…so she’s creating these female characters and the women of that era love them. – Greta Garbo and the Rise of the Modern Woman by Scott Reisfield
Greta Garbo and the Rise of the Modern Woman
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Very excited to welcome Scott Brycefield today. His new book, Greta Garbo and the Rise of the Modern Woman. We’re going to talk about it. And uh welcome, Scott. It’s great to be here, John. I I’m going to just go on a personal aside. I’ve I have struggled with Garbo my whole life. I I I can’t quite find it. I know that she was name checked in the Great Sunset Boulevard by Norma Desmond saying that one Garbo, I think she’s got it. And I’m hoping after we talk today, I’ll uh the the
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floodgates will open up and I’ll understand. Just want to start out with a couple of questions. I got some a few questions here and we’ll see where it goes. But I’d like to just let you do as much talking as you see fit. Your central argument is that Gretto Greta Garbo helped create the image of the modern women woman, excuse me. When did you first realize this wasn’t simply a biography, but a completely different way of interpreting her life? To be honest, as I was researching it during
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co um I I thought I would write a more standard Hollywood biography cuz I knew there were a lot of mistakes in the way the story had been told. But as I did the research, I realized that what mattered was her impact. That people really hadn’t focused on that. Uh and it was pretty amazing. Okay. And you also have a family connection to her as well, correct? Well, she was my great aunt. Um, and so I had actually never read a biography until after she passed away cuz I didn’t think I needed
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to in a way. Uh, but there were other people writing biographies and you know, my mom was like, well, none of these have really captured her. They don’t do things right. So I I was aware of of that issue. Uh but to be honest, it it seemed like a rather daunting project. I had a career. Uh I did write uh an essay for a coffee table book with a museum exhibit of her photographs. Uh that was back in 2005. Uh so it’s not like I hadn’t done any research because I did some research for that
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but it was it was very focused on on photography and I I picked up some other things along the way but enough to know that there was some kind of story there that was new. So CO arrived. I uh closed my business because it was not COVID resilient. I had just started a business and I started doing this research and it it just seemed to me that what got lost in the 50s and 60s and 70s was any understanding of why she had been so important. And then sort of a step beyond that is there’s a very specific reason she had the impact she had and no one really talked
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about it. Okay. Uh well that’s it goes right into this. Uh you argue that qualities have often mis been misunderstood or qualities have been often misunderstood. What do you think most biographers have gotten wrong? Well I think the first thing is um her agency. You know, a lot of the people who started writing about her like in the 50s or even later, you know, men writing about her sort of had trouble with the idea that there was this woman who had a plan and executed it, right? Women do that. You know, it turns out they do. Um, that was one thing. And I think the other
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thing was because so much of it came from, I guess I’ll call it a celebrity focus. [music] You know, who did you date and and you know, where did you vacation and and those things are fun. I I understand people want to read about them, but Burbo came to Hollywood with a completely different style of acting than was then in vogue. uh the old acting was more vaudevilian, you know, very stylized. I think when most people think of silent films, they think of that kind of, you know, performative, not modern acting, right? You’re not trying to inhabit the the life of the
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character or if you do, you’re not really quite so good at it. [music] And Garbo came with a very naturalistic style. That’s what Sweden did. Uh, you know, in as a theater actor, they’re doing Stinberg and Ipsson. So, it’s a very different style than what’s on, you know, Broadway or what’s in Hollywood. And it just resonated with people. Uh, in part because there were technical changes. I mean, she was she arrived at the right time because they had just moved to panochromatic film.
