5

Cecil and Garbo: ‘My bed is very small and chaste.’

THE WORLD OF international society in which both Greta Garbo and Cecil Beaton were well established by the late forties was much smaller and more enclosed than it is today. And thus in New York, in the spring of 1946, Cecil met Garbo at a small party given by his friend Margaret Case, an editor at Vogue.

Garbo arrived in the company of Georges Schlee. The occasion was the consumption of some caviar imported direct from Russia by a delicatessen discovered by Schlee. Vodka was at hand. Cecil had not seen Garbo since 1932, and he was taken aback by how beautiful she still was. She gave him a biscuit and said: ‘I didn’t wear lipstick when you knew me before.’1 Reassured that Garbo remembered him, he looked at her more closely. She was thinner, with a spikier nose, and there were lines when she smiled.

The uncompromising beauty of mouse blonde hair, the scrawny hands a bit weathered, the ankles and feet a bit poor and bumpy-looking. Has no look of luxury. The hat like a pierrot – Callot – the highwayman shirt. The incredible eyes and lids, and blue, clear iris. Historic beauty.²

Realising that Garbo was about to leave, Cecil steered her on to the roof terrace, and they stood talking as the cold night bit into them and the lights of Park Avenue twinkled below. In this not unromantic atmosphere, Cecil was determined to ‘strike a chord of intimacy’, he wrote later. ‘She talked – talked – talked – gabbled ever harder – like an excited child – in order to cover her embarrassment at the things I was blurting out to her while discovering the nobbles of her spine and smelling the new-mown-hay freshness of her cheeks, ear and hair.’³ In private notes that he kept, he recalled ‘talking hard like child during kissing’. Before rejoining the others, Garbo promised to telephone him.

Somewhat prematurely, Cecil proposed marriage to Garbo. She had announced: ‘My bed is very small and chaste. I hate it. I’ve never thought of any particular person in connection with marriage, but justlately I’ve been thinking that as age advanced we all become more lonely & perhaps I’ve made rather a mistake – been on the wrong lines.’ This gave Cecil his chance: ‘Well, why don’t you marry me?’

Garbo was, reasonably enough, startled. ‘Good heavens,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you should speak so frivolously.’4

Some time after meeting at Margaret Case’s, they both went to a party given by Mona Harrison Williams, whose colourful career is described in Chapter Six. They danced in a dark room, the furniture of which was stacked under dust covers, and the only light that of the street lamp below. Afterwards Cecil waved to Garbo as she retreated home down the sidewalk to the Ritz Towers.

The pair exchanged badinage and walked in Central Park. These were far from leisurely strolls. They went at a brisk pace, circling the reservoir and then walking from 96th Street down to 59th Street and the Plaza. Cecil was a happy man. During one such excursion, Garbo suddenly said to him: ‘I wonder . . . If you weren’t such a grand and elegant photographer . . .’ To which he replied: ‘Then you’d ask me to take a passport photograph for you?’ A prolonged session followed, from which came the pictures of Garbo as a harlequin amongst others, a ‘prized collection’, as Cecil put it, adding: ‘though few of them were suitable for passports’.⁵

Cecil described Garbo as a sitter in a lecture, of which his notes survive:

She stood stiff against the wall. By degrees I said ‘Will you turn your head this way, then that, then in profile.’ As she is a naturally histrionic person, she entered gradually into the spirit of the performance; gave a very beautiful, balletic performance; her expressions were varied and full of life. She is such a good actress; her medium, her metier, should be acting all the time; this was an impromptu performance; the photographs that afternoon were beautiful; it was an illustration of what she could do as a spontaneous, histrionic exercise in plastic poses and in gesture and mood.⁶

Cecil always maintained that Garbo marked with a pencilled cross the ones that she gave him permission to publish in Vogue. He delivered them to the art director, Alexander Liberman, who was delighted with them, describing the pictures as ‘a precious windfall’.⁷

Garbo left for California on 21 May, leaving Cecil in tears. A few days later he sailed for Britain, and on his arrival wrote to Garbo, inviting her to visit him in London on her way to Sweden, in what would be her first trip there since 1939. She responded in friendly vein, explaining that she would not be travelling alone. (This was the first big trip on which Schlee would be accompanying her, more or less unnoticed by the press.) The best that Garbo might manage was a short visit to Cecil in his London house. She had been unwell and had no particular wish to travel. Hotels in Sweden were proving a problem, but she urged Cecil to write to her care of Max Gumpel (a Swedish property magnate who liked stars) in Stockholm, addressing his envelopes to ‘H. Brown’. She hoped possibly to see him in September. The letter was signed Harry, short for Harriet,8 written upside down.

