Not just an irksome Swede

Hugo Vickers

GARBO by Barry Paris Sidgwick & Jackson, £20, pp. 654 Bany Paris is one of the few film-star biographers who writes with style and panache and does not get bogged down in the tedious ritual of filmography, studio dramas and worse. He focuses on the star as a person. He is therefore a calm and reassuring guide through Greta Garbo's tortured life.

His is the first major biography of Garbo since her death in 1990, and though there have been many books about Garbo's life and work, until now we have had to rely on the one by John Bainbridge, written as long ago as 1955.

In reviewing this book I must declare my position, which is a complicated one. I was simultaneously engaged on a rather differ- ent portrait of Garbo, published last year as Loving Garbo. This concentrated on the interwoven lives of Garbo, Cecil Beaton and Mercedes de Acosta. It seemed likely that Paris would get in touch at some point. Having read and much enjoyed his life of Louise Brooks, I resolved to be as helpful as I could, within the defined parameters. We had one long and interesting meeting in London and in a few letters that fol- lowed I tried to answer his always intelli- gent questions. I was not able to permit him access to Cecil Beaton's sealed papers, nor did he press this point.

Nevertheless, my presence in the field evidently caused Paris problems with his publisher. My signed copy of this book came not from the author, but from one of his major sources: 'To Hugo, whose very existence complicated the publication of this book immeasurably, Sam Green.'

One of the problems in writing a book on Garbo is her lack of intrinsic interest as a character. She has nothing to say about her films, she never tells an anecdote, writes a letter of note, or contributes a hint or idea as to how other mortals might direct their lives. Like Irene Forsyte, she is silent, observed by others. Paris captures her well in the words of these observers — Kenneth Tynan, Irene Selznick, Louise Brooks — but never better than in his preamble from Balzac's La Duchesse de Langeais, which she came close to filming:

She was a creature apart; she put herself proudly above the world and beneath the shelter of her name. There was something of the egoism of Medea in her life.

His conclusion on Garbo is the accepted one. In the medium of film Garbo was a natural artist whose wizardry was instinc- tive. She possessed a rare quality that came over on celluloid and has fascinated gener- ations of film-goers ever since. That magic, that capturing of her soul, propelled the mere mortal behind the face (and behind the unique voice) into an orbit where she could not cope. She hid from her fame for the rest of her life.

As for the real-life Garbo, with those long years of endless, pointless peregrina- tions around New York and Europe, she can be summed up in one of her own favourite phrases: she was 'a bloody bore'.

Yet it is impossible to dismiss her simply as an irksome Swede. I could serve up many examples of her selfishness and cruelty, her manic depressive inertia, and her wholly negative attitude to life. I often quote her reply to Howard Dietz who invit- ed her to dine on Wednesday. 'How do I Icnow I'll be hungry, Wednesday?' If you think that's funny, you like Garbo; if you don't, you hate her. On balance I like it, just as I have a sneaking admiration for her ability to examine a vast basket of fruit and other Christmas gifts sent her by Mercedes de Acosta, to look at this in disgust, pull out a bottle of vodka, and then send the basket back without acknowledgement.

Yet Louise Brooks was right to say: 'Garbo has probably sustained the longest scene in theatrical history, ever since 1925 — her private life.' Garbo's early life is now wrapped in mythology. She was the daughter of a butcher's assistant, worked in a store, was spotted in some advertising films, and in due course taken on by the Svengali figure of Moritz Stiller. She went to Hollywood. When writing of the films 'Oh yes, he's veiy good in bed.' she made here, Paris reveals so many erotic sub-texts and allusions that had he sat on the Will Hays Committee and explained to them what he explains to us, a number of Garbo's 27 films would have been severely cut. He defines 'the spirituality within the sexuality', and her 'slow building anger against the world'. He is thorough and I wonder if there is much left to be said about Garbo after this book.

A considerable part of the interest in this book lies in the other characters. Garbo's 'empty vessel' quality forces us all to look to her circle. I found Mercedes de Acosta, Paris concentrates on the fascinating Salka Viertel. Here is a character worthy of his talents and readers will relish all the pas- sages on Salka. She was a woman of sub- stance and intelligence, an actress, a screenplay writer and Garbo's manager for some years. She also created a salon of dis- parate refugees, an unlikely group to be thrown into the tinsel world of Hollywood. (Yet a book on Salka alone would not sell).

What of the new sources for this book? Paris has unearthed a good number of sur- vivors and he has travelled widely. He is also a master of the chilling footnote. Of Ramon Novarro, we are told: On Halloween in 1968, he was beaten to death in his home by two teenaged brothers — hustlers and petty thieves — from Chicago.

The contribution of Garbo's family is pro- tective and often contradictory to the gen- eral theme. By and large they take from the text rather than give to it. Sam Green's tapes, made late in Garbo's life, are vivid, and Sam himself is a good interpreter, though his particular ability to coin a neat phrase does not always make him an histor- ically sound source. (Diana Cooper certain- ly did speak to Beaton till the end of his life, and Beaton was already back with Vogue long before the 1946 Garbo 'passport' photos).

Then there is Claire, the maid, who is visited, but to little avail. The most inter- esting thing about her is that her years of loyal service went unrewarded, save for $3,500 severance pay — from an estate of over $55 million. (I expect Garbo's niece looks after her independently, though). I saw Claire once at Sotheby's in New York and toyed with the idea of taking a photo of her. She saw the camera and, like her late mistress, swung away from it — for the last time.

In my opinion Paris misses three key sources, one of which I missed myself. He did not consult the original Cecil Beaton papers (there are many that are not sealed) and therefore relies too much on the pub- lished diaries. He did not explore the archives of Mercedes de Acosta, which are rich in Garbo material (though the actual letters are sealed) and neither of us found Igor Kamlukin, Georges Schlee's nephew, who possesses interesting papers, according to Kennedy Fraser, who wrote a fascinating profile of Valentina in the March edition of US Vogue.

There are a few minor errors. Tina Onassis was a Livanos not a Lavranos, Queen Marie of Roumania cannot have been a customer of Valentina in the 1940s (she died in 1938), Tovarich was in 1963, and I wonder who 'the royal architect' was who apparently tried to schedule a meeting between the Queen and Garbo, a very dodgy tale.

This book is an important one. Yet, when it was published in New York, the reviews were far from extensive. Have we reached a point where a serious, well- researched biography of Garbo has small appeal? Many of the potential readers of this book preceded Garbo to the grave, so authors such as Mr Paris and myself will have to choose our subjects with care in the future or risk disappointing sales.