Ka-ta's Dreams: Garbo in Childhood
Posted: Saturday, December 31, 2011
by Jack H. Schick
Karl Alfred Gustafson liked to believe he was descended from Viking kings. But, that was a thousand years ago. As were his father, his grandfather, and his forefathers before them, Karl was a farmer. By 1898, the Gustafson's had laboriously toiled for hundreds of years, eking out a living from the marginally productive soils on the Kalmar Plain in Smaland (Small Land). As residents of the province in southeastern Sweden were described, Karl also was a "plain, rugged, law-abiding country [man] who's [life was] as dull as [his]…occupation." Karl had an earthy, agrarian nature. He was only vaguely aware of the Industrial Revolution that had swept into Sweden in the late 1800's.
Anna and Karl settled in the working-class ghetto in the Sodermalm (Southside) section of Stockholm. They acquired a four-room, cold-water apartment on the fourth floor at 32 Blekingegatan in a five-story walk-up tenement. They would live there for the rest of Karl's life. He had some experience as a butcher's helper, but could find no work in that field. He finally secured an apprentice position with a master gardener, and eventually was employed as a landscaper, attending trees and streets for the city.
Karl and Anna were officially married in May of 1898. In July, Anna gave birth to their first child, son Sven. They were not desperately poor, but their economic status was lower-class. Anna, due to her husband's ‘laid-back' nature and frequent poor health, assumed responsibility for running the household. She was frustrated with their financial woes and often took it out on her husband. In addition, it was common practice for people to not tip laborers with money, but to invite them in for a drink. Karl began to return home from work tipsy more and more frequently, exacerbating his domestic situation.
Five years after Karl and Anna had become established in Stockholm, a second child, daughter Alva, was born. It did not improve their economic condition. When, two years later, on September 18, 1905, their third child was born at Soder Maternity Hospital, their financial situation was so dire that Karl's employer offered to adopt the baby girl. The parents seriously considered accepting the proposal, but ultimately, decided to keep her. They named her Greta Lovisa Gustafson. Twenty years later the entire world would know her--as Garbo.
Karl Gustafson was not unaware of his mild mannered short comings. Anna repeatedly reminded him. Besides laboring at a job he hated, for recreation he sang in the local choir. Karl reportedly had a very good voice. He inspired in all of his children an interest in music. Though Sven was ‘momma's boy,' both girls were very close to their father. Karl particularly encouraged his favorite, little "Ka-ta" (as toddler Greta pronounced her own name), in her desire to sing and perform. Her father gave her a box of paints which she dabbed on her own face believing "that's what actresses do."
Greta was frequently quiet and remote. "I was always inclined to melancholy." Garbo said many years later. "Even when I was a tiny girl I preferred to be alone…I still firmly believe that it is wise and essential to leave small children alone now and then-to find peace, and to dream and wonder about the strange ways of this world in which they find themselves…[M]y best games were played with myself. I could give my imagination free rein, and live in a world of lovely dreams."
Often Greta would be found, sitting alone, under the kitchen table. Once, Karl's sister, Maria Petersson, found her five-year-old niece there, quiet and distracted. She asked the child what she was thinking about. Greta replied, "I am thinking of being grown up and becoming a great actress." A few years later Greta confided to her Uncle David, "I'm going to become a prima donna or a princess, and when I'm rich I'll give all I can to poor children." She commonly organized and staged ‘play theater' with her brother, sister and friends.
Greta showed a determination and industry from a young age. For both economic reasons, and to get back to his roots, Karl kept a vegetable garden by Lake Arsta on the outskirts of the city. Every week the family traveled by trolley to tend their ‘crops.' Greta got an idea to grow strawberries and sell them at market to make a little extra money. She got up early to water and weed her plants, but other kids would steal the berries. She noticed a small shed near by and began sleeping there overnight to guard her patch. She harvested and sold the strawberries, then proudly donated the money to the family kitty.
Greta was especially precocious for her age. "In fact, I can hardly remember ever having felt young, in the ordinary sense," Garbo later said. "I always had opinions, and others looked to me for decisions, and for solutions to their childish problems. But my moods were changeable. Happy one moment the next plunged in despair." She always called Alva her little sister, even though Alva was older. She bossed around her much older brother, and all of her friends. "Yet they came to me for help and comfort," she said.
