Loving Garbo

Garbo being Garbo, most of Cecil’s news of her came from Mercedes. There was a misleading snippet in one of the London papers causing Garbo’s distant fan, Ram Gopal, to believe that she was again staying with Cecil in the country. Ram besought Mercedes to arrange for him to meet his heroine:

I only wish you were here to arrange this meeting, but since the elusive one is here staying with Beaton, and since there has not been much publicity about her visit this time in England – except for one small, insignificant paragraph in a paper announcing that she was staying at his country home in Salisbury – I thought that maybe as you had always said before that Mr Beaton – who has become as regal as the Queen of England, as elusive as Garbo and as prissy as the fussiest Edwardian! said upon your suggestion that he would condescend to arrange for Ram to have the great honour and privilege of meeting Miss Garbo, he might do this . . . If it is at all possible, I would like to meet the great one. But if there is any trouble, or if she wants to be left alone allowing Beaton to wear her cloak of mystery, please do not bother, and forget about it . . .²

In August Garbo and Schlee joined Onassis on board Christina. One of their ports of call along the French coast was the Villa Reine Jeanne, summer home of Commandant Paul-Louis Weiller. Garbo looked in during the afternoon, accompanied by Mrs Onassis and Schlee, and sat with the Commandant’s guests on the terrace. David Niven, filming Bonjour Tristesse at a neighbouring villa with Deborah Kerr and Jean Seberg, was there to see her, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr was staying at the villa.

The relationship between Mercedes and Garbo remained as fraught as ever, as Cecil recorded in his diary that winter:

[Greta] really has been feeling ill, & altho’ she does not say what the matter is her kidneys are out of order & she has painful inflammation of the feminine organs.

She has gone from one doctor to another. Suddenly she started to feel better when she was given Insulin injections by a quack. ‘I can’t come to you everyday & take my turn in the queue’ she said. ‘I have (with a laugh) too much to do’. (She has nothing whatsoever to do!) The Doctor said ‘You come in by the side door here & I’ll always let you in – Don’t miss a day though, not even Sundays’.

So on the Sunday Greta went, found the Doctor in his dressing gown. ‘Excuse me not being dressed & unshaven like this. It’s so wonderful not to have to shave & to be dirty for one day in the week’. Greta sympathised, got her shot & left.

Next day on arrival she told the liftman she wanted to see the Doctor. ‘The Doctor ain’t no more. He died last night’. Greta felt faint: ‘Would you mind if I sat down for a moment’. She was stunned for several days afterwards & lost.

The Doctor’s death may have been a blessing in disguise because friends later told me that he reduced his clients to such a nervous state with these shots that they all got to the condition known as the ‘shakes’. However, Greta did not know which way to turn. She suddenly recontinued her friendship with her friend Mercedes – for a year or more she cut her. If she met Mercedes while walking with Eric [Rothschild], she would nod only in the most cursory manner. Then suddenly Greta telephones, comes round to Mercedes – bursts into floods of tears. ‘I have no one to look after me’. ‘You don’t want anyone to look after you’. ‘I’m frightened. I’m so lost’!

Mercedes is her very best friend & for 30 years has stood by her, willing to devote her life to her. Once again she rallied. She prevailed upon a little Italian doctor to break his rule of not having private clients to come to New York from Rochester each day to look after Greta.

‘How do I know what you’re doing to me? How do I know you’re not killing me’?

The little man, very Italian & gallant, kissed her on the cheek – & said ‘I think you’re the sweetest person I ever knew’. But when he asked her for her telephone number she refused to give it. ‘Very well then I shall not continue to look after you. I’ve never heard such nonsense in my life. If your doctor can’t telephone to know how you are responding to his treatment, there’s no point in his continuing’.

‘Very well, but you’re not to give that number to Mercedes’. ‘Do you mean to say you haven’t given your number to the person who begged me to look after you?’ ‘I’ll give it to her later’. The doctor rang Mercedes: ‘Would you mind if I ask you a very personal question. Have you or not Miss Garbo’s telephone number’? ‘No’. ‘I’m shocked. That is the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s absolutely inhuman’.fn1

In spite of everything Mercedes continues to do all she can for Greta.

