The Box That Waited 40 Years
Greta Garbo spent most of her life making sure the public knew as little about Greta Garbo as possible. So when a collection of her private letters was locked away with instructions that nobody could read them until years after her death, people were understandably curious. Especially because the woman who saved those letters claimed she and Garbo had been much more than friends. But the letters weren't the end of the story everyone was expecting.
Donaldson Collection, Getty Images
Hollywood’s Great Mystery Woman
Garbo made just 28 films, became one of the most famous actresses on Earth, and then did something Hollywood stars almost never do: she simply walked away. After Two-Faced Woman in 1941, the 36-year-old Garbo never made another movie. She lived almost another half-century while offering remarkably few explanations about anything, especially her private life.
Clarence Sinclair Bull, Wikimedia Commons
Then There Was Mercedes De Acosta
Mercedes de Acosta was a poet, playwright, novelist and screenwriter who moved through some very famous circles. She was also unusually open for her era about her relationships with women. Marlene Dietrich, dancer Isadora Duncan and actress Eva Le Gallienne were all connected to her. Then, in 1931, she met the woman who would fascinate her for decades.
Arnold Genthe (1869-1942), Wikimedia Commons
A Friend Made The Introduction
Garbo and de Acosta were introduced by actress and writer Salka Viertel, one of Garbo’s closest friends. According to later accounts, Viertel had reservations about bringing the two women together. Considering everything that followed, she apparently had pretty good instincts. Mercedes and Greta quickly became close, and before long they were spending time together away from Hollywood.
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The Trip That Started The Questions
That summer, Garbo and de Acosta traveled together to California’s High Sierra. Modern biographer Lois Banner has described their relationship during this period as romantic. Other Garbo historians have been more cautious about exactly what happened. Nearly a century later, that disagreement remains at the center of the story.
Mercedes Had The Photographs
De Acosta also photographed Garbo during their travels, capturing the famously guarded actress far away from movie premieres and MGM publicity photographs. Mercedes later wrote about Garbo in her memoir and kept material connected to their relationship for decades. To people who believed they had been lovers, it all seemed meaningful. But meaningful and conclusive are two very different things.
Unknown photographer (Svenskt Pressfoto), Wikimedia Commons
Garbo Was Never Going To Explain Herself
Rumors about Garbo’s private life followed her for years. She had famously been involved with actor John Gilbert, while biographers have also examined several intensely close relationships she had with women. Garbo never married and rarely clarified any of it. If Hollywood wanted someone to put the rumors to rest, it had unfortunately chosen Greta Garbo.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Wikimedia Commons
They Couldn't Quite Let Go
Whatever happened between Garbo and de Acosta in the early 30s, they remained connected for nearly three decades. Their relationship moved through periods of closeness, distance, arguments and reconciliation. Garbo sometimes pulled away from Mercedes, particularly when she felt her privacy had been violated, but the two repeatedly found their way back into each other’s lives.
Ruth Harriet Louise, Wikimedia Commons
Mercedes Was Writing For Garbo Too
A surviving 1932 typescript of Desperate carries a note saying the original screenplay had been written for Garbo in 1931. It was never produced, but it survived among Mercedes’s papers. Whatever label belongs on their relationship, she clearly imagined Garbo as part of both her personal and creative world.
Arnold Genthe, Wikimedia Commons
Then Mercedes Wrote A Book
In 1960, de Acosta published her memoir, Here Lies the Heart. Garbo appeared in it, along with several other famous women from Mercedes’s life. For Garbo, who guarded her privacy like somebody might actually try to steal it, this was apparently too much. Their long relationship effectively ended.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (work for hire), Wikimedia Commons
Garbo Was Finished With Her
After nearly 30 years of friendship, Garbo cut de Acosta off, and the two never regained the relationship they once had. Mercedes had lost access to the woman who had occupied such an enormous place in her life. But she still possessed something almost nobody else had: Garbo’s private correspondence.
Genthe, Arnold, Wikimedia Commons
The Letters Went Into A Vault
In 1960, Philadelphia’s Rosenbach Museum & Library acquired de Acosta’s papers, purchasing the bulk of the collection while Mercedes donated the Garbo material itself. Among it were Garbo’s letters, cards, telegrams, photographs and other personal material. There was just one rather frustrating condition attached to the correspondence.
Nobody Was Allowed To Read Them
The agreement required the Garbo correspondence to remain sealed until ten years after both women had passed away. Mercedes died in 1968. Garbo, however, lived until April 15, 1990. That meant researchers had another ten years to stare at a collection they knew existed but were forbidden to open.
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April 15, 2000
Exactly ten years after Garbo’s passing, the restriction expired. After roughly four decades under seal, the letters could finally be examined. Reporters and researchers had spent years wondering whether the collection might answer one of Hollywood’s longest-running questions. Had Greta Garbo and Mercedes de Acosta actually been lovers?
