Garbo was born in Stockholm, Sweden.

She was the third and youngest childAs a child, Garbo was a
shy daydreamer. She hated school and did not play much, but became interested in theater from an
early age and dreamed about becoming an actress. At the age of 13, Garbo graduated from school,
and typical for a Swedish working-class girl at that time, did not pursue further education;
Despite living in near poverty, Garbo maintained her love for the stage. She participated in
amateur theatre with her friends and frequented the Mosebacke TheaterHer first job was as a
soap-lather girl in a barbershop. One day a young man by the name of Kristian Bergström,
son of the founder of the PUB department store, came in for a shave. He eventually offered
her a job as a clerk at PUB. She accepted the offer and started working at PUB in July 1920,
where she also modeled for newspaper advertisements. She appeared in two short film
advertisements, the first for PUB. They were eventually seen by comedy director Erik Arthur
Petschler. He gave her a part in his upcoming film Peter the Tramp (1922).
From 1922 to 1924, Greta Gustafsson studied at The Royal Dramatic Theatre's Acting School
in Stockholm. There, director Mauritz Stiller, who also worked as a teacher, trained her in
cinematic acting, gave her the stage name Greta Garbo, and cast her in a major role in the
silent film The Saga of Gosta Berling in 1924, a dramatization of the famous novel by Nobel
Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf. She played opposite Swedish film actor Lars Hanson. She
followed this with a part in the 1925 German film Die freudlose Gasse (The Joyless Street or
The Street of Sorrow), directed by G. W. Pabst and co-starring Asta Nielsen.
Louis B. Mayer viewed The Saga of Gosta Berling during a visit to Berlin. He was impressed
with Stiller's direction, but was more taken with Garbo's acting and screen presence.
According to Mayer's daughter, Irene Mayer Selznick, with whom he screened the film, he
was impressed by the gentleness and expression that emanated from her eyes. Mayer brought
Garbo and Stiller to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
The best-received of Garbo's silent movies were Flesh and the Devil (1926), Love (1927) and The
Mysterious Lady (1928). Despite her enormous success as a silent movie star, Garbo feared that her
Swedish accent might impair her work in sound, and delayed the shift for as long as possible. MGM,
for its part, made a slow changeover to sound. Garbo is among the actors and actresses who
successfully made the transition to talkies; publicized with the slogan "Garbo talks!", her voice was
first heard on screen in Anna Christie (1930). Although Anna Karenina was arguably one of her most
famous roles, Garbo regarded her role as the doomed courtesan in George Cukor's Camille (1936),
opposite Robert Taylor, as her finest performance. On 9 February 1951, she became a naturalized
citizen of the United States. In 1953, she bought a seven-room apartment in New York City where she
lived for the rest of her life.Garbo was known for taking long walks through the city streets, dressed
casually and wearing large sunglasses,always avoiding prying eyes, the paparazzi and media attention.
Despite Garbo's obvious wish for privacy, elements of the public remained obsessed with her, and
until her death, Garbo sightings were considered sport for the paparazzi. Except for the very early days
of her careershe seldom signed autographsrarely attended social functionsanswered no fan mail, and
gave few interviewsGarbo was nominated four times for an Academy Award for Best Actress,
including twice in 1930, for Anna Christie and Romance. She was awarded an Academy Honorary
Award "for her unforgettable screen performances" in 1954. She did not show up at the ceremony, and
the statuette was mailed to her home addressThe 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 1937. Greta Garbo died on 15 April 1990, aged 84, in New York
Hospital as a result of pneumonia and renal failure. She had been successfully treated for breast cancer
in 1984