G. arrived unexpected at her flat, very upset. She had been to the Health Food store & the woman owner had said ‘Oh Miss Garbo you don’t look at all well’. G. was in tears. ‘Do I look so changed? Do I look so old’? Mercedes secretly ran to the Health Food Store & shaking a finger instructed the woman ‘Don’t you ever tell Miss Garbo she doesn’t look well again! However badly you think she looks, tell her she looks fine’. The woman was dreadfully apologetic & upset.⁴

Mercedes wrote to Ram Gopal telling him how ill she felt, adding that Garbo was disillusioned with her New York doctors. Ram wrote back:

YOU’VE simply got to pull yourself out of the RUT of ILL health and nerves, and the disastrous effects of that ghastly killer drug you took and I KNOW that the only way to recover mentally and physically is this cellular Therapy. You’ve GOT to have it, and stop listening to those idiotic New York and anti-Niehans^fn2 quacks who swindle you and Greta out of small fortunes.⁶

There was talk of Garbo going to Switzerland to see doctors there, and the possibility of Mercedes going with her. Cecil also wrote to Garbo:

Try & put on a bit of weight. We don’t want you to become a Fakir however much your religious thoughts might turn towards the Orient . . .

I was sorry that you have had such a wretched time with the doctors & only trust now you are feeling fitter & that when I come back to New York you will be in a more playful mood. It would be nice if we could go off on a slight jaunt somewhere together. There are such remarkable, romantic places within flying distance – & it’s silly not to explore the less obvious places.

Keep chipper – be brave & be patient. I love you very much & rely upon you to feel the same way about your old friend

Beet⁷

The Italian Doctor is superseded by a diet doctor in California. Greta has taken the plane to stay with some woman & her husband in Santa Monica for 3 days. Then she does not know where she will go to stay or what new alias to use, possibly to a 16th century monastery. But with the rush of leaving she did not telephone to say goodbye to me, but told Mercedes to say au revoir, but not until after I’ve left. ‘Beaton may go out to dinner & tell someone that I’m on that plane & then the photographers will be after me with the carm-rahs’. Mercedes said ‘Never mind the minute you’ve gone I’ll ring up Louella Parsons’. G. rejoined ‘This is no laughing matter’.

Mercedes suffers dreadfully at Greta’s cruelty – & after all these years has not adopted an invulnerable attitude. Yet she can be funny about Greta’s extraordinary behaviour – & instead of getting angry (as I am apt to do) she giggles: ‘Well we really must admit she’s a character – if not a real eccentric’ . . .

She goes on hiding, and it is only because of her elusiveness that there is any chance of her being chased. I suppose that the damage done to her privacy & pride in her youth will last a life time . . . She has not been to a theatre for a year – & done very little shopping with Eric [Rothschild] & Schlee has seen much less of her than usual.

On arrival I telephoned & she seemed delighted that her solace had been broken in upon – she came around that afternoon & stood looking like a terrified urchin at my doorway – her eyes wide open & mouth agape as if ready for any torture. We laughed, we drank a little vodka, although she should absteem, & she would have stayed for dinner if I had not already made another engagement.

‘That is the usual story – If you hadn’t been doing something much more exciting’. ‘But if I had left the evening free I would have found myself let down & alone – at the last moment’. I had no anguish, no heartbreak – no shattering disappointment. Everything on a much more even keel, yet I felt a great tenderness for her most of the time – & very little exasperation. My heart was touched by her, & I enjoyed telephoning to her many times a day to find out how she fared, to keep in touch, to clock in, even if I knew there was nothing much to discuss.

Sometimes she would be depressed & sigh – sometimes say nothing but ‘Yaish Yaish’. Once when she was not feeling well I only got birdlike peeps & nos out of her.

We went at her suggestion, to tea with Mercedes – & there she sat against a window – was in a draught & caught a cold which lasted a month. ‘You’re too thin. You’re undernourished. You have no stamina to fight germs. Your spine sticks out of your back like a python’. ‘How do you know’? ‘I saw it when your sweater rode up as you bent down to do up your shoelace’ . . .

One evening I suggested our taking Mercedes out to dinner. The miracle happened & she not only decided to come – but everything went well. The Colony provided a quiet sympathetic background & the dinner was excellent & Greta enthused ‘Never in my life have I eaten such goody lamb chops’. She even admitted she had enjoyed the evening & on returning home telephoned me to say what a success it had been. She was as gay as a cricket & looked like a wild ragged but beautiful gipsy with straggly hair & in a high necked black jersey.

In the taxi going home she took my face in a fist & squeezed it tight. I put my tongue through her fingers. The gesture was repeated.

One day she came early for a drink. She found me asleep. She was discomforted that I hadn’t prepared a biscuit & a drink & was not ready for her. ‘I expected a little charm.’ I ragged her about this later when her displeasure had worn off.

One day she said ‘Oh bother what I wouldn’t give to have back the last 10 years! I’d behave so differently. If only I hadn’t missed the bus’. Several times she alluded to what I can only assume to be our ‘marriage manqué’.

