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 by Renoir, Rouault, Kandinsky, Bonnard, and Jawlensky. Her art collection was worth millions when she died in 1990. On 9 February 1951, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States and, in 1953, bought a seven-room apartment at 450 East 52nd Street in Manhattan, New York City, where she lived for the rest of her life. On 13 November 1963, just nine days before the assassination of President Kennedy, Garbo was a dinner guest at the White House. She spent the night at the Washington, D.C. home of philanthropist Florence Mahoney. Garbo's niece Gray Reisfield told museum specialist James