Garbo
Her Life, Her Films
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Narrated by:
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Maria Tucci
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By:
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Robert Gottlieb
About this listen
Award-winning master critic Robert Gottlieb takes a singular and multifaceted look at the life of silver screen legend Greta Garbo and the culture that worshiped her.
“Wherever you look in the period between 1925 and 1941,” Robert Gottlieb writes in Garbo, “Greta Garbo is in people’s minds, hearts, and dreams.” Strikingly glamorous and famously inscrutable, she managed, in 16 short years, to infiltrate America’s subconscious; her decision to suddenly end her film career at the age of 36 only made her more irresistible. Garbo appeared in only 24 movies, yet her impact on the world - and that indescribable, transcendent presence she possessed - was rivaled only by Marilyn Monroe. She was a phenomenon, a Sphinx, a myth, but also a Swedish peasant girl, uneducated, naïve, and always on her guard.
In Garbo, acclaimed critic and editor Robert Gottlieb attempts to capture the ever-elusive essence of Garbo through the eyes of others: In addition to a vivid and thorough retelling of her life, Gottlieb combs through glimpses of Garbo in literature, music, private letters, and, of course, films, in order to better understand her. Discovering her within Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls and in the letters of Marianne Moore, and following her from her early movies with MGM to her career-defining, Academy Award-nominated role in Camille to her world-stopping decision to leave the limelight, Gottlieb crafts a biography of unprecedented intimacy and scope in the hopes of capturing the woman that only the camera knew.
©2021 Robert Gottlieb (P)2021 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Delightful
- By Kathy on 04-03-12
By: Frank Langella
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Pieces of My Heart
- A Life
- By: Robert J. Wagner
- Narrated by: Robert J. Wagner
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Abridged
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Robert J. Wagner has starred in more than 100 films and television series over the past 50 years. In this deeply personal story, he recalls his rise to stardom. He talks candidly about his relationships with some of the greatest stars of the 20th century, including Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck, and, for the first time, he shares the details of his two marriages to Natalie Wood. Wagner also offers a fascinating look at Hollywood during the last half of the 20th century.
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Wagner's life, told in a gracious manner
- By Chris on 12-18-08
By: Robert J. Wagner
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Zelda Fitzgerald
- The Tragic, Meticulously Researched Biography of the Jazz Age's High Priestess
- By: Sally Cline
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Zelda Fitzgerald was the mythical American Dream Girl of the Roaring Twenties who became, in the words of her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, "the first American flapper." Their romance transformed a symbol of glamour and spectacle of the Jazz Age. When Zelda cracked up, not long after the stock market crash of 1929, Scott remained loyal to her through a nightmare of later breakdowns and final madness.
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The Beautiful and the Bungled
- By Silverthorne on 12-08-17
By: Sally Cline
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Legs Are the Last to Go
- By: Diahann Carroll
- Narrated by: Diahann Carroll
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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With wisdom that only aging gracefully can bestow, Diahann Carroll talks frankly about her four marriages as well as her other relationships, including her courtship with Sidney Poitier; racial politics in show business; and the personal cost, particularly to her family, of being a pioneer.
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Magnificent
- By Rhonda G. on 04-02-21
By: Diahann Carroll
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The Diana Chronicles
- By: Tina Brown
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 21 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Diana Chronicles, you will meet a formidable female cast and understand as never before the society that shaped them: among them, Diana's sexually charged mother, her bad-girl sister-in-law, Fergie, and, most formidable of them all, her mother-in-law, the Queen. Add Camilla Parker-Bowles, the ultimate "other woman" into this combustible mix, and it's no wonder that Diana broke out of her royal cage into celebrity culture, where she found her own power and used it to devastating effect.
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One of the best Diana's
- By J F Whitmore on 08-02-12
By: Tina Brown
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Something Wonderful
- Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway Revolution
- By: Todd S. Purdum
- Narrated by: Todd S. Purdum
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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They stand at the apex of the great age of songwriting, the creators of the classic Broadway musicals Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music, whose songs have never lost their popularity or emotional power. Even before they joined forces, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II had written dozens of Broadway shows, but together they pioneered a new art form: the serious musical play.
