded to people who have made important contributions to culture, especially music, dramatic art or literature, was presented to Garbo in January She was once designated the most beautiful woman who ever lived by the Guinness Book of World Records.

Greta Garbo

He'd slept with them all that way when he was asleep in bed. He could remember Garbo still, and Jean Harlow. Yes, Harlow many times. Maybe it was like those dreams the night before the attack on Pozoblanco and [Garbo] was wearing a soft silky wool sweater when he put his arms around her and when she leaned forward and her hair swept forward and over his face and she said why had he never told her that he love her when she had loved him all this time? She was not shy, nor cold, nor distant. She was just lovely to hold and kind and lovey like the days with Jack Gilbert and it was true as though it had happened and he loved her much more than Harlow though Garbo was there only once From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Greta Garbo Garbo in Anna Karenina Garbo and Fredric March in Anna Karenina Garbo and Robert Taylor in Camille By next spring I shall probably be But about her private life, she later remarked "I never said, 'I want to be alone'; I only said, 'I want to be let alone.

Archived from the original on 3 November The New York Times. Retrieved October 11, Completing the Twentieth Century. Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Retrieved 24 July Retrieved 7 December Enciclopedia dello spettacolo in Italian. Casa editrice Le Maschere.

Retrieved 25 July Retrieved 4 August I hated the bonds they put on me. There were so many things outside. I liked history best but I was afraid of the map—geography you call it. But I had to go to go to school like other children. The public school, just as you have in this country. I didn't play much. Except skating and skiing and throwing snowballs. I did most of my playing by thinking. I played a little with my brother and sister, pretending we were in shows. But usually I did my own pretending.

I was up and down. Very happy one moment, the next moment — there was nothing left for me.

Then I found a theater. I must have been six or seven. One was a cabaret; one a regular theater, — across from one another. And there was a back porch to both of them. A long plank on which the actors and actresses walked to get in the back door. I used to go there at seven o'clock in the evening, when they would be coming in, and wait until eight-thirty.

Watch them come in; listen to them getting ready. The big back door was always open even in the coldest weather. Listen to their voices doing their parts in the productions. Smell the grease paint! There is no smell in the world like the smell of the backyard of a theater.

No smell that will mean as much to me—ever. Night after night, I sat there dreaming. Dreaming when I would be inside—getting ready. When I wasn't thinking, wasn't wondering what it was all about, this living; I was dreaming.

Dreaming how I could become a player. Retrieved 6 August In June she left school, and never returned. The Hollywood Book of Extravagance: John Wiley and Sons. Retrieved 3 April Retrieved 8 February Boy Wonder to Producer Prince , Univ. Retrieved 20 July Eighty Silent Film Stars: Biographies and Filmographies of the Obscure to the Well Known. Michael Mando breaks down some classics that had a huge impact on him, including A Space Odyssey , and The Godfather trilogy. Salute these Emmy nominees.

Visit Prime Video to explore more titles. Find showtimes, watch trailers, browse photos, track your Watchlist and rate your favorite movies and TV shows on your phone or tablet! Down this week. Kevin Spacey Fowler, better known by his stage name Kevin Spacey, is an American actor of screen and stage, film director, producer, screenwriter and singer.

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