Garbo’s next letter to Cecil was no pleasure to receive. He found himself plunged into a new Vogue drama, this time concerning the publication of her pictures. First there arrived a sinister cablegram from Garbo in California, making it clear that if Cecil published more than one photograph, she would not forgive him.⁹ Soon afterward came a letter written the day before. Garbo maintained that she had given permission for him to publish only one picture. She had now heard that it was to be several, and was extremely distressed. She never wanted anybody to see the ones of her in costume, which she deemed bad, and she ordered that they be destroyed. She felt that they would show her in a frivolous light. She appealed to Cecil to frustrate their publication if at all possible.¹⁰

Cecil was thrown into a state of panic, but the publication process was too far advanced to stop. The magazine was virtually on the stands. In later diaries Cecil claimed that he sent frantic cables to try to prevent publication, but his over-riding wish would have been to see them in print. Cecil consequently spent some time in disgrace, exercising his considerable capacity for guilt: ‘I felt as if I had committed a murder,’¹¹ he wrote.

Garbo sailed for Sweden on 6 July. She boarded the S.S. Gripsholm at 9.15 a.m., three hours before sailing time, using a cargo gangway. It appeared that immigration inspectors were going to force her to observe ‘checking off’ procedure like other passengers, but in the end the formalities were attended to in her hideaway cabin. She posed briefly for photographers, wearing a beige suit and hat, but all she would say was: ‘I am awfully tired. I had to get up very early this morning.’¹²

Garbo arrived in Göteborg eleven days later, and a crowd of a thousand fans were waiting to see her disembark. She was smuggled ashore by friends and conveyed to Stockholm in an express train, occupying her own private coach. Sweden was awash with rumours that she might be going to make a film there, settle there for life, or even produce religious films. One comment extracted from her was: ‘I was tired when I left New York and I am still more tired after participating in celebrations aboard.’13

During her stay it was said that she had been signed to play an immigrant girl in New Sweden, a seventeenth-century Swedish colony on the Delaware River. Nothing came of it.

Garbo left Sweden again on 24 August. There were so many spectators crowding the dockside roofs and windows that she needed a large police escort in order to board the Gripsholm, bound this time for New York. Lilian Gish and her sister Dorothy were also on board.

At the other end, the liner docked at Pier 97 at 9 a.m. on 3 September. An hour later Garbo was escorted on deck and immediately surrounded by press representatives. As the flash bulbs popped, her mood veered from tolerance to graciousness and finally to impatience. Interviews with Garbo were virtually unheard of, and she faced her interrogators as if they were a firing squad.

‘I haven’t been elusive,’ said Garbo. ‘Being in newspapers is awfully silly to me. Anyone who does a job properly has a right to privacy. You’d think the same if you were in the same boat.’ She went on to say that she had no plans for any films, and she did not know how long she would stay: ‘I’m sort of drifting.’¹⁴ At length she got fed up: ‘Now take all your friends and go home. Have coffee. Please.’¹⁵ While the interrogation proceeded, Georges Schlee remained in the background, but he did not entirely escape the cameras.

Cecil was also in New York in September 1946, following a visit to California. While in Hollywood he had not only worked on, but also taken the small part of Cecil Graham in, a production of Lady Windermere’s Fan.

Garbo was not far from Cecil’s mind during this time. In California, he would do things like dial her number for the dubious pleasure of hearing it ring in the empty rooms. He conceived the plan of going round and asking the maid to allow him to plant some lily-bulbs in the garden, but he could not find the bulbs. At length, one romantic summer evening, he set off in search of her house. The address she had given him was No. 622 Bedford Drive. Cecil found it and was horrified by its whimsical toy-like quality:

I tiptoed across the green velvet lawns with heart beating to see where my beloved lived. I looked with horror. No, I couldn’t be this much mistaken. No one of her taste could live in such an interior. There must be some mistake. She must have rented the house to someone else. On the walls were a variety of very bad modern pictures & a few extremely bad miniatures framed by the mantelpiece. There were many large photographs around of framed celebrities – Elsie Mendl, Greer Garson, & some blonde. With disgust I left. I could not be so mistaken.16

Later, to his considerable relief, Cecil discovered that Garbo resided at No. 904. This one was Harry Crocker’s^fn1 house, which she used as a forwarding address. When he found Garbo’s real house, it was predictably spartan and heavily curtained. A high wall protected it from view, and there was a magnolia tree, the scent of which filled the night:

I imagined my friend retreating behind the wall & staying for days on end & in secrecy even from her maid. I came home feeling content that it was a suitable house for someone of so fine & independent a character. And the more I see of the suburban intrigue & invidious influence of the Colony the more remarkable it is that a character exists who has survived fifteen years of it.¹⁷

Cecil was haunted by a problem that lingered from his stay in London. Inevitably, he had been unable to keep quiet about his new-ffound love for Garbo. The news had begun to circulate, and his close friends, the art historian James Pope-Hennessy and Clarissa Churchill,^fn2 were concerned that he was not conducting his affairs with due discretion. Pope-Hennessy also thought that the presence of Maud Nelson as his secretary was dangerous, since she was the lover of Oggie Lynn, a highly social singer and teacher of singing, diminutive in size if not in the roundness of her figure, who moved with a freely wagging tongue in London’s social circles. With Garbo due back in the United States any day, Cecil was in a state of considerable panic about the relationship. He explained to Clarissa Churchill that he felt terribly contrite:

I feel that much of the bloom has been spoilt – Only if the whole relationship is really genuine & wholehearted on both sides can it survive the intrigue that has now built around it. Perhaps it will be useful to have such a test – Greta arrives in New York this week – & it will be interesting to know how she will receive me – if at all. She is a most easily hurt & startled creature & Lord Kemsley’s reporters [the gutter press] have been about as swinish as possible.18

Clarissa Churchill advised him to lie about the gossip and swear he had told nobody – that he was just as sickened by it as Garbo.