I knew that at the present moment it was inadvisable to try & discuss the situation again. I would always take on what would probably be an appallingly difficult life task – but no decision would be possible now. She was too ill & disorganised, too abject – too much embedded in her frigid rut – to lose her head enough to make any affirmative gesture. It is not the time for anything but treading water, for enjoying minor pleasures – & seeing if the future may bring about a better change.8

Cecil won his first Oscar, for Gigi, in 1958, and put the final touches on the London My Fair Lady at Drury Lane. Garbo spent some time in Los Angeles, caring for her friend Harry Crocker, who was dying. Cecil wrote to her there in May:

Things are quieter now. My mother who has become very old & frail has gone to stay with a sister, & I’m alone for the first time. It is at such moments that I wish you were here – instead of there – particularly as I hear you are not well. It is awful that you don’t come to this part of the world where everything is green & smells good & where the air – not to mention Dr Gottfried, would do you such benefit. Anyhow you always make your own plans but if you feel like it, & don’t wish to spend all your summer on a Riviera rock, then you are more than welcome to all that I can offer you here . . .9

Cecil’s recent Hollywood work and success with My Fair Lady having won him some rare financial security, he was able to resume work in earnest on his own ill-fated play, The Gainsborough Girls. Garbo went to the South of France during the summer, and for once she was rather social. Towards the end of August it was reported that Sir Winston Churchill, then aged eighty-three and in failing health, had stayed up past midnight dining with Garbo and Onassis at a famous Riviera restaurant, almost certainly the Château de Madrid. ‘The three have been seen together with increasing frequency’ wrote the New York Times stringer.¹⁰ Sir Winston, who was recovering from a two-month bout of pneumonia, was staying with Lord Beaverbrook at his villa, also on Cap d’Ail. He invited Garbo and Onassis to be his guests at his Golden Wedding celebrations on 12 September. A dinner was given by the local prefect, greetings arrived from the Queen, President Eisenhower, Harold Macmillan, President Coty of France, and General de Gaulle. A five-litre bottle of Cognac over 119 years old arrived from the Château de Madrid, a multitude of flowers, and Sir Winston himself stood on the terrace in a white summer suit, puffing his cigar, while his eight-year-old grand-daughter, Arabella, gave a faultless rendition of a poem about roses.

When Garbo herself celebrated her birthday a few days later on 18 September, she invited her famous Riviera neighbours, but ended up spending the evening in the sole company of Georges Schlee. She was reported to be existing on a diet of fresh fruit, yogurt and iced tea. Presently they went on to Athens, and then to Rome, where Garbo was spotted walking hatless and casually attired in the Via Veneto, early in October. Without seeing Cecil, Garbo returned to New York. In November he wrote to Mercedes:

. . . Am glad you took Greta to the movies. I suppose being bedridden is the next step . . . It’s terribly sad – & I have the awful example of Stephen Tennant fn3 in the neighbourhood. He is really dotty by now, & so self centred that the doctors are in despair. It fills me with gloom & horror. There was much conversation in Paris about Schlee’s behaviour on board the Onassis yacht this year. It seems he is not likely to be invited again. It’s a wonder to me that they were able to put up with him as long as this. But they’re not great masters in the art of discrimination . . .¹¹

Early in 1959, Cecil was in New York, working on Noël Coward’s production of Look After Lulu. He rang up Garbo shortly after his arrival and she came round for a drink.

I watched Greta with love & compassion. She had aged so much in the twelve years that I’ve known her well that it’s cruel & unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything so dazzling as her periwinkle blue eyes when I first walked with her on Fifth Avenue. Her face was flawless. Now the crevices are deep. Yet it is still a beautiful sensitive face & the play of expression that runs over it while she tells a story is an enchantment to watch – The lips move over the teeth in the most perfect delicacy of meaning . . .

My birthday. She took me to lunch, at the Passy – since there were, to quote Art Buchwald – too many people ‘we love & admire’ at the new successful restaurant La Côte Basque. Here today there were even more friends & acquaintances than at the other. We were completely surrounded by Fairbanks, Mellons & Berlins. The same badinage: ‘Shall we talk about something serious today?’ I asked. ‘Nothing wrong I hope?’ – ‘No I trust not’. But I would like to have cracked below the surface of our superficial badinage. We talked a little about Hollywood & her last visit – how she looked after Harry Crocker until he died [on 23 May 1958], how the head of MGM had been the only one to pay attention to her; he sends flowers & wants her to go back to films. ‘I’m quite realistic about it. It would be worth them risking just one film. They say they can still photograph me well on the screen – & I believe it – although now in news pictures I look so terrible – I was shocked to see all those lines above my mouth show – I know I have them & I asked Laszlo if he couldn’t get rid of them (he can’t). But now they show in the photographs!’ ‘But what part would they give me? They haven’t found anything. There was one crackpot with an idea – & he kept badgering me – but why should I go through all that suffering – for what?’

