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Dartmouth News Quote of the day: Prof. Mary Desjardins

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    Greta Garbo, pictured in 1931, was a paradox, writes Robert Gottlieb: She needed companionship but also wanted, famously, to be left alone. ( and AP FILE/AP)

Prof. Desjardin's new article Greta Garbo's onscreen talent, complex relationships — and why she still fascinates was published in The Washington Post on January 21, 2022.

Greta Garbo died in 1990. Her last film was produced 80 years ago. Her retirement, much of it characterized by her refusals to be interviewed and her penchant for taking long walks around Manhattan, lasted longer than her career in films.

Yet we are in the midst of a (textual) Garbo revival: "The Savvy Sphinx: How Garbo Conquered Hollywood," by film and photography historian Robert Dance, was published in November, and Donna Rifkind's "The Sun and Her Stars: Salka Viertel and Hitler's Exiles in the Golden Age of Hollywood," a study of actress-screenwriter Viertel's salon of European emigres (including Garbo) in 1930s-'40s Hollywood, came out last winter. It arrived on the heels of the republication of Viertel's memoir, "The Kindness of Strangers," in which Garbo has a co-starring role. And this season brings us "Garbo," Robert Gottlieb's engaging and intelligent retelling of the star's life and meditation on her power to fascinate.

Read the full article in whashingtonpost.com