Greta Garbo was born in Södermalm, Stockholm, Sweden. She was the third and youngest child of Anna Lovisa (née Karlsson, 1872–1944), a housewife who later worked at a jam factory, and Karl Alfred Gustafsson (1871–1920), a laborer. Garbo had an older brother, Sven Alfred (1898–1967), and an older sister, Alva Maria (1903–1926). Her parents met in Stockholm, where her father had been visiting from Frinnaryd. He moved to Stockholm to become independent and worked in various odd jobs—street cleaner, grocer, factory worker and butcher's assistant. He married Anna, who had recently moved from Högsby. The Gustafssons were impoverished and lived in a
Greta Garbo Great Depression, American screen audiences seemed to favor "home-grown" screen couples, such as Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. In 1935, David O. Selznick wanted to cast her as the dying heiress in "Dark Victory", but Garbo chose Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" (1935) in which she played another of her renowned roles. Her critically acclaimed performance won her the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. The film was internationally successful and did better than MGM expected domestically. Still, its profit was significantly diminished because of her exorbitant salary. Garbo selected George Cukor's romantic drama "Camille" (1936) as her