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Fabulous book about Rodgers & Hammerstein!!!
- By BigWally on 06-27-18
By: Todd S. Purdum
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In Black and White
- The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr.
- By: Wil Haygood
- Narrated by: Kevin Free
- Length: 23 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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This biography of entertainment legend Sammy Davis, Jr. is an enthralling portrait of one of the most recognizable figures from the golden age of American show business. Davis, a guarded man who protected his private life with great vigor, lived an extraordinary life in the limelight, while also forging new uncharted paths across racial lines.
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Sammy Plus
- By James Gordon on 07-02-06
By: Wil Haygood
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City Boy
- My Life in New York During the 1960s and '70s
- By: Edmund White
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In the New York of the 1970s, in the wake of Stonewall and in the midst of economic collapse, you might find the likes of Jasper Johns and William Burroughs at the next cocktail party, and you were as likely to be caught arguing Marx at the New York City Ballet as cruising for sex in the warehouses and parked trucks along the Hudson. This is the New York that Edmund White portrays in City Boy: a place of enormous intrigue and artistic tumult.
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Pretense upon pretense.
- By Shalin Desai on 06-01-15
By: Edmund White
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America's Queen
- The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
- By: Sarah Bradford
- Narrated by: Sandra Burr
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
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Using remarkable new sources, Sarah Bradford has written a timely celebration of a life that was more private than commonly supposed. Revealing new testimony from many of the couple's friends shows the complexities of this apparently very public relationship and of her controversial marriage to Aristotle Onassis. Here is the private Jackie - neglected wife, vigilant mother, and working widow - whose contradictory and fascinating nature is illuminated by all that Bradford has discovered.
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American Royalty
- By Kindle Customer on 06-10-16
By: Sarah Bradford
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Can I Go Now?
- The Life of Sue Mengers, Hollywood's First Superagent
- By: Brian Kellow
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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A lively and colorful biography of Hollywood's first superagent - one of the most outrageous showbiz characters of the 1960s and 1970s, whose clients included Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, Faye Dunaway, Michael Caine, and Candice Bergen. Before Sue Mengers hit the scene in the mid-1960s, talent agents remained quietly in the background. But staying in the background was not possible for Mengers.
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A little long.
- By Doris on 11-29-15
By: Brian Kellow
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Empire of Self
- A Life of Gore Vidal
- By: Jay Parini
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 16 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The product of 30 years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini's Empire of Self probes behind the glittering surface of Gore Vidal's colorful life to reveal the complex emotional and sexual truth underlying his celebrity-strewn life. But there is plenty of glittering surface as well - a virtual who's who of the American Century, from Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart through the Kennedys, Princess Margaret, and the creme de la creme of Hollywood.
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Well done!
- By Christopher on 03-22-16
By: Jay Parini
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Unsinkable
- A Memoir
- By: Debbie Reynolds, Dorian Hannaway
- Narrated by: Debbie Reynolds
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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The definitive memoir by legendary actress and performer Debbie Reynolds - an entertaining and moving story of enduring friendships and unbreakable family bonds, of hitting bottom and rising to the top again - that offers a unique and deeply personal perspective on Hollywood and its elite, from the glory days of MGM to the present.
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Loved Loved loved IT!
- By Virginia on 12-07-17
By: Debbie Reynolds, and others
What listeners say about Garbo
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Tess
- 04-04-22
Fascinating listen
A fascinating and eloquent biography, beautifully and entertainingly read by the narrator. Am mystified by some of the bad reviews of a narration that has both personality and wit. I thoroughly loved the book and its reader.
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- We Love Pat Altschul
- 09-05-22
Academic integrity/research and no pandering!