When Cecil read reports of Garbo’s arrival, he duly telephoned the Ritz Towers. He would give his name to the operator, and after a discreet interval the operator would announce: ‘She don’t answer.’ Nor did Garbo relent. Thus Cecil found himself left to his own devices. Everywhere he went he thought he saw her, and he could not help torturing himself by returning to places they had seen together the previous winter. He existed in a waking nightmare of suspense and rejection. Finally, recalling cruel words that his former love Peter Watson had used on him, he sent her a note: ‘You cannot dismiss me like a recalcitrant housemaid.’ As he confided to his diary: ‘Even if Greta may never forgive me, she will doubtless always remember the admonishing terms that I learnt from so great a person as Peter.’¹⁹

Cecil reported the latest developments to Clarissa once more:

There was a lot of press bother about Greta & she was asked on arrival back from Sweden if she were going to be married. ‘Well well well’ she said to the reporters but there has been stone silence for me. She won’t answer my telephone calls, letters or telegrams – she is frightened or daresay feels I have betrayed her – & I only trust this appalling silence won’t continue. I am luckily so busy that I do not have much time to brood on the disappointment.^fn3 It might be quite possible never to see her again – or to find we have started again where we were three months ago.²⁰

Presently Cecil was relieved to hear that Garbo had retreated to Hollywood. He allowed six weeks to pass before telephoning again. Then on 7 October, a day he deemed his ‘lucky number’, he tried again. Deceived by being told merely that New York was on the line, Garbo took the call. A desultory conversation followed: ‘Why Mr Beaton. Why, why, why. How very surprising.’ Gradually, however, Cecil felt that the breach between them might heal, but ‘in the rather cruel, playful way that is typical of Stephen Tennant,fn4 she said, knowing that 2,000 miles separated us: “Come on over now”. No, but can I come later? “Now, only now”.’²¹

By dint of perseverance Cecil managed to establish a slender thread of communication between them, a hopelessly fragile one, but a thread nevertheless. He explained the position to Clarissa: ‘Greta is in California & I have very unsatisfactory talks with her on the telephone – most of the time she is out – & her moods are so variable. It is maddening that she is not here or that I am not there.’

Having not spoken to her for a month, Cecil rang after Christmas. She said she was surprised that he had not yet gone back to England. Sometimes she taunted him by asking him over, sometimes she was pleased to hear from him, and sometimes she told him not to ring. The conversations were as inconsequential as ever:

Cecil: ‘How do you sleep?’

Garbo: I sleep well if I go to bed early enough. I retire with the chickens . . . Ah we’re all bound to our duty . . . We’re soldiers fighting for les beaux arts . . .²²

Without much confidence that the problem would resolve itself, Cecil sailed home to England in January 1947.

Cecil was tied to England until the following October, working on two films for Alexander Korda – An Ideal Husband (starring Paulette Goddard) and Anna Karenina (with Vivien Leigh and Ralph Richardson). This was an exciting commission for him, guaranteeing something of a respite from the normal financial worries. During the following months he kept in touch with Garbo by writing letters to her. The originals of these letters may no longer exist, but Cecil kept carbon copies of them, which he never showed anybody. They emerged from a tin trunk under his bed at his house in Broadchalke after his death.

During most of 1947 Cecil experienced the problems traditionally faced by the absent or would-be lover. In his letters he gave evidence of his worth and fidelity, writing of his activities, hoping to make these sound interesting – bait for Garbo, the lure of an alternative life in another land. But he did not have any idea how these messages would be received, and as he wrote them, he knew he was very unlikely to receive a reply.

Occasionally he telephoned, but in those early post-war days it was not a question of picking up the receiver and dialling. The call had to be booked in advance and dealt with through an operator. Then Cecil had to wait in to see if his request would be successful. The most usual reply was ‘The party don’t answer’, which was doubly frustrating as the ‘party’ may well have been there but elected not to bother to answer.

This period in Cecil’s life covered the purchase and restoration of Reddish House, Broadchalke, his second Wiltshire home. He had been forced to leave the dreamlike Ashcombe after fifteen years in that sturdy little manor house lost in the downs. He knew enough about Garbo to be aware of the likely appeal of a Queen Anne mansion in a sleepy English village. She was solitary by nature. He hoped to make this her sanctuary.

