Childhood's End: Garbo Wears a Hat
Posted: Thursday, January 05, 2012
by Jack H. Schick
At the vulnerable age of fourteen, Greta Gustafson was forced to drop out of school to take care of her ailing father. Her mother went to work doing cleaning and sewing. Her brother, Sven, now 20, got a job in a candy store. Her sister Alva, 16, also dropped out of school and became an office clerk. Greta took a part time position in a fruit store. She was embarrassed and ashamed of her family’s financial status, and that she had to quit school to work. During the influenza epidemic in the winter of 1919, the Gustafson’s took advantage of the Salvation Army soup kitchen in the Soder section of Stockholm where they lived. It was there that Greta, who less than seven years later would be called the greatest actress in the world, had her first public appearance as a performer.
During this time, Greta had to take her father to the free public clinic several times. Once, he was burning up with fever. She was convinced he was dying, but they had to wait in a long line. When it was finally their turn, they were asked “a million questions,” not about her father’s condition, but about their economic status. They had to convince the clinic that they were poor enough to receive free service. She was already sensitive about her poverty and was totally humiliated. It was not the only time she went through the ordeal there. The experiences instilled in her an anger and “fury against life.” She vowed it would never happen to her. She was driven to become that “prima donna or princess” she’d told her Uncle David she would become, and no longer need government help.
It was not a good time for Greta. After many conversations with her, she was paraphrased by friend Lars Saxon of the Swedish magazine Lektyr:
“It was eternally gray—those long winter’s nights. My father would be sitting in a corner, scribbling figures in a newspaper. On the other side of the room my mother is repairing ragged old cloths, sighing. We children would be talking in very low voices, or just sitting silently. We were filled with anxiety, as if there was danger in the air. Such evenings are unforgettable for a sensitive girl.”
When Greta’s father died in June of 1920, she became even more depressed and melancholy. She was a large, awkward, “almost buxom” girl. Now she’d lost the only person who never mocked her about her size (5’-6” by age 12), her tendency to be sullenly silent, her clumsy ungainliness or her dreams of becoming a “great actress.” Her father’s death hit her hard, yet she suppressed her emotions, kept her grief private. It was, however, the end of her childhood. Still only fourteen, she was cast out into the working world.
Greta’s first real job was as a soap lather girl at a barbershop. She was paid (about a dollar), per week plus tips. She mixed lather, laid out razors and cleaned up after the barber. A working-class barbershop can be an eye-opening place for a young girl, especially one who looked and acted a lot older than she actually is. Conversation and behavior tends to be “mature.” Greta learned quickly about men and male conduct.
Both Greta and her sister Alva were described as being “very free.” The barbershop owner’s wife and cashier at the establishment, Mrs. Ekengren, remembered that the fifteen year old Greta was cheerful. “We were very fond of her. She was a sunbeam,” she said. Considering her normal demeanor, it leads to the belief that Greta was “acting.” She seems to have ‘held her own’ in that environment, though. She is reported to have had a “quick tongue.” However, she undoubtedly developed an attitude about the opposite sex.
At about that time, Greta became enamored with actor, variety artist, Carl Brisson. Mrs. Ekengren said, “She was wild about [him]. She used to sing his songs—she knew them all—and her locker, where she kept her smock and wraps, was covered with pictures of him.” According to one of Brisson’s friends, “Miss Gustafson” had to be chased away from the stage door at the Mosebacke Theater, where Brisson was performing, every evening. “[B]ut she kept coming back and in the end got so bold that she scratched a heart on the cement wall with ‘I love you, Kalle’ inside it.”
Carl Brisson (1895-1958), was born in Denmark as Carl Frederik Ejnar Pedersen. He began his career as a prizefighter, winning the Central European amateur middle-weight title in 1915. The following year he embarked on a career in variety entertainment. He ultimately went into films, appearing in 12 movies between 1918 and 1934, two of them produced by Alfred Hitchcock (The Ring and The Manxman). He married Cleo Willard in 1915. Their son was producer Fredrick Brisson, husband of actress Rosalind Russell. At the time Greta Gustafson was infatuated with him, he was starring in a review called The Count of Soder, which might be compared to saying “The Count of South Philly.”
That winter, Greta spent a large portion of her weekly wages to buy “Kalle” a bunch of violets, which she had the opportunity to hand to him at the stage door. He was impressed and offered to get her into the theater, if she would start the applause when he came on stage. She eagerly agreed. She returned for several performances. Since she knew all of his songs, he pretended to pick her out of the crowd to lead his audience-participation numbers. However, Greta soon discovered one of her short comings. She had a nearly debilitating case of stage fright. She became so horribly self-conscious that she stopped attending the shows.
At that time, perhaps as a response to the death of her father, her being thrown into the adult world or simply as a continuation of her dream, acting became an obsession to Greta. She organized, according to friend Elizabeth Malcolm, what she called the Attic Theater. It seems appropriate, considering her shyness, that her stage was tucked away in (an undetermined) garret somewhere. Malcolm said that, though some of her friends participated, the shows were basically revues staring…Greta Gustafson! She played characters from the Goddess of Peace somberly singing “Why do we fight?” to a three-year-old softly singing lullabies to a baby doll.