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So now you get the full range of colors uh and it made close-ups work better. You had new lenses that made close-ups work better. Uh so everything uh was moving in the direction of what she could deliver, which was this ability to just be that person in the role. So the people watching her felt not that they were watching a character on on a screen, that they were in the room with her. And you know, she would even talk about how she had to make up her character’s internal life because the directors didn’t care. Um, you know, that’s 1926. It’s a different world. [music] And so she’s
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creating these female characters and the women of that era love them. Okay. You kind of touching on that, you devoted a lot of attention to her early life in Sweden. How important were those formative experiences in shaping the woman that Hollywood eventually met? Oh, I think so because I think she was, you know, pretty much Swedish her whole life, even though she lived in America for so long. Um, she was a workingclass woman. You know, she came from a tight-knit family. Um, they supported her. Uh, they, you know, I I think had sort of a feminist outlook on on the world,
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which in Sweden is not that uncommon at that era, though. uh you know it was still the 1920s, [music] 19s. Uh she during World War I, Sweden was blockaded by the Germans and the Allies. So they had no food. The average person in Stockholm ate less food than the average person in Berlin during World War I. It [music] was that tough. Uh and they were neutral, right? So they just were stuck. Um [music] and uh you know so she’d seen deprivation even though her family it was a workingass family. Uh and then you know she she got old enough as a teenager to start working
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and she gets this job at a pub and which is a department store and she gets her break. She gets cast in an industrial film and she she uses that and she’s young. She’s, you know, 16 years old to uh invest in acting lessons so she can become a stage actor. And she gets into dramat [music] uh acting school that’s part of the Royal Dramatic Academy. it’s also called dramatic as you know the short name and gets great [music] training and um you know I think she always valued that
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she valued the people she was with [music] and the way they wanted her to act and and I think she was also Swedish in her um in just sort of her view of other people like Swedish is Sweden is is you know yeah there are classes in Sweden but it it’s pretty um flexible in in in in a sense. I mean there was there was no question she came from a workingass family yet she could get to this school uh where which was full of middle class kids. Uh so I I think that um you know she benefited a lot
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from that and in Sweden she was you know used to meeting all sorts of people you know first working at a department store you [music] have all the people who come in that you you know try to sell stuff to uh but then also you know she’s pretty quickly in the mix with not just other actors But if [music] directors and producers in Sweden, theater people and film people because they’re in the same place, you know, in Sweden it’s a trolley ride between film and theater, you know, in the United States, Broadway and Hollywood are on different coasts. Okay. Well, [laughter] that’s
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pretty interesting. Uh you said, okay, uh Marett Stiller is often credited with discovering discovering her. after your research, how would you describe his true influence on her career and artistic development? Yeah. Well, you know, he he was good friends with the director who cast her in that first industrial film. [music] He was good friends with the guy who was the head of the Dramaten School. Uh he probably saw her uh early on. Um, but when he was casting Yosta Berling, which is is the film that was kind of her breakthrough, you know, she’s a risk because she’s
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she’s not as trained yet. She’s just starting. Uh, and it’s a key role. Her role, Elizabeth, is not a co-star, but it’s the key supporting role in the film. And she has to act a certain way. She’s in love with Yasta, but she can’t act on it, right? cuz uh she’s married at the time. So, she has to sort of do this interesting, yes, [music] I’m attracted, but I’m true to my husband thing effectively, right? [music] It’s got to it’s got to look real. Uh and and so Stiller takes
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the risk and casts her. And so, while he’s doing this film, he’s going, “Oh, she’s talented. Wow, she’s really talented.” At some point, he realizes she’s as good as it gets. like she could be the best actor of her generation and [music] he starts working with her to make her that. I mean, it’s it’s almost selfless in a way because he would sacrifice quite a bit to help her succeed and they they had a great professional relationship. It turned into a romantic relationship,
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but Stiller really, I think, was the first person, and she’s young at this point, right? She’s 18, and he’s like, “Oh, you can do whatever you want this deal.” Uh, and he sees it at this young age, and he he devotes [music] a lot to helping her gain the other tools she needs to succeed. So he’s [music] absolutely instrumental and I I think one of the things I learned I was read a lot of people have said negative things about Stiller [music] you know they say he’s like a spengali to