Towards the end of January, Britain had entered an exceptionally cold spell which lasted until 10 March. The country froze, there were bitter easterly winds, continuous frosts, snow and snow drifts. In the middle of all this bleakness, Cecil began to woo Garbo in earnest, writing her twenty-three letters between March and October 1947, while she remained almost totally silent. He posted most of the letters at the time but he kept one or two back, delivering them to her hotel on his next visit to New York in the winter of 1947.

Sunday March the ninth [1947]

Honey,

At last the thaw! The sun is out and the ice & snow are melting & the streets are a real mess. But what a relief. It is six weeks now we have suffered & each day has been a battle to keep warm. One had to hold on to oneself to galvanise some sort of heat in ones body & it became very tiring. Incessant anxiety. I was exhausted. Most people too. It has been a phenomenally cold winter in the country, the birds on the trees have become encased in ice – like quails in aspic. The branches of the trees are covered with ice & therefore snap off with a loud report. To walk in a wood is like being fired at – ambushed. In the north of England whole villages & towns have been cut off & a million sheep have been buried in the snow. As they are mostly in lamb at this time of the year it is not only a sad story but quite grave that we shall have just that much less to eat next year.

However at last the temperature is very much warmer, & soon we shall be enjoying spring. As I write (in my bed Sunday morning) the hens in the garden next door are jubilantly celebrating by making all kinds of noises. I have got another cold. I suppose I caught it in Paris.fn5 I went for a week & had a lovely time. I went to many wonderful exhibitions & came away feeling most stimulated & inspired. It does one so much good to have these abrupt changes & I felt as if I’d had a tonic. Although the country is still in a poor way & most people are not able to afford the black market nevertheless there is a gaiety & frivolity there that blinds one to the grim squalour – also it is very nourishing to come across a people with such a high standard of taste. I went to one dress shop & it was like a revelation. There’s nothing in New York that can compare – & as for poor old London – well that’s laughable.

The day in the woods at Chantilly was wonderful. Diana cooked eggs & truffles. We ate caviar & cold ham & tangerines (which I had brought across the Channel in a string bag) & we walked in the snow. Apropos of that hideous face that I included in my last letter [not extant], Diana has recently been left a windfall by an unknown admirer. For twenty years she has been receiving passionate letters from a Spanish Marquis named Emmanuele. One day when out shopping a small & elderly man bowed from the waist, doffed his trilby hat & said ‘I am Emmanuele’. Diana thought this was the moment to clear up the situation – & said ‘No it’s nonsense you’re writing me these letters. I’ve never met you in my life & they must stop’. The Spanish Marquis stroked his little goatee beard, looked sad & said ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been importunate. The letters shall stop’. But of course they didn’t stop – & continued until – this last war. Suddenly Diana was informed by Emmanuele’s lawyers in Switzerland that the little man had passed on to a better world & that he had left her his very large fortune. She had no scruples about being delighted. Unfortunately I doubt if she’ll be able to touch a penny of it, as there is death duty to be paid in Switzerland, Spain & England – & anything left is being claimed by his family. How strange it all is!fn6

In Paris one night I sat next to the widow of Rostand^fn7 at dinner. You can imagine how old she is – & she looks like nobody of today. Her blonde curls (no she’s not terribly blonde) are trimmed low over her cheeks to hide the scars of her various faceliftings. She is painted like a Fratellini clown – is elaborately dressed in black of all materials (satins, velvets, chiffon, tulle, etc.) & leopard skin. A wonderful appearance like a caricature of herself & she was fascinating about the great days she knew. How tremendous was the sudden fame of her husband after the first night of Cyrano – & a lot about the divine Sarah.^fn8 She was anxious to show me how well she knew the English language & said that until she was six years old she spoke only English – but then she had been sent to a convent, & had never again spoken English. ‘But’ she said ‘I remember it so well’ & she proceeded to recite in its entirety ‘Ten little nigger boys’.

Seven little nigger boys picking up sticks . . .

Then there were six . . . etc., etc., etc., etc!

Another day at lunch one of the women, who always signs herself as a four leafed clover,^fn9 wrote a message on the back of the menu & sent it over to me. ‘Chéri, Cecil, grande nouvelle & a very interesting one: I just now realise that we look exactly alike. You are the only one I know who reminds me of myself’.

I was very flattered and proud.

So much for that trip to Paris. I am going back there again next Friday for a short visit. Maybe I will let you have a letter from there.

Meanwhile there is other news here. A friend arrived at the house. ‘I have got something downstairs I think you’d like to buy’ he said. I leapt out of bed. A white marble bust of an eighteenth century woman (French) was brought upstairs. My heart stopped with the beauty of it. It is a great work of art. I am as happy as can be. My day was made. It was like being in love – something nice to come home to. Although I cannot afford her in view of other more pressing needs (read later on) I had to take possession of her. So I have become (for three hundred pounds) the possessor of a really wonderful treasure. If ever my heart became as cold as the marble of which the lady is made then I could sell her for ten times as much as I have paid.

