Glamorous Facts About Greta Garbo, The Elusive Starlet
La Divina. The Face. The Swedish Sphinx. Greta Garbo went by many names, but her beautiful visage hid a multitude of secrets. The ever-mysterious Garbo hypnotized audiences with her sultry voice and breathtaking beauty.
And behind the private and moody public persona that she became known for, she lived a life full of both scandal and tragedy. Here are glamorous facts about Greta Garbo.
1. She Had A Humble Upbringing
The woman who came to be known simply as “Garbo” was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, to a working-class family in the slums of Stockholm, Sweden. With three kids, the Gustafssons struggled desperately to ends meet.
It’s no wonder that Garbo became known for playing tragic, melancholic characters on screen—she was drawing on her own woeful childhood experience, and the extreme poverty was just the start of it.
2. They Lived On The Edge
Greta Garbo described her childhood as a time of extreme anxiety, where she and her siblings sat in silence, lest they disturb their father as he scanned the newspaper for jobs, or their mother as she worked to repair old clothes, since they couldn’t afford new ones.
Luckily, Garbo had an outlet—she discovered a love for theater at a young age, as did her sister.
Sadly, even their shared passion couldn’t save them from the bitter tragedy that awaited them.
3. She Was Embarrassed By Her Roots
Garbo’s parents worked tirelessly as she and her two siblings attended a nearby school. At 13, she graduated, but her parents didn’t have enough money for her to continue to high school.
For the rest of her life, she carried the weight of that decision. Garbo later confessed that she felt inadequate compared to many of her peers in Hollywood, who had attended high school and university.
The Gustafssons were so poor, it’s like they were living on a razor wire where one misstep could ruin everything—and eventually, it did.
4. Everything Changed In An Instant
Despite the tense atmosphere in the Gustafsson household, Garbo was incredibly close with her family, especially her father—but in 1919, a catastrophe struck that would uproot her entire world. Garbo’s father was suffering from a terrible illness, which left him unable to work. He lost his job and required extensive treatment for his kidnaps. Young Greta stepped up to help him—and her efforts were heartbreaking.