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her which first off doesn’t understand spengali [music] because the the person doesn’t have the talent singali infuses it in the person and corpo had the [music] talent but um he’s always he he’s really as good a mentor as you could ever wish for. He’s just fantastic at what he does for her. So yeah, he’s central. Make the case that Garbo’s films reflect changing attitudes towards women rather than simply entertaining audiences. Uh was there one film that best illustrates this
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argument? I for me it’s Anna Christie, her first sound film. you know, she plays a number of silent roles uh as well where she’s, you know, very independent, but with Anna Christie, she plays a sex worker trying to reform her life, right? So, there’s no question that she is not a Victorian paragon of virtue, but she falls in love and it becomes this very believable, imperfect romance, if you will. Uh and she sticks up for herself when when you know her her boyfriend and father are you
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know a gasp that she’s been living this life. She lets into them, [music] you know, and really lets it there, especially her dad have it. You know, this is because in part of the way you were as a parent and here’s why uh you didn’t support me and you know, so it’s this transition to, you know, women being out in society living, I’ll call it imperfect lives, right? the sort of Victorian porcelain doll, even if it never happened in real life, was sort of this, well, this is the way you’re supposed to be. Uh, and and you you push out into this much more
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um driven by passions and maybe you have ideals. I mean, I know you do a lot of film noir. Well, you know, so you’re driven by passions and don’t have ideals, right? You know, so Garbo is on the other side of that fence. She’s driven by passions, but it’s the ideals that people resonate with that she’s looking for true love, that she’s looking for this interior honesty, and she’s always looking for these characters and finding them. And and for me, Anna Christie, and it’s not like
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there aren’t any earlier, but Anna Christie is is like the transformative one because of the sound. Uh and and people who were critiquing acting at the time, thought it my favorite comment about her acting and Anna Krenina was or sorry, Anna Christie, too many Annas. um [clears throat] was, oh, now we find out she’s been acting with one arm tied behind her back, right? Because her voice makes all the difference in the world, uh, in terms of portraying how the character is feeling, you know, when you hear her say it. So, um, yeah, that’s the one I’m going to go with. Okay,
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fantastic. Um, Corbbo’s relationship with John Gilbert has become part of Hollywood legend. What surprised you most when you examine the historical evidence rather than the mythology? Well, it it the nuance of it, you know, they they were clearly in love and and quite smitten with each other, but they were always aware that they were sort of an odd pair. [music] And I there was this great quote by Gilbert uh in a magazine interview where he said something along the lines of you know Garbo wants if we get married she wants to retire to a farm and raise children and I want to
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be a movie star. I, you know, Gilbert loved being a movie star and all of the trappings of movie stardom [music and clears throat] and being out as the movie star and Gar was kind of a homebody who, you know, just, you know, likes to read, um, take walks. Uh, so I at some point they realized they shouldn’t get married. Uh, it just wasn’t it just wasn’t going to be that kind of thing. But they always had this attraction. Uh, for years and they remained friends even I think Gilbert would
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get drunk and decide he wanted to marry Garbo. There’s some pretty legendary stories around that, but you know, it didn’t happen and they would go back to making movies, uh, which is kind of the interesting thing. and uh you know so I think that it was it you know one of those situations and Stiller’s involved in this too because it is sort of you know Garbo’s romantic relationship with Stiller was on and off again while she was uh seeing Gilbert and you know so she I think
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was trying to figure out what she wanted to do romantically and you know Gilbert was part of the equation but not the answer. You argue that Garbo challenged social conventions long before modern feminism became a mainstream movement. How conscious do you think she was of the example she was setting? I think she was pretty conscious of it. Um, you know, it’s interesting because people watching her thought they could understand what she was thinking, what her character was thinking as she was acting a role. And in the first film, one of the sensors
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responded to the film. How do you sensor thought, right? You can see the thought. So she’s playing these characters and they’re not all like this. You know, Mahari is just a spy, [music] right? So it’s it’s a little different, but she’s she’s playing these characters um that that there’s there’s a component to the the character that’s [music] that’s socially modern almost always. Um and [music] she’s looking for these roles. And one of her complaints
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was that MGM was casting her in uninteresting roles and you know she had a contract situation with them. Uh that was resolved. You she signed a new 5-year deal and and and then the rules got interesting. Uh and you know again it’s sort of it’s not a universal thing but something like the single standard is a very she’s a very independent uh woman rather than just being the typical of the time. Um one of the great strengths of your book was that you place Garbo in a broader social
