My Afternoon with Garbo
Page 2
are beautiful, both fulfilling to the body and the soul. Oh yes, I have had a few people know about, and many no one knew.’
‘At one point I thought of marriage. But I knew I didn’t want the responsibility of marriage, and I liked my own company far better than to share it every day with the same person. Do you share a life with your young man?’ ‘We are working at it, we live together. We are roommates, as the aphorism goes. We have a small apartment in the village. It works’. ‘What does he do?’ ‘He is an artist’. ‘Does he make money painting?’ ‘He has a gallery, and they do nicely by him, he is really rather good. He is also a builder, he designs and builds interiors, book cases and tables, so yes, he makes money, more than me in any case’.
‘I always had that problem; I made a lot of money. I bought real estate, I still own some of Beverly Hills. I had so much, I had too much. I enjoyed myself and the life I was given to a point, then it became a burden. I was under contract and I couldn’t get out of it.
My friend Luise Rainier told Louis B Mayer ‘no’, after winning MGM two Oscars in a row. She felt they were not respecting her talent and giving her roles she ought to have. He told her she would never ‘work in this town again’. She never worked in Hollywood again. She has a life in theater now, and she is not bad off. She has a husband. I was determined to work my contract out ‘.
‘The ‘boys in promotion’ needed a new ploy to sell me. So in my next film I laughed. You must understand, I had laughed before, many times. I was considered so serious and exotic the public thought I never laughed. That was the selling point of the film; that ‘I laughed’. It was always that way; I had to be sold to the public. We were all sold in one way or another’.
My last film was ‘A Two Face Woman’. I was twins. There was the lady me, and there was the scandalous me. And the man was, I think, Melvin Douglas. In this one I spoke, laughed, skied, and did a lot of nonsense to get the man, no, I am wrong; Melvin Douglas was in the movie where I laughed. I was a dour Communist, and wore clothes much like I am dressed today, rather plain and mousey. It is all theater’.
‘There couldn’t be a sniff of scandal about your life, no divorce, nothing to catch the columnist’s eye. There are so many of them, and in my day every other reporter was looking for some whiff of scandal for a story. Luckily no one paid attention, I was off limits to scandal. I think if they knew I would have given them a moment or two. Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper are the worst. They can ruin careers with some bit of misdoing by anyone. Hedda is a fascist, and Louella is incontininent. Well, people love scandal, they always have.
‘For me that part is all over. There are still stories. I go here, and there is a paragraph in print. I go there, it is all tidbits. Of course I go out; I have many friends, most of them are famous or important. Why do they see me, I am who I am; still a curiosity’.
‘Do you hate that?’ I asked ‘Oh no, how can you hate what you have become through someone else’s creation. In the eyes of the world who knows me, I am a creation, like Galatia. Does anyone ever wonder who I really am? You see me here. Is this who I really am? I don’t know. Am I a simple Swedish soul eating black bread and herring? I am not, not at all, am I a glamorous star, an enigma to all who know me? I am not that either. So, I ask, who am I?’
‘Gosh, everyone asks the question sometime in his life’.
‘Exactly, and do we ever know?’
She looked at her watch and gasped. ‘It is coming on to Five O’clock; you must have missed your meeting’ I had and I was not surprised. I had not been keeping time. I was just happy being with her. Schraffts was filling up with ladies from shopping. Some of them were having tea, and others a quick cocktail before heading home to the evening, they paid us little mind. Either they knew or were oblivious. I paid the check, and we left.
‘I have to get to ‘Bloomindales’ to get some sheets before they close’ At that time ‘Bloomindales’ was the Upper East Side dry goods store. They had not yet become a fashion depot. Everyone who was anyone bought sheets at ‘Bloomindales’
We walked to Fifty-Seventh Street and Third Avenue. She shook my hand. ‘It was such a pleasant afternoon. I hope we will meet again’. ‘That would be nice’. ‘Give your young man a nice dinner, and tell him we had a lovely chat’. ‘He won’t believe me, but I will tell him’. ‘Then the afternoon has belonged to us. Good bye, my dear’. ‘Good bye, happy sheet hunting’. She laughed, ‘they are for the maids room’.
And she was off lost in the crowd pushing their way home on the subway or busses. No one looked; no one knew who was among them. She never told me her name, nor did I tell her mine. We simply passed in the afternoon.
####
About the author:
Thank you for arriving to this point
I believe in humanity. I have lived an eclectic life. My diverse background is indicative of my stories. I am a member of SAG (Screen Actors Guild) so I am an Actor. I am a member of WGA East (Writers Guild of America East) so I am a Writer. I have written several Plays, some produced. I have developed Television Series, written several Screen Plays. Two were developed from stories in my book.
It is said, ‘know yourself’. We really mean: where we are in the development of our humanity?
Contact with me online and find more at:
https://richardeverettupton.com
https://www.facebook.com/reupton