A Run-In With the Elusive Garbo Provides the Perfect Party Topic

The last time I saw Greta Garbo was in the mid-1970s and we really didn’t get a chance to chat, so I never found out what she’d been up to since her retirement from the screen.

OK, so it was the only time I ever saw Garbo, but that line has snapped more heads at parties than the mention of any stock brokerage on earth.

And the fact that I physically touched the elusive Garbo certainly puts me in rare company indeed.

Here’s how it happened.

I had done an interview with the late Gayelord Hauser, the prince of healthy living and adviser from the early 1930s to the likes of Mae West, Cary Grant and Garbo, and he had invited me to a small gathering he was having at his Coldwater Canyon home.

Hauser had suggested I come early so he could show me his extensive art collection.

His house sat back off the road and was reached by a driveway so wide people often mistook it for a street, so there was a constant flow of cars coming as far as the gate, then turning around and heading back.

As I drove up the driveway, I noticed a woman in a large sun hat strolling through the formal courtyard behind the gate. When she saw me, she darted behind a pillar and watched me pull up. When I got out of the car and was obviously coming in, she took off at a dead run toward the guest house.

A bit later, as Hauser was mixing some refreshments, I asked, “Who was that crazy lady running around the yard when I arrived?”

“Oh,” he said, very matter-of-factly, “that’s Garbo.”

“Greta Garbo?” said I.

“Yes; she’s very funny around strangers,” he said, and began describing a Renoir.

Well, the other 20 or so guests arrived and the party went on, but at no point during the evening was there any mention or sign of the lady in the guest house.

I finally gave up on the idea of having a drink and a little chat with the elusive Swede. It was time to go anyway, so I did.

Halfway down the hill, I realized I had forgotten a package of photos Hauser had given me, so I turned around and went back.

Apparently, from what I could gather later, once the party had narrowed down to just a few of Garbo’s old friends, Hauser had sent a maid to tell her the coast was clear. As the maid was delivering her message, I was reentering the main house.

I retrieved the package and walked out the front door and-- smack! --physically ran face dab into Garbo.

Apparently remembering an extremely important previous engagement, she gasped, threw her hands in front of her face, then turned and ran lickety-split across the courtyard.

Slam! went the door, and I could hear locks latching and saw lights go out.

And that’s how I ran into Greta Garbo at a party one night.