More news: Well in my last letter I wrote about an expedition to the country in search of houses. I think I was rather secretive of information concerning the trip as I have learnt that it is bad luck to talk much about things that are not definitely signed & sealed. Well it so happened that we saw two houses. One [Hatch House, near Donhead] supposedly built by Sir Christopher Wren (who you know was the architect of St Paul’s). It had a lovely pale yellow & grey stone façade – with columns each side of the main window, a magnolia tree & a wonderful view overlooking a lyrical valley. But inside the house possessed no charm at all. But we saw another house. Reddish House, Broadchalke, Wiltshire. That is the address. I had once seen the house long ago & thought it one of the loveliest I had ever seen. Suddenly a friend of mine who lives nearby [David Herbert] – one of the boys – telephoned to say the woman who owned the house [Clara Wood, mother of the artist Christopher Wood] had just died & that the house would be sold. There is a terrific dearth of such houses in England just now, & this being small enough to be ‘conveniently run’ is just what so many people want. So we could not delay a moment for fear lest someone else should snap up the treasure: for treasure it is. I went there with my mother – & my secretary [Maud Nelson] – one of the girls – & we were all ravished by the loveliness of the place. The house is made of mauve brick, 1660. There is a bust over the Front door – a village street is kept at bay by a low curved brick wall that is flanked with a screen of yew trees cut like poodles tails & pompoms. Inside the house is somewhat rambling but with very nice rooms, & elegant windows & doors. There are just enough rooms & the garden & grassy slopes stretching from the house are quite extraordinarily romantic. I am thrilled. It is almost certain now that I shall possess the house for my bid (£10,000) has been accepted. The surveyors go there next Friday & unless any unforeseen tragedy occurs I shall take up residence there in June. So then I shall be a country squire. Just for a spell at any rate. So then I am the owner of a country seat. So then I am a man of property. Did you ever think your friend would turn out to be that?

I think you will agree that the place is enchanting. It reconciles me to the loss of my other home – which I loved so much. And this has the advantage of being extremely convenient. The other was very difficult. I am only so sorry that our wonderful gardener Dovefn10 has not lived to look after this garden. It is so sunny & the walled kitchen garden is a delight. There are two summer houses, ilex trees, a wood at the summit of the hill, a paddock & a rose garden. I possess a small suite of my own, a big bedroom with Georgian fireplace, a small sitting room or dressing room cum sitting room – or dressing room (in which I shall put an extra bed) & bathroom. This is apart from the other sleeping quarters. Quite private & detached with pretty views from every window. If you come to be my wife I trust you will allow me to sleep in the sitting, or dressing room, if not in the larger room.

Footnote: There are also two thatched cottages which are part of the estate & they look like something out of Hans Christian Andersen.

Further Footnote: I have masses of furniture in storage but won’t want to use some of it – because it isn’t nice enough^fn11 – & will want lots more – because these rooms will need more furniture than the Ashcombe rooms. Therefore I shall want to buy a lot of useful things. Therefore it is sheer extravagance to have bought the bust – but I couldn’t help not buying the bust.

New Topic: Professional life. I motored through the squalid purlieus of London, through the ice & filthy snow to the film studios to see the sets being built [for An Ideal Husband] – Inspite of war time conditions they have done some good jobs of recreating grand houses of the Victorian period – & the House of Commons made of plaster. Korda, with hair on end, is harassed by too many people – but however irate he becomes I never stop liking him quite immensely. He is lovable & sympathetic & got such a good sense of fun. The shooting of the picture starts in ten days time. I am also doing the clothes for Anna Karenina for him. He has decided to do it with Vivien Leigh in your part. A pity to try & redo something that was so wonderful – for although my memory is hazy I remember certain scenes as being so lovely . . . I am steeping myself in Russian atmosphere.

Other news of professional life . . .

Plans – but nothing definite.

Personal Items. Bad cold. Back not nearly straight enough. Am having my teeth straightened.

Love life items . . . My Love to you

C23

This letter was followed with an equally long postscript in which Cecil mentioned anything that happened to occur to him, and occasionally asked a question:

Do you remember it was on the third time of our meeting again that I told you I wanted to marry you, & you said it was extremely frivolous of me – but it wasn’t – & it isn’t. Don’t you think we are good for each other? I know I shan’t be happy until you make an honest man of me.

Do you remember?

