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List Price: $32.50 | | Publisher: Scribner
Salesrank: 360810
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| Our Price: $54.95 |
| Used Price: $5.31 |
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| Media: Hardcover |
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Editorial Review:
Making use of unprecedented access to materials and close associates of the late star, and complemented by rare photographs, a biography conveys new insights into the star's struggles with movie executives at MGM and her bisexuality. 25,000 first printing."
Description of Greta Garbo: A Life Apart:
A Life Apart is the apt subtitle of this scrupulously researched biography of the star as legendary for her fiercely guarded privacy as for her haunting beauty and luminous acting in such films as Camille and Ninotchka. Entertainment writer Karen Swenson delineates a unique personality considerably earthier than Greta Garbo's screen image: shy yet blunt, devoted to her craft but indifferent to fame, sexually magnetic to both men and women, a loyal friend who mercilessly punished disloyalty. The author meticulously fact-checked the often unreliable memories of companions and lovers such as Cecil Beaton and Mercedes de Acosta to comprehensively document Garbo's long life (1905-90).
Greta Garbo: A Life Apart Reviews:
Although interesting but... 
2005-09-11 - Although the book is interesting taking into consideration its factographic side, it is written in a very pretentious manner trying unnecessarily to colorize the biography and therefore making it trivial and sometimes even pathetic. Just to mention: usage of such expression like "Turkey's great metropolis" in order not to call it Istanbul or Canstantinople seems to be quoted from an essay composed by some sixth-grade pupil.
I still consider "Garbo" by Barry Paris the best Garbo's biography.
A Bio Apart 
2005-01-19 - Swenson conveys an understanding of and respect for her subject as few biographers have. Not that anyone can know too much about Garbo, Swenson dug deep and this bio is full of pictures and information to make any Garbo fan's heart flutter into cardiac arrest! The Best!
Read Swenson if you want to be alone with Greta Garbo! 
2003-02-18 - Karen Swenson is to be commended for a fine biography of Greta Garbo. Garbo is an enigmatic star more closely resembling a lonely sphinx camping out in the Sahara than a glitzy glamorous star in Hollywood's Golden Era.
Swenson delineates the Garbo career from the Swede's girlhood in a poverty stricken home in Stockholm to the extremely wealthy recluse she became in New York following her 1942 retiriement from the silver screen. (Her last flick was a bomb called "Two Faced Woman." Garbo had at least two faces in real life. The athletic outdoor woman she was could be kind and cruel as her moods were quicksilver in the soul of this Viking child of the North.
Barry Paris's book on Garbo contains more pictures and is, on the whole, better written. I did, however, enjoy Swenson's work
on the screen legend devouring the biography in huge portions of time.
Garbo was a great talent who lit up the screen with her peerless beauty and style. Costumes by Adrian and the magic of MGM camermen aided her in the climb to the top but she was herself unique for her aura of lonely beauty.
I appreciate the work of Karen Swenson. I hope you the reader do as well. If you read only one book on Greta Garbo you could do worse than selecting this excellent biography to fill you in on the Swedish queen of film.
Garbo: A Life Apart
2002-01-01 - Garbo: A Life Apart is a modern biographical masterpiece. I got started and could barely put it down. It was filled with great information. I have been following the life of Greta Garbo for about 7 years and have a collection of memorabillia to show for it! I have to say this is a MUST for any fan or collector of Garbo material!!! BRAVO Karen Swenson!!
Fascinating and believable...
2000-10-25 - This wonderful story, about a wonderful woman, combines a selection of rare photos with startling new information about her childhood, her career, tumultuous relationships with lovers and friends, and her life after Hollywood.
