Greta Granstedt Greta Granstedt Greta Granstedt (July 13, 1907 – October 7, 1987) was an American film and television actress. Irene "Greta" Granstedt was the second child of Theodore and Emma Granstedt, born in Scandia, Kansas. The Granstedt family was one of the five pioneer families from Sweden who settled in this north central Kansas community in 1867-68. The families left Sweden in response to the terrible conditions in the three years of misery in Sweden. She spent the first 13 years of her life in Scandia. Her father was of Norwegian and Swedish heritage. In 1920 her family moved to Mountain
Greta Garbo school, and, typical of a Swedish working class girl at that time, she did not attend high school. She later acknowledged a resulting inferiority complex. In the winter of 1919, the Spanish flu spread throughout Stockholm, and Garbo's father, to whom she was very close, became ill. He began missing work and eventually lost his job. Garbo stayed at home looking after him and taking him to the hospital for weekly treatments. He died in 1920 when she was 14 years old. Garbo first worked as a soap-lather girl in a barber's shop but eventually, on the advice of her