Garbo Walks!

If you love old movies, then you must see the films of Greta Garbo. 

The Swedish beauty was the biggest movie star of the 1920s and 1930s, and the first true international star. She went from being a silent star to the first big star of the talkies ("Garbo Talks!" was the tag line for 1930's Anna Christie, her first speaking part). During the Great Depression, Garbo took Americans out of their doldrums with such classics as Mata Hari, Grand Hotel, Queen Christina, Camille, and Ninotchka. I've seen them all and they are as entertaining as anything being made today. Not only that, but Garbo's sex appeal has transcended into the 21st century.  

Garbo was gorgeous but also a first rate actress. She had an amazing, magical talent. Often she played in dramas and was the ultimate doomed femme fatal. But in 1939's Ninotchka, she gave what has to be one of the greatest female comic performances of all time. 

She was beautiful, soulful, and funny. Also, she is immortalized in Cole Porter's song "You're the Top":

You're the National Gallery!

You're Garbo's salary!

You're cellophane!

Many have said she was probably the greatest female movie actress of all time.

And then, in 1941, she walked away from it all.  

Garbo quit the movies and chose to live a private life. Occasionally she was tempted to return to the screen but it always came to nothing. Not only did she not act again but she almost never gave interviews, never went on TV, never made public appearances, and never wrote a memoir. Along with JD Salinger, she became one of the most famous of recluses.

In the early 1950s, Garbo moved to NYC where she lived until her death in 1990. Though she fiercely guarded her privacy, Garbo loved to take long walks around Manhattan and spotting her almost became a sport for New Yorkers. 

Garbo's most famous line is from 1932's Grand Hotel where she exclaims, "I want to be alone!" And alone she lived in NYC for almost forty years. 

Garbo spent her final decades in an apartment building on East 52nd street, just off 1st Avenue. It is at the end of a dead-end street overlooking the east river. For a recluse who wants to live in Manhattan, it's the perfect place because it's not easy to get to and is very private.

Recently, I was in the area and remembered that this is where she used to live so I -- having the time and interest -- trotted down the street and snapped a photo of her building. As you can see, it looks just like any upscale Upper East Side building. Elegant, but not as spectacular as its most famous deceased tenant.

And I noted something: considering that Garbo was one of the most famous movie stars in history and lived in this building for almost half her life, you might think there'd be a plaque or something outside the building commemorating her. After all, many other buildings where other famous people lived in NYC have such things. Some even name the street where they lived after them! 

But not here. Not at all. You'd never know this was where she lived. Even in death, the great Garbo just wants to be alone.

Classic Mr NYC

There's a big new biography on 1930s movie star Greta Garbo that is getting stellar reviews.

A native of Sweden, Garbo came to Hollywood in the 1920s and became an immediate sensation during the silent-movie era, then successfully transitioned to talkies in the 1930s. She became one of the highest grossing (and paid) stars of her era, the jewel in the crown of the biggest studio of the time, MGM. While the country was mired in the Great Depression, Garbo's beauty and talent and glamour lifted the spirits of a people that were otherwise struggling. 

And then, in the 1940s, at the outbreak of World War II, at the height of her fame, Garbo quit Hollywood and never made another movie. She lived the rest of her life (she died in 1990) as a recluse on the Upper East Side, becoming dubbed "the hermit about town."

In 2011, I actually found the building that Garbo lived in, and took a picture and blogged about it. I've also written about Garbo (including one of her notorious lovers) over the years. Garbo was a forever mystery, in life and death, and nowhere did she seem more mysterious than in NYC. 

Garbo Redux

I've always been fascinated by the 1930s movie star Greta Garbo, the great Swedish actress who made classic movie after classic movie -- before quitting and remaining a recluse for the rest of her life. Over the years I've blogged about her life in NYC where apparently she became known as the "hermit about town."

Now there's a new biography about Garbo coming out, including new info a lesbian love triangle she was in with notorious woman-snatcher Mercedes de Acosta. 

Equally intriguing is that apparently, in the 1950s, when Garbo was herself in her 50s, she went to a party one night hosted by the acclaimed playwright and screenwriter William Inge. He held it, of all places, in his apartment on my beloved Riverside Drive.

One of the guests was a handsome young actor, just starting out on Broadway, named Burt Reynolds. The older Ms. Garbo was quite struck by the hunky young thespian and made overture after overture to him to take her home and do the funny business ... and he chickened out.

That's right, "the Bandit" might have shtupped Ninotchka. How cool would that have been? And this meeting happened, of all the square places, on Riverside Drive!

Apparently the divine Garbo didn't always 'vant to be alone. 