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context of the 20s and 30s. Uh did your research change the way you think about that entire time period of history? Yeah, I mean, you know, it’s sort of understanding how the social environment evolved and the depression really did change things, made it a much more conservative country, the rising tide of fascism and how Americans felt about it. Um, so it’s [music] it’s interesting how um Gorbo fits into that time period in the sense that I think you you see her being very independent and then she gets to Queen Christina in 1933 and she’s playing a queen and the social
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conservatives were in sense not just because of the text [music] implied in the film. It’s all basically implied other than um but they’re insensed with her portrayal of a queen. She’s not she’s not fitting into the norms they want in terms of authority. You know, she’s doing things the way she would as a modern female queen do them. So there there are these elements up through there and then you have this transition in 1933 of the production code administration uh which really kind of takes not you know it’s not an instantaneous effect. So it’s more like
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1934 [music] that you start to see it sink its teeth into the system of production. But, you know, they wanted a more conservative portrayal of women in film. Uh, and they no communism and, you [music] know, no worker riots and then, you know, social control kind of things. Um, but a lot of it was they wanted the way women were portrayed to be more traditional. And Garbo’s response was a set of costume dramas where they totally subvert the code by making her pay whatever social price for
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her transgressions cuz nobody watching the movies believed that she was paying a price she wouldn’t pay because she was being true to her heart. And so you it’s [music] hard maybe some that’s one of the things that changed for me. I really looked at those three films in a new context, understanding that they were her portrayals were driven by the code and their need to subvert it to deliver their message. So when you watch those films today, it’s hard to understand the richness of the role in its
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era, I guess, would be the best way to put it. Okay. So, so one of the things for instance, Anna Corinina because she’s an adulteress, nobody is supposed to approve of her in society. So, you get this incredible condemnation by everybody in the film uh that she rises above. Well, it just seems in some ways a bit much, you know, when you watch it today, right? Uh but it’s it’s in the times that it’s it’s using that to overcome the production code. People think Anna’s paid a price by being condemned and then dying and the audience is going, “Well,
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she was true to her heart. I love her.” You know, so that’s the dichotomy. That’s pretty uh pretty bold standing up to the haze code. But I yeah I was totally unaware of that. So you when I I have Anna Karenina in my queue to watch and so now I’ll be able to watch it a little more understanding. You just uh knocked out number my next question uh because I was going to ask you about the production code but you already covered all that. So great. Um Garbo retired while still at the
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height of her fame. Do you see this uh decision as a personal withdrawal, a business decision, a final expression of independence you’ve described throughout the book? Oh, I will do that. But let me go back to the production code. Okay, that’s fascinating. So, she makes these costume dramas, then she makes makes uh which is a comedy and very anti-communist. It’s a very political movie, but it it really holds up till today. It’s great. Uh, when you have Billy Wilder writing the script,
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you you’re you’re starting from a good place. Um, but then she makes Two-faced Woman, which is her last film. And people write about it like it was a failure. Um, and that it was condemned. It was condemned by by the Legion of Decency. But the story of why it was condemned is the key piece. So, um, Joe Breen had just resigned from running the production code administration and the social conservative network that was sort of behind all this wanted to make sure that Jean Sherlock would take a tougher line. Uh, Bream was socially conservative, but he realized that movies had to
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tell a story or nobody would go. Uh so he you know he he would he would negotiate. So they wanted a much tougher regime and Two-Faced Woman was not a particularly body movie. It wasn’t any racy than literally movies that had been released 2 or 3 months before. Uh one with almost the same plot uh Chocolate Soldier. Uh but they picked two-faced woman to attack. Uh and I don’t know if it was because of Barbo it but [music] it certainly didn’t hurt them. Uh and it was a different kind of role for Garbo was a comedy uh kind of follow up on
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um it was successful. They can they they got MGM to pull the film. We don’t watch the film that was released today. Uh, we watched the edited version that has the story destroying edits that were insisted upon. The original film actually won awards. Um, it didn’t make a lot of money because the weekend after it was released was Pearl Harbor, [music] which cut into not Pearl Harbor weekend, but the following weekend, nobody went to the theater. [music] So all the movies that got released there, you know, for Thanksgiving or maybe at the beginning of