Occasionally we talk about things of the past that are interesting but so much time is spent in childish make believe which soon makes me feel somewhat self conscious. So much time is spent in conjecture: ‘Let’s go – Let’s go to Mexico, or Florida or Spain & to the Cha Cha competition’. But I know we’ll never go anywhere.

I want to ask her what is her link with Schlee. I want to know why at the last minute she always reverts to him. I wanted to tell her that I had seriously been considering getting married,fn4 & quite suddenly I did.

I must say she coped with the situation very delightfully: ‘I’ll be right over to stop it. I’ll come over to cut her head off. Well, well, well. So you’ve got a girl, have you?’ She looked quizzically at me: ‘There’s only one objection’, I said. She forestalled me: ‘You don’t love her?’ – ‘I’m not in love with her. She’s an angel. I know I’d be terrifically lucky if ever she would marry me. She’s adorable – everything that’s good & brave & noble & attractive. But I just don’t feel that coup de foudre’.

It is desperately sad when one is given the brush off. I was miserable when Greta paid no attention to me. But it is sad in a much more negative, depressing way when one feels less strongly about someone who has meant so much to one – when one has to feel that one must be kind in brushing them off. I realise, at last, it is too late for Greta & me ever to marry now. The first interest has gone – & there is nothing left to talk about.¹²

At the end of January there was an awkward episode with Garbo and Victor Rothschild at Cecil’s hotel.

Victor & his wife came in – delighted to see me – after a long interval. They then discovered the presence of Greta. Huge delight & surprise. Victor, coarse as he is, spoke in a robust somewhat challenging vein to Greta: ‘Why did you go on Onassis’ yacht? What do you get out of it?’ Greta was a little nonplussed. She is generally witty & quick of answer but the bull-like Victor was too strong a breath of air for her. Victor addressed himself to me. He joked & laughed with me – & we had a good time – conversation being more or less general. Then Greta got up & left.

No regrets from the R’s at her departure – & on to more jolly jokes. I wondered why Greta left so early. Immediately after the R’s had left to catch the elevator G. telephoned. ‘Don’t let them know who you’re speaking to – if they’re still there – But what happened? I didn’t enjoy myself. The Lord never even looked at me. He paid no attention to me whatsoever. It wasn’t at all a nice atmosphere & I was numb & I’ve come home very depressed. I was very sad in the taxi’. It made me very sad that she was sad & apologised. I told her that all Rothschilds are coarse. ‘Well when you’re as sensitive as I am it isn’t very pleasant, especially when you go out as little as I do you expect it to be an exception & very gay’. Then I said ‘Well please forget it & I’m sorry’ & she said ‘Give me another chance. Good night Beattie’. My heart broke.13

Cecil saw little of Garbo for the rest of the year. The only news of her came from Mercedes:

Greta has just this second telephoned and we have had one of those ‘zesch’ conversations!!

We went shopping this afternoon and it is remarkable the sensation she always causes. Every block someone remarked her and some girls followed us and tried to photograph her. God knows how they recognize her for she had a muffler tied round her head, that old tired seal-skin coat down to the ground and great snow boots. Hardly the conventional movie star but the little face is always beautiful and they probably just see that.

The ‘Baron’ [Eric Goldschmidt-Rothschild] is back here in New York but Greta does not see him. I wonder what happened between them after so many walks together. I’ll bet he will never be so well exercised in his life again!¹⁴

^fn1Mercedes certainly had Garbo’s last telephone number in her address book, so this story may be muddled.

^fn2Dr Paul Niehans (d. 1971). The famous monkey-gland doctor. Noël Coward once spotted a black sheep in a nearby field and said: ‘He must be expecting Paul Robeson’.

^fn3Tennant had retreated to bed as an ailing person in the late 1920s and remained there – except for certain memorable excursions into the outside world – for over fifty-five years. He had been Cecil’s early role model.

^fn4Cecil was preoccupied with the idea of marrying June Osborn, the attractive widow of the pianist Franz Osborn. Lady Diana Cooper urged him to do so, and to have a child. There were some nervous meetings, dinners, and a weekend together in the country with friends. Then in December 1959 Cecil proposed and was gently turned down.