All too often, the biographies of notable people are written by ignorant conspiracy theorists, malicious iconoclasts, or sycophants. Robert Gottlieb holds none of these titles.
Gottlieb wrote Garbo with the same precise detail balanced for breadth and depth as one would expect from an historian. Were I to ask Gottlieb, “Why Garbo?”, I’d be surprised if the subject emerged from lifelong fandom; but rather, I suspect Gottlieb is a man in-the-know who believed he could make a contribution in all the places where predecessors have lacked. Although there is an excellent Garbo biography, such as by Barry P., most have an agenda or extracted information through unethical means like Sven B. that makes it impossible for me to read.
That Gottlieb keeps an appropriate emotional distance from Garbo to maintain objectivity is evident time and again. No emotional apologetics for Garbo or baseless nonsense about her being part of Old Hollywood’s “sewing circle.” The sine qua non of a biography I immediately dismiss as complete garbage is one that indulges persistent and baseless rumors about the subject’s sexuality.
When a tome cites Mercedes de Acosta or Cecil Beaton’s Diaries as “proof” of sexual fluidity, I know the author is either not well-researched, being salacious for the sake of being salacious, or pandering to get buyers. Excuse me, I meant readers. Because the only proof those memoirs offer is that Mercedes and Cecil were shamelessly obsessed with Garbo. I really appreciated Gottlieb had the integrity to present the facts and not speculate as to that which we will never know.
The book closes with a smattering of fantastic Garbo for all time. I hope this book becomes the foundational work in the Garbo canon. If you are looking for a Garbo biography written with academic integrity, you will not be disappointed in Gottlieb’s very fine work.
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- Adam Latansy
- 02-02-22
You don't know everything about Garbo!
An incredibly well researched, well written, and fascinating book about a legend I thought I knew everything about.
I was wrong. Highly recommend!
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- Pennypie
- 12-18-21
Very good and very not good
I am a giant fan of Robert Gottlieb and his work. And of the brilliant actress (and Gottlieb’s wife, Maria Tucci). Yet I feel I’m going to have to read “Garbo” in print to truly comment on it as the narration is so extremely melodramatic and, often, sarcastic that it changed the intention of the book itself. (And, yes, I heard the whole thing.)
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5 people found this helpful
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- Louise Bonnet
- 12-28-21
Narrator
I unfortunately could only listen to about 1 hour of this book , as the narrator is impossible to tolerate.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Richard M.
- 11-08-24
Very disappointing
I wish the entire book had been told in chronological order instead of the last third going back over old history. It seemed like it was just too stretch the story. It also referenced so many other works that I felt like much of the book was just clipped together. The narration was quite good however, and Garbo’s life itself is quite fascinating.
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- K.Fox
- 02-21-22
Garbo: Just a pretty face.
I grew up watching classic film and saw several of Garbo's films as a little girl. All I knew was the Garbo had mystique and so when this book came out I thought it time to learn about what made Garbo so famous and wonderful. I was very excited to start this book after all it has glowing reviews on Amazon. However, as I listened I found it harder and harder to read. I cannot say that I came out of this book any better off in my knowledge of Garbo.
Turns out that people referred to her as a peasant girl and she did little to grow or expand herself beyond that perception. She was cold, unfriendly, and uninterested in other people. The book focuses heavily on her movies. Complains considerably about her leading men. (So which man in Hollywood would have been worthy of Garbo at the time? If none of the one's she acted against were?) The book talks endlessly about her beauty.
Towards the end when the book moved on to stories about Garbo. I was interested and hopeful once more that I might at least conclude the book with some kinder and softer impressions of Garbo. After a bit the stories turned back into the usual where Garbo is cold, uninterested, and has no emotional attachments to other humans. She didn't give to charity, didn't like fashion, and had no pets that the book focused on, didn't like people, and just wanted to be private.
I had hoped the book would give me a new appreciation of Garbo’s films but rather it left me struggling to not outright dislike Garbo as a person.
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1 person found this helpful