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December just suffered horribly at the box office and so did Two-Faced Woman. Uh and it, you know, wasn’t going to have the same kind of export business because of the war. Um so you know, it was it may not have been the greatest Garbo film ever, but it was horrible. And people think turning to the question you then asked, right? of the the production code, the social conservatives have won. And this triumph would run through the 60s. It all comes from the two-faced woman uh condemnation and the reaction to it. They are now firmly in charge. And Garbo’s problem was,
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I think in part she was Garbo, but that she wanted to do these interesting roles for [music] the most part and they weren’t going to approve those scripts. So I found a string of projects that she uh signed to do. So right after Twooac Woman, which was 1941, she signed with MGM to do the girl from Lennengrad uh in 1942. And it was cancelled after Bernie Heyman, who was the producer, passed away. He had a heart attack and died. And uh Louis B. Mayor went to Garbo and said, “I’m going to cancel this film.” It’s about a Russian nurse during the winter war against
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Finland. Um, so she’s she’s again playing this leadership in a romance kind of thing like not going to without the I never have seen a script of what they were going to do. But um, so MGM canled the project. They had already paid her in advance. Uh, Mayor actually offered to pay her the balance and she turned them down. She said, “I’m not doing the film. I don’t need to get paid.” Uh, and then there’s a string of roles that she considered during the war. Uh, St. Joan, uh,
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but George Bernard Shaw didn’t want an experienced actor in the role of Joan. Uh, the one I really wish would have been made. Both George Cooker and Katherine Hepburn relate [music] the three of them sitting with Louis B. mayor pitching Morning Becomes Electra and getting turned down. You know, that would have been an interesting film. Uh and there there are a number of other projects it does especially towards you know uh she looked at a she signed to do a film called Women of the Sea
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that she then backed out of because she didn’t like the script. Uh, and then after the war, there’s a whole bunch of projects that people attach to her and it in some cases it’s hard to know how serious they were or if it was just PR to get interest in the film. Um, but she um after the war agreed to do a movie about George Sand uh who was a cross-dressing lesbian writer. So this is her response [music] to the lavender scare. She signs to do George Sand. So yes, she could be political, but she did it sort of in her choices. That movie got transformed
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into a film called Duchess Dam and they sent a script into the production code administration and we’re told in no uncertain terms that it was not acceptable. So that killed that project. There’s there’s a little more to killing the project. It drags fun, but you know, they never had a script. Uh though I think and I’ll say this is that Hollywood was changing, you know, so she really benefited from being part of the MGM system. Balberg, you know, took care of her, knew what her market was, these independent female middle-class clerks,
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and he delivered that audience, uh, these films with Garbo and other people, you know, Norma Sher, Joan Crawford and whatnot, but Garbo was the key to it in terms of the dollars. Um, and that was gone. And so, you know, you end up with Walter Wanger lying to everybody as he’s trying to get [laughter] Duchess Dong through the system [music] um about, you know, whether he’s got a script, whether he’s got financing, you know, all these things. He’s he’s just dancing as fast as he
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can until it falls apart. Um, but even after that, so in 1955, the last film that I found or film project, cuz it never got made that I found Garbo signed to do was in 1955. So she spent almost as many years trying to make a film after her last film as she spent making films at MGM. Yeah. Uh, she was going to make The Miracle, which was an old Max Reinhardt play, very religious, and they were going to make it originally at I call it a film, but it was originally going to be a TV special to be run every Easter. And um you know it just it got transformed as a concept instead
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of being uh just this spare simple project. So one of the two people who they considered as the writer of the screenplay was Samuel Beckett. And that’s all you have to know to know where they were shooting for in terms of the way this film was going to work. it was going to be, you know, very uh intelligent and philosophical. Uh and it got transformed into a cinemascope spectacular and Garbo’s response was that’s not what we want to do. you know, uh, George Fle, who was her, uh, late in life lover and adviser on this because he did have a theatrical background,
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uh, you know, he said, uh, in a letter back to uh, Norman Belgettius, who was the producer, I don’t see how this can’t be schmaltzy. you know, you have battles with cannons and, you know, it’s just it’s not going to be the same kind of story as as we had originally considered. So, that’s the last project I found a contract for. I know people pitched her after that and I know that uh [clears throat] she may have considered something at some level, but I I I don’t know.