A critical event in her life occurred at about this time. One evening, during one of her vigils at the stage door of the Soder Theater, actor Josef Fischer saw her and asked her “Are you thinking of going on the stage?” She thought for a second then, truthfully said, “I don’t know if I dare.” She took the actor’s comment for more than it was. She thought to herself, “Why did he ask? Did he think me talented or good looking?” She wondered if she might somehow summon the courage to do it. Soon after, she got the nerve to call Fischer. When he didn’t take her seriously, she quickly hung up. It was a devastating set-back. She decided to give up on her dream.
The Gustafson’s financial straits forced her to find a job that paid more than the barbershop. Alva, who had by now secured a position as an insurance company stenographer, had several friends who worked at the Paul U. Bergstrom (PUB), department store. It was the most exclusive, popular store located on Hotorget Plaza in downtown Stockholm. With help from her sister’s friends, on July 26, 1920, Greta got a trainee position, then was soon after was hired as clerk, in the millinery (hat sales) department. Her salary was ($25) a month.
The brightened economic situation revitalized her dream. She wrote to her long time friend Eva Blomgren, “…Can you imagine it, me a shop girl! But don’t worry, I haven’t given up thought of the stage because of this. Not a bit; I’m just as keen as ever.” She actually brought her ‘theatrics’ to the job. She later said, “I was really interested in selling hats. It seemed like play. I never seemed to have to think how to treat individual whims of each customer….How I admired and envied the actresses among my customers.”
As a result of getting her new job, Greta, still only 15, had her first romantic relationship. Max Gumpel, a wealthy construction company owner in his early thirties met her at PUB. He was immediately attracted to her and invited her to dinner at his luxurious apartment. She accepted the invitation. They were ‘friends’ for over a year. He gave her a gold ring with a small gemstone which she told him was “as beautiful as a diamond in the English Royal Crown.” Gumpel married in 1921, and they parted ways, but it is assumed that he was Greta’s first lover.
Greta was becoming less awkward and more beautiful, and she knew it. It increased her desire to get on stage. In August of 1920 she wrote to Eva:
“They all look at me with such interest [at PUB] because I’m only 15. If you were to come, I’ll bet they’ll ask you if it’s true….Whenever I’m left to myself, I long so dreadfully for the theater, for after all, Eva, everything I want is there.”
In letters to Eva she displayed a strange dichotomy that would carry on for her entire life. Though having an insuppressible urge to perform, she also had a paradoxical need to withdraw into a private world. While away on holiday, she wrote to Eva:
“To be honest, I haven’t thought of you, for the simple reason that I don’t think of anything. I have become pretty indifferent to everything….The fact is that I wanted to get to a place where there weren’t so many people, so that I could just rest.”
Though Greta had an intense urge to ‘get on stage’, she did not have the courage or inclination to do amateur theatricals. She was too shy. PUB had a dramatic club, but she never joined it. Years later she made the excuse, “That was not the real theater—it was play.” She did, however, summon the courage to model. When asked to model hats for an upcoming store promotion, she was elated. She responded, according to her boss, Magdalena Hellberg, with a giddy, “Oh, how happy I am!”
The photographic debut of Greta Gustafson (Garbo) appeared in the 1921 spring PUB catalogue. Fifty thousand copies were distributed throughout Sweden. She was still only 15 but she looked like she was 18 or 20. In person she was still extremely self-conscious and shy, but before the camera lens, as would soon be noticed by the world, her inhibitions vanished and a deep, alluring personality emerged.
Later that year, PUB hired “Captain” Ragnar Ring, a former cavalry office and adventure writer, to make a few short commercial films to promote their women’s clothing lines. The first effort was to be a comical film called How Not to Dress. There were plenty of good looking girls to choose from, but Ring needed one that he thought could be funny. He’d seen Greta at the store and in the catalogue. He asked about “the tall, awkward, yet strangely attractive girl in the millinery department who photographed so well.” He invited her to make a screen test.
Ragnar Ring was the first film producer to see something that other film makers would see in Greta. He gave her the part. The principle (unnamed) actor in the productions was skeptical. He said, “You’re not going to have that fat girl in the picture are you? She won’t fit on the screen!” Ring did cast her, and expanded the part for her. Years later when Garbo returned to Sweden as the world’s biggest movie star, the actor enthusiastically approached her, professing to be her first leading man. She replied, “The last time we met, you weren’t nearly so polite.”
And so, Greta Gustafson had taken her first step toward superstardom. She was finally on film, and it was only through the camera lens that her beauty and unique acting skills emerged. It did not go unnoticed by important people in the movie industry. Within three years she would be an international film star sought after by major studios. Within five years, still not 21 years old, she would be the incomparable, unchallenged goddess of the silver screen.
This Article has been viewed 414 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Jack, another good one.not my best, but thanks
Nice writing Jack. Dawnnot my best, but thanks
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.