Loving Garbo: The Story of Greta Garbo,Cecil Beaton and Mercedes de Acosta by Hugo Vickers

Author:Hugo Vickers
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2012-02-29T08:00:00+00:00

Garbo and Schlee did not respond. They could never have come to Tangiers as there was the matter of the Walter Wanger film The Duchesse de Langeais to resolve. From Aix-les-Bains they went to Rome at the end of August.

As usual Garbo travelled under the pseudonym of ‘Miss Harriet Brown’. For a time they stayed at the Hotel Hassler, while negotiating terms for the forthcoming film. Garbo tried to be incognito, but the press soon found out that she was there. In the first week of September, she was endlessly caught by paparazzi photographers, leaving her hotel or coming out of St Peter’s Basilica after a sight-seeing tour.

The film project failed as all other similar attempts had failed. The company ran out of money, and Garbo was unimpressed by their suggestion that she should back the project. The interference of Schlee was certainly a negative factor. As Salka Viertel recorded, it was this fiasco that decided her once and for all to quit the screen. She was lucky to have enough money to remain disdainfully aloof for the rest of her life.

For a time Garbo and Schlee took refuge in a rented villa outside Rome, and in due course made their way to Paris. Cecil had arrived there from Tangiers. His first port of call was Garbo’s hotel, where he left a note. To his surprise his telephone presently rang: ‘“Is that you Beattie? Well I never”, and I know that Greta is in a good mood,’ he recorded in his diary.

Her film troubles are postponed & the relief is great – & she is now full of vitality. I am so pleased at the prospect of seeing her in half an hour – for a walk in the Park – that I dress myself with particular care & I rush along the streets getting very hot in the sun in an attempt to collect my hat from a hotel where I parked it – for I know Greta does not like to see me without a hat (one of the boys – no hat!) & I must not be late.

As I am expecting her descent from her room I am waylaid by a gossip writer – the worst luck – and out of the corner of my eye I motion to Greta to rush past – this she proceeds to do – then returns & we all talk together – & I am once more staggered by her incredible beauty.

I had wondered if her dreadful harassments by press & film gangsters had not left her a nervous wreck, but in spite of her saying ‘No, I still have eyes to see – & I know how to look’ she looked more lovely than I had dared imagine. Her body thinner, her chest quite flat & her waist incredibly small . . .14

The pair climbed into the ‘natty looking’ blue de Soto car and the chauffeur drove them to the Bois de Boulogne. They walked together arm in arm:

I was more thrilled to be with her than with any other person.

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