Greta Garbo Los Angeles on their own, but another five weeks passed with no contact from the studio. On the verge of returning to Sweden, she wrote to her boyfriend back home: "You're quite right when you think I don't feel at home here… Oh you lovely little Sweden, I promise that when I return to you my sad face will smile as never before." A Swedish friend in Los Angeles helped out by contacting MGM producer Irving Thalberg, who agreed to give Garbo a screen test. According to author Frederick Sands, "the result of the test was electrifying. Thalberg was impressed
Greta Garbo publicity she loathed. As she had been during her Hollywood years, Garbo, with her innate need for solitude, was often reclusive. Contrary to myth, she had from the beginning many friends and acquaintances with whom she socialized and later traveled. Occasionally, she jet-setted with well-known and wealthy personalities, striving to guard her privacy as she had during her career. Still, she often floundered about what to do and how to spend her time ("drifting" was the word she frequently used), always struggling with her many eccentricities, and her lifelong melancholy and moodiness. As she approached her sixtieth birthday, she told