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I don’t have any commitment, but I do have Tennessee Williams pitched her on a play uh The Pajama Game as as a film, and it’s a story about lust, not love. [music] So, Williams said, Garbo’s response was, “It’s great, but it’s not for me. Give it to Joan Crawford.” Right? And he and she was right. It’s a Joan Crawford role. It’s not a Garbo role, but the Garbo role, and you know, now she’s older, it makes it even harder to find the right Garbo role, is [music] is a romance,
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you know, at the heart of it. Uh, and [music] and so but but of an imperfect woman often. So that’s the role that you just don’t see being filmed in the ‘ 50s, ’60s, you know, it’s not till the 70s when all of a sudden, you know, there’s this new challenging kind of film. Uh, but in 1970 she’s 60 years old. Diamond gone by. Wow. Uh, let’s see. If modern audiences knew only one or two Garbo films, what what would be the what would be the two or three that you would recommend [music] to someone
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to fully understand her? Well, I think Nachka is the most accessible. Um, you know, it’s a comedy, but the jokes still land today. uh you know she’s a Soviet commisar who comes to Paris uh to retrieve the diamonds that were stolen [music] you know and you know she falls in love and uh you know the guy who who came up with the basic idea you know his his his three sentence pitch was something like Russian commasar comes to Paris falls in love capitalism not so bad after all, you know, and that’s basically the movie. But it’s fun. It’s a fun movie and it’s very crisp
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and it’s well acted in all the roles really. Um, and I would say after that, I mean, Camille is the best of the costume dramas. It’s a spectacular film. [music] Her acting is so good. Um, and it’s a little creaky because it is a little dated, but it’s just such a great film as a as an older film. Mick Lal, who’s a a film writer, uh, thinks everybody should watch it multiple times. He says, “You can’t watch it just once. You got to see it several times because you just don’t catch all
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the little things in one in one doing, which may be maybe more than most people will sign up for, but it is it is a great film and she’s spectacular. Uh the nuance she delivers is amazing. Okay. You’re trying to tell me that most people don’t watch films three, four, five, six times in a row. Well, you know, not in a row. I mean, it’s interesting because their films I’ll come back to every every couple of years uh just because they do something for me and some of them are classics and some of them aren’t, you know. Uh I was just being funny cuz I watch movies,
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you know, every few years I’ll watch it again. I haven’t watched Stalag 17. I got to watch that again, you know, pull it back in. That’s okay. Well, it’s funny, too, to to see a movie you haven’t watched in a while. It it does strike you in a different way. I saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind a couple of months ago. I hadn’t seen it, you know, basically since it came out and it [clears throat] just struck me different. It was interesting. It is interesting. I guess
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cuz you know I guess you have your time where you’re at when you watch it and it has its story and then you’re at a different place and it has another the story but you interpret it different. as time as life goes by. That’s good. Okay. Uh let’s see. Researching a figure as famous as Garbo means sorting facts from legend. What longheld myth proved to be the most difficult to unravel or dismiss? Well, most difficult. I’m going to go with most interesting because I think it’s a fun story. So Garbo came to New York in July 1925 and spent two months there
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and people have written [music] that MJM didn’t know what to do with her and they really wanted Stiller and they were trying to maybe even send her back to Sweden. And that that’s very common take on [music] Garbo’s arrival in the United States. That’s not what happened at all. She came, she had a lever of intent for a five-year deal, and she didn’t want a five-year deal. She wanted a one-year deal. And the problem with her letter of intent was she was only 19, so it wasn’t legally
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enforcable. So, she spent 2 months negotiating what ended up being a three-year deal. Uh so the reason she spent all this time in New York uh wasn’t because MGM didn’t want her. [music] They desperately wanted her. So much so they would sign a three-year deal, which they almost instantly regretted. They they they really didn’t like the fact that they only had her for 3 years. They would um threaten her with bad roles if she didn’t sign a 5-year deal after she’d been there
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for a year and a half, which led to her walking out of the studio. They cast her in a film called well it ended up being called Women Love Diamonds and she refused because it was a crappy film and she had been promised quality roles and MGM said well only if you sign a 5-year deal and and then they spent 4 months discussing that [music] and then she signed a 5-year deal but she got the money and she got the roles uh after that. Pretty amazing for someone that young to know to be that secure in themsel that they could negotiate like Well, yeah. And she had, you know,
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help. She hired a lawyer, you know, in America. She had Stiller, who was still there in New York. He had his own separate contract issue, but his was a little more straightforward. Uh but yeah, she was pretty self- assured and I think I think that was the thing because she was happy with the idea of being a stage actress in Stockholm. Everything else was kind of extra. I do think once she got to Holland you because when she was in New York she was like I’d like the one-year deal, right? I’m going to see what it’s like. Like no five. [laughter] So three is the compromise.
