THE ONLY TRUE STORY OF GRETA GARBO’S PRIVATE LIFE by Sven-Hugo Borg

The private Life of Greta Garbo by her most intimate friend Sven-Hugo BorgA VISION OF THE FUTURE

AS I sit here in my little house overlooking the endless blue Pacific, my task finished, my completed manuscript before me, there comes to me a question—What will Time bring to Greta Garbo? What manner of existence will she live? I close my eyes while puffing at a cigarette, filling my lungs with that salty air brought in by the west wind from over the sea, and a strange vision appears of Garbo 45 years from now.

I see her tall and stately, a combination of two outstanding characters of long ago—Queen Elizabeth and Sarah Bernhardt. She is like a queen—regal, commanding and stern. Time has silvered her hair, but it has not mellowed the stern features which once looked out from the screen. Her wrinkled hands rest upon the silver knob of her cane, and in her eyes, as she sits gazing into flames of the fireplace, is still the divine fire that flashed in the long- lashed eyes of the youthful Garbo. They have changed less than any of the rest of her.

For twenty years she has lived, almost isolated from the outside world, on that magnificent estate which for hundreds of years has been ruled by one of the most prominent of Swedish nobility.

The private Life of Greta Garbo by her most intimate friend Sven-Hugo BorgAround the country side, this old castle is called “Garbo Ro,” meaning “Garbo Peace,” although there was and still is, an historical name attached to it, reaching back to the early days of her great, great, grandfather of the sixteenth century.

SOLITUDE AT LAST

GARBO has, after all these years, at last found the complete solitude for which she sought all her life. Surrounded by a few faithful friends, she lives alone, cut off from the outside world, forgetting, but not forgotten.

“A strange old woman,” the natives whisper, “she was once a great actress. She has much money which she made in America.” And another would say while passing “Garbo Ro,” “I wonder why she never got married?“

My vision moves into the spacious library where “old age,” Garbo and a visiting friend are comfortably seated, reminiscing of a far-off past. While Garbo is puffing at her favorite cigarette, she rocks to and fro and says: “Yes, it brought me solid ground; that’s one thing to be grateful for, isn’t it? Yet, it never did bless me with—what I most of all waited—a child of my own.”

They sit in silence, gazing into the inviting fireplace, and La Garbo leans back in her rocker, and from the corner of her eyes she looks reminiscently upon a little portrait in a hand-hammered silver frame, standing alone upon the mantel above the fireplace:

There are thoughts that flash through her now tired mind that shall never be converted into words, for she gazes upon an image of her creator—Mauritz Stiller.