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 and began grooming the young actress the following day, arranging to fix her teeth, making sure she lost weight, and giving her English lessons." During her rise to stardom, film historian Mark Vieira notes, "Thalberg decreed that henceforth Garbo would play a young but worldly wise woman… " However, according to Thalberg's actress wife, Norma Shearer, Garbo did not necessarily agree with his ideas: Although she expected to work with Stiller on her first film, she was cast in "Torrent" (1926), an adaptation of a novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, with director Monta Bell. She replaced Aileen Pringle, 10 years