00:40:26
But um I think that once she got to Hollywood, she realized that it wasn’t like making movies in Europe, you know, and that the impact of the assets Hollywood could bring to a project were just unmatched. And and that’s the thing, she wanted to have impact. So if you want to have impact, you make movies in Hollywood. She had plenty of opportunity after her, you know. So, she signs a three-year deal and goes to Hollywood and learns. So, she could have at any point after that made movies anywhere in the world. People would have thrown money at her. And she made movies in
00:41:12
Hollywood because that’s where you went to make impact. So, she wanted the impact. Oddly enough, without the celebrity possible, but but the impact on the audience is is something she did. Okay. Well, that kind of probably segus into this uh next part. Just what did you discover during your research that you think this changes how we should understand Garbo? Well, I [music] think the idea the they’re sort of interrelated that she had a lot of agency that she wanted to do these things that she was aware she was having this impact on her fan base and kept doing it
00:42:00
and that given the opportunity to not make movies in Hollywood, she kept making movies in Hollywood. Um, and I think that, you know, she she wasn’t unaware of her celebrity. And I think she knew where it came from. It came from the audience. Um, and it was in some ways overwhelming. I think maybe that’s one of the things I learned was how overwhelming her celebrity was for the era. So one of the things I did was I wanted to understand I was trying to find you know how do you find the
00:42:44
1930s equivalent of a Q score right so I went back to Photoplay magazine which was the main film fan magazine of the era of there were several but that was sort of the lead magazine and I just counted up how often various actors [clears throat] female actors were mentioned in photo [music] play each year. So basically, if you got mentioned a 100 times, you were a star, a a a sizable star. Uh if you got mentioned 300 times, you were either Greta Garbo or Joan [music] Crawford. If you got mentioned 700 times, you were Greta Garbo. But the scale of that, right? You’re a star at 100 and one
00:43:40
year Garbo’s over 700. There was a a [music] fan magazine that apologized one month for not running a Garbo [music] article in a prior issue. It was that kind of uh focus on her. Um she received almost a million letters a year, right? you you could not answer as an individual a million letters a year. Yeah, it would it’d probably take a staff of about 30 um right to send everybody a photo and whatever. Um so you know Elanor Roosevelt used to receive 300,000 first a year she was uh first lady you know so that’s the scope of Garbo’s impact on the people who watched her they
00:44:34
had you know they didn’t have the internet then there was no Instagram so the way you responded to these heroes of yours was you wrote them letters or you bought [music] their photos or you read about them in photo play. And you know it [laughter] I think it could be pretty intimidating for the average person because it it the negative is and Gro did have this [music] you get stalkers. I mean she had stalk in the 30s. Um, and you know, so I think [music] um, but I think that the while she didn’t like the celebrity part of it, she couldn’t really walk away from the actor
00:45:18
having an [music] impact part of it because that’s why people act, to have an impact and and to tell a story. And her stories happened to be about modern women. who who loved her was [music] the women trying to learn how to be modern and she you know dragged them out of the Victorian era you know not by herself I mean I I’m very clear on the fact that you know other actors were doing the same thing you know the Murmures and Joe Crawfords and Captain Pepper they just didn’t have the same
00:45:53
impact in terms of engagement by anything you can measure and they’re making more movies than she’s you know, after she signed her first independent deal, she made seven movies in 9 years. You know, she’s dealing with pernicious anemia, which I didn’t even know until I started researching her. So, it really restricted how much effort she could put into each product. Uh, and she made fewer movies than almost anybody major. uh cuz she she was making basically under her initial
00:46:29
MGM contract three films a year and everybody else is making four. Uh and [music] then as she gets into the mid to late30s she’s just scaling back even more. But you know the studio is investing in these productions. They’re they’re they’re on 2-year pre-production timelines which is just amazing for the 30s. after someone’s finished reading your book and and they want to remember one idea about Greta Garbo, what do you hope that idea is and and why does it still matter today?