When she was seven, Greta was enrolled at the Katarina grammar school. Garbo said of her school days: "I lived in a constant state of fear, disliking every moment of it….The only subject I really liked was history, which filled me with all kinds of dreams. I went to public school and hated it. I hated its confinement, its repression. Unlike most children, I actually dreaded recess! I could not bear the thought of playing by order, by the clock…." School subjects like mathematics and geography damaged her fantasy vision of the world. She modified history in her mind to compensate. "I read my schoolbooks on history just as if they were novels and often let my fantasy wander. According to my fancies I might shorten the life of a cruel king and replace him by a romantic knight, or reawaken an unhappy queen centuries after her death," she said.
When she was seven or eight years old, Greta began sneaking away from home to visit the nearby theatre district. The Gustafson's did not have money to spend on shows, so Greta would loiter at the actors' entrance, hoping to catch sight of the performers. Anna often had to send Karl or Sven out to find her. The young Gustafson girl roaming freely in the streets, without her parent's permission or knowledge, became the talk of the neighborhood.
Greta Gustafson at 9
Garbo remembered: "Each evening, at about seven, I used to go to the courtyard of the Southside Theatre and watch the actors and actresses pass to and from their work. Then I would steal home fearful of a scolding….My sole wish was to creep inside the magic stage door." When she was finally able to sneak inside: "I caught wonderful glimpses of the players…and first smelled that most wonderful of all odors…that backstage smell compounded of grease-paint, powder and musty scenery. No odor in the world will ever mean as much to me-none!" she reminisced.
As she got older, Greta began to move further into a world of imagination and dreams. The ‘shows' she put on with her friends grew more elaborate. She loved to play the role of harem girl, but was also stage manager and director. She constantly instructed her friends on how roles should be played. If her ‘sheik' was not satisfactory, if the girls complained of difficulty playing a man's part, she would demonstrate. One minute, she was a seductive woman, the next, a dashing man.
Her childhood friend Elizabeth Malcolm told a story that illustrated the intensity of the pre-teen Greta's imagination. In the tenement courtyard there was a shed with a sloping metal roof. "...Many a summer's day we lay there sunbathing," Malcolm said. But, Greta was not in Stockholm. "'We are on a sandy white beach,' Greta would say. ‘Can't you see the waves breaking against the shore? How clear the sky is, Elizabeth! And do you hear how sweetly that orchestra at the casino is playing? Look at that girl in the funny green bathing suit! It's fun to lie here and look at the bathers, isn't it?" The girls lay, side by side with their eyes closed, enjoying the fantasy, until the janitor came to chase them off the roof, snapping them back to reality.
Malcolm described how Greta became even more driven when, at twelve years old, she finally saw her first show. "[Greta] was very much excited. ‘Elizabeth, we are going to become actresses,' she announced. [They put on makeup] ‘Now we are ready to act! You must come in like this and pretend you are very surprised to see me and look like this,' Greta instructed me…I tried to follow her instructions, but she was not satisfied." Greta finally had enough: "'This will never do! You see, Elizabeth, you've got to act. Now take that chair and sit down. You can be the audience and I'll show you how one really acts.'" Malcolm said that then, Greta acted. She was a one-woman show. "She danced and she kicked, she recited and sang…."
From then on, Malcolm said, "Greta and I played theater whenever we had the chance." They would sometimes use Sven's cloths and dress up like boys, even going out into the streets. "I felt a little embarrassed showing myself in public in boy's cloths, but not Greta." Once they went to the shoemaker's shop ‘in garb.' Malcolm remembered Greta saying, "'I'm the Gustafson's youngest boy, you know, and this is a pal of mine.' She then proceeded to whistle and act the part of a boy as best she could until the shoemaker and his assistants roared with laughter."
Greta Gustafson attended Katarina school for seven years. The "real world" interfered with her fantasies. Her common response to things she disliked was to escape, both mentally and physically. Three separate times, between her twelfth and fourteenth birthday's, she ran away. The first time she and her friend Olivia were found two days later at Barkeby, about eight miles from home. The standard punishment for running away from school was caning, but Greta's sister begged the principle for clemency in the girls' behalf and they were only reprimanded. Greta was greatly shaken at the "real world" threat of physical violence.
