AFTER GARBO-WHAT?

Evening Star, Issue 21138, 25 June 1932, Page 6

AFTER GARBO-WHAT?

Greta Garbo is reported as buying a few more American things, packing her trunks, and thinking about railroad and steamer tickets to take her to her beloved Sweden. Her contract with a film company ended June 1. She has made her final picture, except for the retakes, and is ready for waiting for the starting boll to begin her journey “ home,” said the ‘ San Francisco Chronicle ’ recently. Now Hollywood is settling itself to gossip about her “successor,” just as if there could be a successor to any radiant personality such as that of the Swedish actress. There was the same gabble when Rudolph Valentino passed on, and still the producers are finding Valentinos, the latest being Geoi’gc Raft, who has been playing gangster kings’ bodyguards. The same thing occurred when Wallace Reid died, and Barbara La Marr and Mabel Normaud. But memories of them are left clear and undisturbed. Half a dozen women have boon imported from Europe to combat the Garbo on her own ground, but nono has succeeded. There was Marlene Dietrich, who gave up the battle and became herself, a self as full of allure as that of the Swede. Elissa Landi, with her mixed blood, German, Hungarian, French, and her cosmopolitan life, is another to rival Greta. And Tallulah Bankhead, the American girl who had to go to London to find lame. Both are personalities, but neither is a Garbo, and both have been handicapped by being touted as rivals to that exotic beauty. A newer crop, hardly yet tested, includes Tala Bircll from Austria, Gwili Andre From Denmark, Sari Marifza, a Hungarian, Nora Gregor, who came From Berlin to make German pictures, and has remained to try her luck in English films, and has acted in one, which starred Douglas Fairbanks, jnn., Olga Tschechowa, the Russian, of course, who has appeared in German pictures. Meantime Miss Garbo goes on her way serenely, ignoring the imploring voices from the studio, and the mounting offers for her further services.

She is going to Sweden to rest. Then what? Marriage, possibly: a foreign contract —Ufa wants her and offers much money as European salaries go—it might be; return to ■ America and work, probably, after tho long holiday. And tho hunt for her ” successor ” still goes on.