Mr NYC Ahead of His Time

So this will be a twofer today for "Mr NYC Ahead of His Time."

In 2011, and in the years since, I blogged about the great 1930s movie star Greta Garbo who moved to NYC in the early 1950s and spent the last decades of her life living as a recluse.

My first blog post about her was called Garbo Walks, and was about how for years on end it became a sport for people in Manhattan to spot the great star walking the streets. (She died in 1990.)

Well, it was a great to see the wonderful NYC podcast The Bowery Boys now do a podcast episode about this very subject called Garbo Walks: A Tale of Old Hollywood in New York City. It's a great piece of city nostalgia that looks at the contradiction of someone who many viewed as a goddess of cinema, a living silhouette of beauty and talent -- but who was in fact just an eldery retiree who kept to herself, who "'vanted to be alone." 

But the world wouldn't leave her alone. Even in 1985, when she hadn't made a movie over 40 years, her 80th birthday became big news! Mr NYC may be ahead of his time, but Garbo is timeless. 

Garbo Forever

Over the years I've blogged about the late actress Greta Garbo, who was the biggest movie star in the world in the 1930s -- then vanished, living as a recluse in NYC until her death in 1990.

You can access the Mr NYC Garbo files here.

And read about her long years of self-imposed exile from the movie business here.

Remembering Mercedes de Acosta

Many years ago Howard Stern was interviewing movie icon Warren Beatty and got right to the point: "You make great movies," the King of All Media told the legendary Hollywood actor/director/Lothario, "if you didn't bang all those broads ... we'd talk about the movies, but the broads get in the way." (Then Stern told Beatty something about smelling his hand and the interview was over.)

Howard spoke the truth.

No matter how great a film icon Mr. Beatty is, no matter how many great movies he's directed and starred in, he'll best be remembered for his other great "productions": Natalie Wood, Joan Collins, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, Madonna, and many others. 

So was the case of Mercedes de Acosta.

Born in NYC in 1893 to affluent Cuban immigrants, Mercedes was a playwright, poet, and novelist. Her career trajectory was a little less Warren Beatty and a little more Llewyn Davis -- professionally, she was a failure, her work forgotten, her career unsuccessful. But she's remembered nonetheless. Why? Well, personally, she had some very successful "productions": Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Tallulah Bankhead, and many others.

Even though she married a man, Mercedes was a notorious, unashamed lesbian at a time when this could literally land you in jail. She made lovemaking into an art form, her skills became as legendary as any movie or work of literature. Most of all, she had a boundless, rapacious spirit. Mercedes was someone the world wanted to classify one way -- a boring married lady who did nothing -- and she refused to stay in her lane. Instead, she travelled the world, wrote prolifically, and seduced many women. She's probably best remembered for the quote: "I can get any woman away from any man." 

Fearless! 

Mercedes lived the life she wanted, even if it didn't always bring her happiness. (Maybe the "broads" got in the way of her having a more successful career but, honestly, I'd rather be remembered for "productions" like Mercedes de Acosta and Warren Beatty than any play or movie.) Sadly, Mercedes died in poverty in 1968, taking her legendary skills into the afterlife. In many ways, her life was sad but she was brave, she was courageous, and -- if sometimes a little fearless and irresponsible -- she lived her truth until the end.

How many of us can say that?

The Princess of Hell's Kitchen

New York City is not the capital of the United States (at least not for more than 200 hundred years). Amongst all the great real estate that exists in this town, it possess no buildings or centers of national power.

It goes without saying that it has no royal palaces or castles -- royalty has never originated in NYC. Quite the opposite, actually -- this city is where royalty was fought and defeated and caste off, giving birth to the American nation.

And yet ... royalty sure does love coming to NYC! 

Even more, they like living here. The former King Edward VIII and his American wife Wallis Simpson used to live for three months of each year at the Waldforf Towers. And just a few years ago a Japanese princess and her commoner husband moved to NYC, living in all places, Hell's Kitchen. This fascinating article tells her story and how she seemed just to vanish seamlessly into the lifeblood of Manhattan. 

There's something about NYC, part of its paradox, where you can both live in the center of the world and yet hide from it (like Greta Garbo). The stories these streets could tell!

On the Streets Where They Lived Revisited

Add this to the culture file for NYC.

As much as we love the arts in NYC, we also love real estate. And hey, artists, they gotta live somewhere right?

Check out this website called Right Here NYC that lists that addresses and sometimes even has pictures of the various homes and apartments where some of the great writers, actors, musicians, and other artists who have lived in NYC over the years.

Where did you Jimmy Cagney grow up?

Where did Greta Garbo live during her reclusive years?

Where did Papa Hemingway live?

You can find out.