Alone time: reassessing Greta Garbo, 100 years after her screen debut
Mercedes de Acosta: The poet who had affairs with the 20th century’s most famous women
January 2023
Museum seeks Bowie dress for show putting spotlight on Jewish designers
Museum of London Docklands appeals for missing pieces whose influential creators have been overlooked
January 2022
Asta Nielsen, the silent film star who taught Garbo everything
Observer book of the week
Garbo by Robert Gottlieb review – distant darling of the silver screen
August 2021
From the Observer archive
From the archive: looking back at Greta Garbo’s private world, 1979
The actor knew she could never really be happy, but somehow she got by in her pink apartment in New York
August 2020
Sunset Boulevard at 70: we’re all Norma Desmond now
Sunset Boulevard showed the damage wrought by fame. Seventy years on, popular culture is more obsessed than ever with being seen
October 2019
From the Observer archive
From the archive: the story of how Greta Garbo became a star
‘I go nowhere, I see no one’: Garbo letters reveal lonely life of film icon
April 2018
My favourite film decade
From Nosferatu to The General – why the 1920s is my favourite film decade
My favourite film decade
From The Wizard of Oz to Top Hat – why the 1930s is my favourite film decade
December 2017
Brief letters
Scrooge finds his place at theatre box office
Loneliness of Greta Garbo laid bare as letters put up for sale
January 2017
Katharine Whitehorn column
Actresses now prefer the word actor, but Greta Garbo was an actress
Women might not wish to be lumped in with any old bloke in a dodgy Western, says Katharine Whitehorn
September 2015
Readers recommend
Readers recommend: songs about being a man or woman
Hey baby ... it’s time to define what gender means through the medium of music. Slip us your suggestions, and in title, lyrics or style, it might be a sexy week, says Peter Kimpton
May 2014
From the Guardian archive
From the archive, 10 May 1930: The Week on the Screen: Garbo Talks
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 10 May 1930: Garbo's appeal is more to the intellect than to the senses. She does not use her voice to woo or to lure
March 2014
Reel history
Mata Hari: the partially naked truth about the spook hoofer
Greta Garbo is a delight in this biopic of the exotic dancer executed for espionage, and the supporting moustaches a special treat
February 2013
Fashion blog
Greta Garbo: the clothes she wore to be alone
A new exhibition looks at the timeless personal style of one of Hollywood's most famous stars
September 2012
A look back
From the Observer archive, 6 October 1935: Greta Garbo in her element as Anna Karenina
Originally published in the Observer on 6 October 1935: She has become the archetype of the cinema woman, adulated, burlesqued, imitated, envied
August 2010
Carla Bruni's no Greta Garbo, but she's an attention-grabber for director Woody Allen
France's first lady may not know how to handle a baguette when on camera, but she's added to Woody Allen's roster of beauties
