Overview

""Reisfeld knows about Garbo what we would never know. But, fortunately, he tells us."" Mick LaSalle, author of Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood. Hollywood Made Her a Star. What she did for women made her a Legend. Greta Garbo dominated European cinema and Hollywood in the 1920s and 1930s. With discipline and fearless self-belief, she transformed screen acting into something intimate, modern, and psychologically real. She fought studio control... and won. She challenged censors, defied social expectations, and refused to compromise her independence. More than a movie star, Garbo reshaped what it meant to be a woman on screen-self-possessed, mysterious, and unapologetically autonomous. She redefined the power a woman could hold in Hollywood. In this intimate biography, her grandnephew Scott Reisfield reveals this disciplined artist, strategic thinker, and the fiercely private woman who helped usher a closed culture into the Modern Age. ""Scott Reisfield has written a history of his great-aunt, telling the story of both the star and the woman."" - Bo Florin, Professor in Cinema Studies, Stockholm University

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9781972059999

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Reviews

Bookshelves groan under the weight of books about Greta Garbo. She has been characterized as, variously, a loner, a sphinx, a depressive, a victim, a lesbian, and essentially unknowable. Those bookshelves can be considerably thinned out, as Scott Reisfield's biography of his great aunt, based as it is on impeccable research and her own letters, gives us Garbo as a recognizable human being - ambitious, dedicated, sure of her worth, a good friend devoted to her family and her privacy. Bravo! Scott Eyman, Author of ""Joan Crawford: A Woman's Face."" There have been many books about Greta Garbo, but Scott Reisfield's ""Greta Garbo: The Modern Woman"" is one of the essential ones, and for several reasons. Reisfeld places her in the context of her time and correctly assesses her cultural impact and influence. He makes a strong case for her as, not only a one-off original, but as a great artist whose operatic vision in combination with her naturalistic truthfulness pointed the way to a new kind of screen acting. And he knew her, a fact whose importance must be emphasized. There are things Reisfeld knows about Garbo, just from having been in her presence, that we will never be able to know. But, fortunately, he tells us. Mick LaSalle, author of ""Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood."" In 2005 Scott Reisfield together with Robert Dance published Garbo: Portraits from Her Private Collection, a fantastic coffee table book with lovely pictures seldom seen. Now Scott Reisfield has written a history of his great-aunt. Informed by research in archives around the world, he has put the pieces together for the final book on ""the Divine Woman"" - telling the story of both the star and the woman. Bo Florin - Professor in Cinema Studies, Stockholm University

Author Information

Scott Reisfield is the grand-nephew of Greta Garbo and wrote the 2005 book Garbo: Portraits from her Private Collection (co-written with Robert Dance). That book was a companion to the museum exhibit of the same name. The American edition sold 12,500 copies. It was also printed in German, French and Swedish. Scott has traveled around the world to research Garbo. He has access to family documents and collections that have not been used prior to this. He had the time to tease out fact from fiction, and there was a lot of fiction. He went back to archives multiple times to pin down answers.Scott has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the University of Michigan. He has spent forty years in business, thirty of them in senior management, working in companies ranging from large corporations to startups. He also ran marketing for a national association. Today, Scott lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

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