Do you remember you said you were going to tell me a secret & I felt terribly small & inexperienced & ashamed of myself as a result of the secret . . .²⁴

In the next weeks Cecil dwelt on many topics. He informed Garbo that he wore no underclothes, that he had dreamt she was four inches shorter than she was, and related his frustration at trying to reach her on the telephone. He started work on The Importance of Being Earnest for Alexander Korda. His activities included staying with Laurence Olivier at Notley Abbey, accompanying Vivien Leigh to Paris for fittings for her Anna Karenina costumes, struggling with his play, and becoming intensely angry with Garbo for her silence. But he persevered with his letters to the uncommunicative star, asking her whether she had visited Dr Laszlo,fn12 and if she missed her ‘ivory tower’ at the Ritz. Cecil referred often to events of the past year: ‘doubtless I shall remember last Easter our visit to the Paley house, my bad headache – & your giving me palliatives, & there being only one reason why later I went to that awful Russian Easter gathering.^fn13 Oh Dear! Oh dear me!’²⁵

In April Cecil signed the lease of Reddish House. At last he heard some news of Garbo in a letter he received from Margaret Case in New York, describing that year’s Russian Easter party at the Schlees’ during which John Gielgud appeared in a red jacket identical to one worn by Clifton Webb. From 535 Park Avenue, she wrote:

Greta that evening was in a talkative and friendly mood wearing a brocaded Valentina dress with sleeves, her hair tied back with a lace ribbon making a divine but very new appearance. I introduced Mr. Gielgud to her and he was thrilled saying ‘What a pet’ . . .

Jerome Zerbe’s photographs taken at the request of the host and hostess at the Easter party will appear in next week’s Life. I hear that he saw Greta on the street, told her she was in one of the pictures to which she seemed to acquiesce. And now Valentina hysterically telephoned Mr. Zerbe saying Greta and George are angry and they must be removed from the magazine. I encountered George and Greta in a corner at the Colony one evening. George asked ‘Are you dining with an Englishman. Maggie likes Englishmen’. And Greta, laughing, said ‘Oh yes, how is your friend Sutro^fn14? He is very nice, very sweet’. I thought this was meant to be a reminder of you between us. There are rumours that she may do a picture for David Selznick. Someone told me George Schlee left yesterday for two weeks in California and this may mean La Greta has also gone away. George and Valentina are booked to sail for Europe in June. I am afraid I have only these dull trivialities to tell. Greta’s existence is spent with boring people as aimless as ever . . .²⁶

After a visit to Stratford-upon-Avon, Cecil raced across country in his Hillman Minx to stay with Juliet Dufffn15 at Bulbridge, in the village of Wilton. He informed Garbo:

My fellow guest for the next three days is your friend Mr Maugham – but I doubt if we shall talk about you as I never talk about you to any of our mutual friends – & treat you as a topic too dangerous to discuss. If by any chance your name is mentioned I assume an exaggeratedly casual air, or else, as when Kochno^fn16 told me about seeing you, I become very gracious: ‘Oh how charming of her. How very nice for you – & how exceedingly nice for her too!!^{fn17 27}

In August Cecil went to Paris for a holiday to buy things for his house, but found the city largely shuttered and the women all sun-tanned. He confessed to Garbo that he had a dream about her and wondered if ‘perhaps we are happiest in our dreams’.²⁸ Back in London, he at last received some word from Garbo. In reply, he wrote:

In my few days absence a lot of letters & magazines had arrived & I busied myself attending to the chores & I noticed that some kind friend in America had sent me some food packages – But it wasn’t until bedtime that I unwrapped them – & when I discovered who had sent them I was filled with a rare & deep happiness. Thank you. Thank you. I have been feeling very lonely of late. I hated not being in touch with you, & there were times when I felt extremely sad & depressed that so much had happened since we last met. Nevertheless I have always had complete faith in you & know that whatever you may say to me that we have a very sincere sympathy & love for each other & that it is not something that happens often in a lifetime. I have always held you so very close in my consciousness & however busy I have been have always wanted you to be near & to share the excitements, & your present to me has come like Manna from heaven, & I know you are as understanding & true as I have always believed you to be. As for myself, I have never before wanted to devote myself entirely to any one woman, but I know one day all obstacles will be overcome & that we shall spend very happy times together. You have the lion’s share in all my plans – & I am not very impatient for them to materialise – as neither you or I would be happy without complete trust in one another & I feel you have to see me again to realise how very genuine a person I am if I am permitted to be.29

Garbo was about to leave for London, and it was characteristic of her to show a small sign of life shortly before arriving. She stayed briefly in England before setting off for Paris, arriving there on 17 August. Unbeknown to the press she was accompanied by Georges Schlee, the man Cecil described as ‘the second rate dressmaker’s assistant’. England, meanwhile, basked in exceptional heat. It was hot and dry, with abundant sunshine, ideal harvest weather, in short the hottest August for seventy-five years.

