Greta Garbo - Fashion Icon

By Leslie Drollinger Stratmoen

MY FASCINATION …

with Greta Garbo goes all the way back to my college days, in the 1970s, when I came across some photos of her in an old magazine. (I probably still have them somewhere.) Anyway, those photos proved to be an inspiration for an oil painting in which I created a Garbo montage. (And, I’ll post that picture, too, as soon as I find it.)

This photo, here, is in my collection of newspaper promos received while working as a Lifestyle Editor back in the 1990s. Back then, the networks would send out packets of photos to be used to promote new shows and the airing of upcoming movies and old classics.

It’s from the film, Mata Hari, released in 1931 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. I wanted to include it because the photograph really captures her great beauty and what became — the Garbo Look — with the heavily lined deep-set eyes, slim-lined brows and perfectly defined mouth.

This look, topping off her slim, lithe body really did create one of the most alluring figures in cinematic history, especially when dressed in one of those long slinky gowns of the thirties.

So, it didn’t really come as a surprise, to me, when Irving Thalberg balked at the idea of putting her in pants for an upcoming film. But, he did, according to Axel Madsen in his book The Sewing Circle.

HERES THE EXCERPT:

Irving Thalberg, Metro-Goldwin-Mayer production chief, was in no mood for jokes. The world wasn’t exactly waiting for Greta Garbo to play a man, now, was it? The writer across from him, Mercedes de Acosta, smiled.

To act is to assume identities. … Admittedly, the tradition of women in men’s roles was shorter (than men in women’s), but it dated back to Cherubin in The Marriage of Figaro. On Broadway, a succession of actresses, from Maude Adams and Eva Le Gallienne to Marilyn Miller, had played Peter Pan. On film, Hamlet had ben incarnated by Asta Nielsen.

Thalberg cut her short. Desperate was not supposed to be Garbo in drag, but Garbo getting out of harrowing scrapes.

“We have been building Garbo up for years as a glamorous actress, and now you come along and try to put her into pants and make a monkey out of her,” he snapped. “Do you want to put all America and all the women’s clubs against her? You must be out of your mind.” 

De Acosta reeled under his unaccustomed outburst, but recovered to say Garbo knew perfectly well that to escape police and assorted villains, the plot had her disguised as a man.

“She must be out of her mind, too,” Thalberg came back. “I simply won’t have that sequence in. I am in this business to make money on films, and I won’t have this one ruined.” 

“Remember Sarah Bernhardt’s triumph as the duke of Reichstadt?” Mercedes asked.

Thalberg was flattered when people thought him an intellectual and he liked to affect the airs of a Renaissance prince. She told him Paul Poiret (the fashion designer), whose clothes were a permanent part of her own wardrobe, had designed Sarah Bernhardt’s close-fitting trousers and arrogant white coat for the title role in Edmond Rostand’s L’Aiglon. …

“Greta will look great in uniform,” Mercedes said, smiling.” END

 The Wrap

I’m adding this footnote from the book, too, because I thought it so interesting.

“At this time, MGM was paying Garbo $12,000 a week. Adrian, MGMs costume designer, earned $1,000 a week, while the skilled tailors and seamstresses at the studio earned between $15.85 and $21 a week. (All figures are given in vintage dollars.)”

Reference: “The Sewing Circle” by Axel Madsen (1995) Birch Lane Press, Carol Publishing Group (purchased by Kensington Books, Kensington Publishing Corp.)