00:47:03
Well, I think it’s that she’s one of the women and there’s several of them, you know, like the Amelia Hehearts, you other actors who who helped women show the world that women could do a lot of things in the [music] world that in a generation earlier they were procluded from doing. you know, it was a much more restricted female life. You know, in in the in the 19th century, it was a separate sphere of life. You know, they had the home and hearth and, you know, the guys had the city, you know, and maybe back in the pre-industrial days,
00:47:47
it made sense because, [music] you know, laundry day used to take all day. Now, you just kick it into the washing machine, you know, come back after an hour or so, check on it. Yeah. So the world opened up for women and they, you know, how do you take advantage of and I think the message I I want people to understand is not by herself and it wasn’t just in film because there are other people in other avenues doing things. But she’s one of the women who in the first half of the 20th century sort of showed women that they could be uh modern women. Okay,
00:48:27
Scott, that’s absolutely fascinating. Is there anything that I’ve forgotten to ask you that you would like to just say? Uh any any last message? Well, I think um you know it’s it’s not unrelated from times today. You know, the the role of women in society is once again a focus culturally. There’s some conservative blowback about, you know, what women should or shouldn’t do. Should they even should they even be out working or should they be home you know tending tending
00:48:59
the hearth and you know so this is this is a story that relates to today uh rather directly it’s also history uh but I think it relates to today and so I think it’s interesting and you know for people who like to read things like hidden figures or the woman of no Importance this is right in that same vein as a story about women in an error of change. Fantastic. Scott, I really appreciate you taking the time to be here and we’ll put some links in the description to show where you can
00:49:31
get this great book. I highly recommend it. Uh I think you’re going to like it and thank you again, Scott. Well, John, this has been great. I did, you know, look at some of the other YouTubetubes that you’ve done and and like I have to go back and rewatch a bunch of films now because I’ve been looking at your YouTubes. though. Thank you. Well, thank you, bro. Thank you very much.do you hope that idea is and and why does it still matter today? Well, I think it’s that she’s one of the women and there’s several of them, you know, like the Amelia Hehearts, you other actors who who helped women show the world that women could do a lot of things in the [music] world that in a generation earlier they were procluded from doing. you know, it was a much more restricted female life. You know, in in the in the 19th century, it was a separate sphere of life. You know, they had the home and hearth and, you know, the guys had the city, you know, and maybe back in the pre-industrial days, it made sense because, [music] you know, laundry day used to take all day. Now, you just kick it into the washing machine, you know, come back after an hour or so, check on it. Yeah. So the world opened up for women and they, you know, how do you take advantage of and I think the message I I want people to understand is not by herself and it wasn’t just in film because there are other people in other avenues doing things. But she’s one of the women who in the first half of the 20th century sort of showed women that they could be uh modern women. Okay, Scott, that’s absolutely fascinating. Is there anything that I’ve forgotten to ask you that you would like to just say? Uh any any last message? Well, I think um you know it’s it’s not unrelated from times today. You know, the the role of women in society is once again a focus culturally. There’s some conservative blowback about, you know, what women should or shouldn’t do. Should they even should they even be out working or should they be home you know tending tending the hearth and you know so this is this is a story that relates to today uh rather directly it’s also history uh but I think it relates to today and so I think it’s interesting and you know for people who like to read things like hidden figures or the woman of no Importance this is right in that same vein as a story about women in an error of change. Fantastic. Scott, I really appreciate you taking the time to be here and we’ll put some links in the description to show where you can get this great book. I highly recommend it. Uh I think you’re going to like it and thank you again, Scott. Well, John, this has been great. I did, you know, look at some of the other YouTubetubes that you’ve done and and like I have to go back and rewatch a bunch of films now because I’ve been looking at your YouTubes. though. Thank you. Well, thank you, bro. Thank you very much.