But these were troubled times for Cecil. If he thought he could sleep easy, he was gravely mistaken. Two days after Garbo’s ship docked, he was writing:

So you have come to London. It is a great event – as if Venus came to Mars. Yet the papers treated the occasion as if some filmstar had just come on holiday. How bland & vulgar they are! You were quite right to avoid their onslaughts, but your utter simplicity is so pure & genuine that it baffles people. I thought I wouldn’t call you unless you called me – but I found myself getting so restless that at last I decided to try & disturb you. Once I had made that decision then I was on tenterhooks. I had to keep rushing out of the house in the car to buy antiques – or to look at antiques for my house. It was not an adequately compensating excitement. I was sad to miss you – & sorry that I had to be away in my new house in the country when eventually you did call . . .³⁰

Cecil continued:

Will you spare me a meeting when you come back to London? Will you be able to free yourself? I don’t want to see you just for a rushed minute or with a crowd of people. But I would love you to come quietly to dinner. There is so much to discuss – & everything in the world to talk about. I know you hate making plans – but I want to know when I can see you for a long stretch during the coming winter. Once January is over I am back in the Korda grindstone – & that’s as bad as being in the army – for it is then only a question of ‘leave’ . . .31

Garbo travelled from Paris to the South of France, where she stayed at Villa La Reine Jeanne, Bormes-les-Mimosas with Commandant Paul-Louis Weiller,^fn18 whom she had originally met through Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe). Here she was able to pass a holiday of total seclusion, swimming naked and unobserved, before any of the other guests had risen. The rambling villa was perfect for one who loved to hide. So remote was Garbo during her stay that Pandora Clifford, staying in the same house, was aware that she was there but never once set eyes on her.

Later Garbo and Schlee made their way along the coast to Cannes and the Château de la Garoupe, on Cap d’Antibes, which had been rented by the Chilean collector Arturo Lopez and his wife, Patricia. There Garbo met Cecil’s friends Michael Duff^fn19 and David Herbert for the first time. In an interview with Duncan Fallowell, David Herbert said they walked down the rock path. ‘Out of the sea strode this unbelievable beauty with her hair all dripping and water on her eye-lashes and topless. Michael and I gasped. It was Garbo.’ Lopez introduced them and explained that they were Englishmen, who had fought in the war. ‘How wonderful to meet two men who’ve helped save the world,’ pronounced Garbo, somewhat exaggerating their contribution to the war effort. ‘Up the British Empire!’ Then, apparently, she dived into the sea again. Later they played charades and she was quite uninhibited, walking round on all fours. Herbert opined: ‘A totally unaffected person. And she wasn’t a recluse at all. She was just bored to death with the whole Hollywood thing.’³²

On 7 September, the New York Times published a photo of Garbo strolling along a street in Cannes, wearing shorts and a broad brimmed hat. Meanwhile in New York, Noël Coward popped in for drinks with Valentina at 450 East 52nd Street. The dress designer was restless and discontented. Coward wrote: ‘Poor dear, I am afraid she is having a dreary time.’33

Cecil was still writing valiantly to Garbo.

You’ve had quite a long bout of strange Hotel bedrooms & waiting for that old Russian sturgeon to rouse himself in the morning. Perhaps after one brief & superficial look at London you will be pleased to get back to the impersonality of New York or Beverly Hills. But really Europe is the place for you. It is quite remarkable how after all the years you bear no imprint of America on your soul. But that shows that it is far from you, that you have no real contact with any of the people there. I think you should come more & more to Europe as you would find yourself in much more sympathetic surroundings. There is no reason why you shouldn’t start to make an entirely new life here. Forget about your film career, & lead the sort of life you want. It’s really terrible that you should spend your time hiding from imbecilic film fans on Madison Avenue or Sunset Boulevard. All of which is a long way of extending an invitation to you to come & build your nest here at Redditch House . . .³⁴

Garbo and Schlee did indeed return to London for a further brief visit before sailing back to the United States on the Queen Mary. And Cecil wrote one last letter:

Dearest Greta,

I am glad you’ve gone. Now I can settle down & begin to feel a bit less restless. It was no good your being here & yet not here – for under the auspices of that Russian sturgeon I could have no chance. I think it was mean of him, though, to allow you so short a time in England – & of course it was intentional. It was extraordinary to think of you being in London & able to telephone to me – but I was as pathetic as Charlie Chaplin in the Gold Rush when you did not turn up at my house. I said I would be sitting there – but that is hardly a true picture. I did sit occasionally & would start to read a book but I couldn’t concentrate & then I heard the door of a car slam outside & I expected it to be you. When I went to the window it was a woman in a grey suit visiting the house opposite. Blast her. Then I had made all sort of preparations as I wanted my house to appear its most sympathetic. I threw away all the unnecessary papers & letters & tidied up, & I bought a lot of crimson flowers & blue hydrangeas – & I even didn’t have fish for my lunch – as it makes such a stink when it’s cooking & I wanted the house to reveal only an atmosphere of charm. And then you never arrived – & telephoned to say you had been delayed. What a world of emotion can be contained in a formal word ‘delayed’. I suppose Heloise & Abelard were delayed . . .

Meanwhile your Queen Mary is speeding away at full throttle, & your days until arrival will be completely unreal – timeless – inhuman. Then you will arrive in Manhattan. To do what? The sturgeon will have to face appalling squalid rows with his wife – Heaven preserve me from knowing the full horror of the Schlee ménage – & by the time the Queen Mary returns, refuels & charges over the Atlantic again, I trust it will be bringing me to you.35

It was October. Soon afterwards Cecil sailed the Atlantic for his habitual three-month winter visit to fulfil contracts for Vogue. He was destined for a surprise.

