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In his autobiography “In and out of character” Basil Rathbone recalls working with Garbo on the 1934 movie “Anna Karenina.” He had met her six years earlier when he and his wife Ouida had been invited to lunch with Jack Gilbert, the great silent star and Garbo’s lover. Rathbone observed her fascination with the food before her and was overwhelmed by her beauty. He records in his book her very simply coiffered longish fair hair and the exquisite texture of her skin. The longest natural untouched eyelashes he had ever seen, her lack of makeup and simple flowered dress all added to her lustre. Later that day, he was her doubles partner at tennis and suitably distracted by her beautifully proportioned body, played the worst he could recall in years!

What stunned Rathbone years later on the set of their film together, was the fact that they were formally introduced and at no time throughout the ensuing two month shoot did she ever make reference to having met him before! Nevertheless, he was overwhelmed by her consumate ability and felt her presence onscreen as his wife wrought from him one of the finest performances of his career. Imagine his disappointment on the last day of filming when she refused his entreaties for a signed photograph as a souvenir of his time working with her. She remained in his mind, as indeed she did for millions of others, an enigma.

She was born in Stockholm on Sept. 18, 1905, to a family so impoverished that a benefactor made a salutary offer to adopt her. She apparently, never forgot her austere beginnings, always finding time to stop and donate money to street beggars in New York during her final years. According to her friend, Ray Daum, who was the curator of film, television and theatre at the University of Texas, she had no desire to be remembered, a sentiment seemingly in accord with a woman who had been content to relinquish her monumental hold on Hollywood at the comparatively early age of thirty six.