Now they were going to find out.
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There Was A Lot More Than Letters
Mercedes had preserved an extraordinary amount of Garbo material. Her collection included photographs, poems written to Garbo and even a tracing of Garbo’s foot from 1958. De Acosta also turned her personal Bible into something resembling a Garbo scrapbook, filling it with material connected to the actress. Mercedes had clearly not forgotten her.
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The Collection Looked Promising
The long-sealed Garbo material contained dozens of letters, cards, telegrams and notes, along with photographs, poems and other pieces of memorabilia. After waiting 40 years, that sounded like plenty of material in which to find one unmistakable confession, romantic declaration or sentence capable of ending decades of speculation.
Then people actually started reading it.
Unknown photographer, Wikimedia Commons
Garbo Sounded Surprisingly Normal
The letters revealed a side of Garbo that movie audiences rarely saw. She joked, sent gifts and wrote casually rather than sounding like some untouchable Hollywood goddess. She addressed Mercedes with affectionate pet names including “sweetie,” “dear boy” and “honeychild.” It was intimate enough to raise eyebrows, but not intimate enough to settle anything.
Dennis Amith, Wikimedia Commons
She Could Also Be Very Garbo
Other letters showed Garbo becoming distant, frustrated or suddenly unwilling to see Mercedes. Then, later, warmth would return. Their correspondence reflected the same strange push-and-pull that seemed to define their relationship for years. They could apparently neither remain completely close nor completely disappear from each other’s lives.
Genthe, Arnold, Wikimedia Commons
The Big Love Letter Wasn't There
After all the buildup, researchers found no obvious declaration that proved the two women had been lovers. There was affection. There was familiarity. There was emotional complexity. But there was no single “well, that settles it” letter waiting inside the collection.
And there was another problem nobody could fix.
Motion Picture, Wikimedia Commons
We Were Mostly Hearing Garbo’s Side
The Rosenbach material largely preserved Garbo’s letters to Mercedes, not a neatly matched back-and-forth correspondence showing what Mercedes had written immediately before each reply. Imagine trying to understand a relationship by reading only one person’s text messages. Suddenly even dozens of letters could leave an awful lot unanswered.
New York Sunday News., Wikimedia Commons
The Dates Made It Even Harder
Much of the surviving Garbo correspondence discussed publicly came from the 1950s. But the period historians were most interested in was the early 1930s, when Garbo and Mercedes first became close and supposedly had their romantic relationship. A friendly letter written 20 years later could hardly tell researchers exactly what happened during that first summer together.
Movie studio photo by Clarence Sinclair Bull, Wikimedia Commons
Garbo’s Family Saw No Proof
Garbo’s great-niece Gray Reisfield Horan was present when the correspondence became available and said she saw nothing that established a romantic relationship between the women. From the family’s perspective, the letters had finally been opened and the sensational proof everyone expected simply was not there.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (work for hire), Wikimedia Commons
But Mercedes Seemed Pretty Certain
Mercedes herself told a different story. In private writings and correspondence, she counted Garbo among the women she considered former lovers. She apparently had little doubt about what the relationship had been. The difficulty was that Garbo never left behind an equally clear statement saying, “Yes, that is exactly what happened.”
Very Garbo.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (work for hire), Wikimedia Commons
And Some Biographers Agree With Mercedes
Later Garbo biographers have continued to argue that the relationship probably was romantic. Lois Banner has gone further, presenting Garbo and de Acosta’s 1931 involvement as an affair. Other writers have remained more cautious. The letters that were supposed to settle the argument instead became new evidence for both sides to interpret.
Mercedes Wasn't The Only Question
De Acosta was also not the only woman whose relationship with Garbo has interested biographers. Salka Viertel, the very friend who introduced Mercedes and Greta, had an extraordinarily close relationship with Garbo herself. Banner has argued that relationship also became romantic. Suddenly the de Acosta mystery looked like only one piece of Garbo’s much larger private life.
Employee(s) of MGM, Wikimedia Commons
The Secrecy Had Created Its Own Legend
Part of the problem may have been the sealed collection itself. Tell people a famous actress’s private letters are hidden away for 40 years and they naturally imagine something explosive is inside. By the time the archive opened, the secrecy surrounding the letters had almost become evidence in people’s minds before anyone had read a single page.
Los Angeles Times, Wikimedia Commons
Garbo Got The Last Word By Never Giving It
Were Greta Garbo and Mercedes de Acosta lovers? Mercedes apparently believed they were. Some biographers agree. Garbo’s family found no proof in the letters, and the surviving correspondence refuses to settle the argument.
After decades of secrecy, 40 years under seal and ten years of waiting after Garbo’s passing, everyone finally got to hear from Greta Garbo herself.
And somehow, she still didn't tell them.
Unknown authorUnknown author, Wikimedia Commons
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