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^fn1Harry Crocker (1894–1958), Hollywood columnist. Studied law at Yale, veered to Hollywood 1924 where he acted in various minor pictures. Worked with Los Angeles Examiner 1928–51, writing two columns ‘Behind the Make-up’ and ‘Crockery’. Also undertook some management work for certain stars, including Garbo.

^fn2Clarissa Churchill, now Countess of Avon (b. 1920), married Rt Hon Anthony Eden 1952. Niece of Sir Winston. Before her marriage she worked for Alexander Korda, and also for Vogue.

^fn3Cecil was at work on the sets for the ballets Camille and Les Patineurs. He won praise for both of them. The critic for the New York Times described him as having ‘emerged the particular talent in this field’. [NYT 6 October 1946.] He was due to start work on the designs of two Korda films.

^fn4Hon. Stephen Tennant (1906–1987), poet, sketcher, and novelist manqué. He was Cecil’s reclusive neighbour in Wiltshire, an erstwhile luminary and Bright Young Thing, who had begun his prolonged retreat from the world in the mysterious domain of Wilsford Manor.

^fn5Cecil paid many visits to Paris in the immediate post-war years. He was part of ‘La Bande’, the group that Lady Diana Cooper gathered round her while her husband, Duff Cooper, was Ambassador to Paris, September 1944 to December 1947. Other members were Christian Bérard, Denise Bourdet, Marie-Louise Bousquet, Georges and Nora Auric, and later Jean Cocteau.

^fn6Lady Diana was left £28,000 by a man called Manuel, Count de Luzarraga. Cecil’s story coincides with that she told in Trumpets From The Steep, pp.226–7. The story ended with the Count’s two sisters receiving part of the inheritance, some going to the Swiss and English Governments, and Lady Diana receiving ‘the little residue’.

^fn7Rosemonde Gérard Rostand (1866–1953) estranged wife of Edmond Rostand (1868–1918), French romantic dramatist. Descendant of Comte Gérard, Marshal of France, and of the Comtesse de Genlis. Poet and dramatist, her La Tour de St Jacques was presented at the Comédie Française. A well-known figure in Paris society and a keen first-nighter. Mother of the poet and novelist Maurice Rostand. ‘The inseparable pair became one of the sights of Paris; and devotion to her bleached and painted son went hand in hand with Rosemonde’s estrangement from her famous husband’ (Francis Steegmuller, Cocteau, Little Brown 1970, p.45).

^fn8Sarah Bernhardt played opposite Rostand in La Princesse Lointaine in 1895.

^fn9Louise de Vilmorin (1906–1969), author and poet, and mistress of Duff Cooper.

^fn10Old Mr Dove had been the gardener at Ashcombe and had died at the end of Cecil’s lease of the house. Cecil described him: ‘His face contained the goodness of the earth itself. His clothes were, by their elaborate cut and fashion, obviously made in Queen Victoria’s reign, and had grown by now, as lichen becomes part of a stone or the bark of a tree, to become part of his trim body.’

^fn11Cecil had furnished Ashcombe with numerous improvisations, drums used as tables, curtains made from hessian stitched with pearl buttons, and a bed made from a circus carousel.

^fn12Dr Erno Laszlo, known as ‘The Svengali of the Skin’, opened the Institute of Scientific Cosmetology in Budapest 1927. When the war started in 1939, Elsie Mendl helped him to come to New York, where he opened a skin care salon on Fifth Avenue.

^fn13A disparaging reference to an Easter party given by Georges Schlee and Valentina. Their Russian Easter parties were a feature of New York high life. (Jerome Zerbe photographed Garbo at the party in 1947.) Many years later President Kennedy attended one.

^fn14John Sutro (1904–1985), film producer then in partnership with Alexander Korda.

^fn15Lady Juliet Duff (1881–1965), daughter of 4th Earl of Lonsdale, and mother of Sir Michael Duff. A stalwart supporter of the Diaghilev Ballet, and keenly interested in the theatre.

^fn16Boris Kochno (1903–1990) secretary of Diaghilev, later worked with the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, poet and librettist.

^fn17This last line adopts the idiom of Queen Elizabeth.

^fn18Commandant Paul-Louis Weiller (1893–1993), much decorated aviator of the First World War. Industrialist, one of whose companies was nationalised and became Air France. Benefactor of many French charities, owner of many houses. Dubbed ‘Poor Louis’ by Nancy Mitford, Garbo called him Paul-Louis Quatorze’. First spotted Garbo’s talent in the film, The Joyless Street in 1925. Appointed Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour 1989, aged 95. Was still windsurfing with prowess in his 99th year.

^fn19Sir Michael Duff, 3rd Bt (1907–1980), Son of Lady Juliet Duff, lived at Vaynol Park, Caernarvon. Friend of royalty, wit, and later Lord-Lieutenant of his county.