The following year Greta ran away to Skane in the south of Sweden. A railroad conductor found the thirteen year old hiding in a toilet on a train and arranged her return home. A third time, she actually ran to home. The children of poor families were sent to a holiday camp in the summer. Greta hated it. She feigned illness then disappeared when she was sent to help in the kitchen. She turned up at home the next day. Of course, her main method of escaping was to vanish into her role playing, or into a fantasy world of resurrected queens and romantic knights.
Greta was generally self conscious, and her size "embarrassed me horribly," she said later. By age twelve she was five feet six inches tall. Whether it was true or not, she believed, "Everywhere people seemed to be whispering about my awkwardness." She was also embarrassed by her economic condition. She said, "Our lives were always ruled by extreme poverty." Of her youth, Garbo said, "I was always sad as a child, for as long as I can think back. I hated crowds of people, and used to sit in a corner by myself, just thinking. I did not want to play very much. I did some skating or played with snowballs, but most of all I wanted to be alone with myself."
Karl Gustafson had bad kidneys. In 1919 he became seriously ill. The family's financial situation became worse when he was no longer able to work. Anna had to take jobs. Alva and Greta left school and got jobs. Greta spent much of her time taking care of her father. After much suffering, on June 1, 1920, when Greta was fourteen, her father died of nephritis. He was forty-eight. Of the aftermath, Garbo later said:
"From that time there was only sobbing and moaning to be heard in our home. My Brother and sister would not even try to control their grief, and I often had to ask them to be quiet. To my mind a great tragedy should be born silently. It seemed disgraceful to me to show it in front of all the neighbors by constantly crying. My own sorrow was as deep as theirs, and for more than a year I cried myself to sleep every night."
Greta moved quickly from her fantasy world into a world of hard realities. She received no further formal education and went to work full time. But, she never lost her dream of becoming an actress. Several advertising films made by her employer brought her to the attention of an established film producer. At sixteen he gave her a part in a minor movie. Her acting skills were immediately recognized and she was helped to get into the Royal Dramatic Theater Academy. She had drive and a purpose. "I felt that I must go on stage. I had to!" she said.
The characteristics Greta Gustafson developed as a child--morose brooding, a tendency to transform herself into a character and a propensity to detach from reality and ‘wander off' into a fantasy world--coupled with her singularity of purpose, helped her to develop a style of acting that the world had not seen before. The turbulent emotions she experienced, but kept to herself and ruminated over could be seen on film, in her face, and especially in her eyes.
When her father died and she was prematurely thrown into the adult world, Greta could easily have lost those childhood dreams. But, her "need" to become an actress required her to cling to her fantasies, just to make it through her drab days. Less than five years after Karl Gustafson died, his little "Ka-ta" was an international movie star. On the tenth anniversary of her father's death, Garbo was the greatest actress in the world and the unchallenged goddess of the film industry.
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Top-level comments on this article: (5 total)Jack, well done...I'm looking forward to this as a series in the coming year!!There is already seven essays posted on Garbo. There will be more. Thanks so much for reading and commenting
As usual, Mr. Schick, you provide unique and interesting topics, incredibly researched and detailed exposition, and a heart to go with the tale. Lovely job!Thanks so much for always reading and commenting. As I've said, they are sometimes exhausting to write.
Nice plow. You painted a dimension that I've never realized about her. Quite the story behind quite the woman. Thanks for being inspired and sharing.Hey- you of all people should give me 5's.
Jack this is so beautifully written, it was fascinating to read. Thanks! All the work you've done in writing this last year has really honed your skill - and it was pretty awesome to start with. You've inspired me.thanks so much for saying that- it's embarrassing to look back at some of the earlier essays. they really need work
Wow. Great writing. From the above comments it appears that you have had some struggles with writing. If this is true then we share something else in common (see my comment on another post this morning). Writing is quite a challenge for me but I keep on keeping on. Great job.
Do you say else where how you came about your interest in this topic? I am new to this site and may have missed something. Best, dawnThanks for reading and commenting
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