Garbo and her Svengali, Mauritz Stiller, arriving in New York at the start of her Hollywood adventure, July 1925.

With her favourite co-star, Lars Hanson, in The Divine Woman (1928), the only Garbo film of which no complete print survives.

With Nils Asther in The Single Standard (1929). Though openly gay in a prejudiced Hollywood, Asther did have an affair with Garbo. © Getty Images Ltd

As Helga, the poor girl rescued from prostitution by a rough and ready Clark Gable, in Susan Lenox (1931).

‘I am tired of being a symbol. I long to be a human being!’ Garbo’s finest role, in Queen Christina (1933), one of the greatest films of all time and this author’s favourite.

‘I shall never yearn for spring again!’ On the set of Marie Walewska (1937).

‘Perhaps it’s better if I live in your heart, where the world can’t see me.’ As the dying courtesan Marguerite Gauthier in Camille (1937).

With Robert Taylor in Camille (1937). Just seconds after this photograph was taken, Garbo’s gown caught fire. Headlines screamed of the co-stars’ burning passion; in reality Garbo was almost certainly not Taylor’s type! © Getty Images Ltd

‘Stalin won’t like it. Molotov may recall his envoy from MGM,’ observed one critic when faced with Garbo’s lampooning of Russia in Ninotchka (1939).

Greta Garbo flanked by Sven Hugo Borg (left), who may have fathered her child, and Victor Sjöström (right).