‘Lonely and Homesick,’ Garbo Wrote to Swedish Friend in ’26

Sweden opened a secret file on Greta Garbo today, disclosing a 1926 letter in which the star described herself as a lonely girl longing for her native land.

The letter, written by Garbo from Hollywood to her friend and actress colleague Vera Schmiterlov, was released by Stockholm’s Royal Library after the reclusive star’s death in New York on Easter Sunday at age 84.

It was signed “Gurra,” the name Garbo used to her friends at that time and had a drawing of a girl crying, on top of which the word homesick was written.

“I live very lonely in a place where I am left absolutely alone, I go out for walks sometimes alone, look at the sky and the water and talk to myself,” Garbo wrote in the letter.

Librarian Eva Dillman told Reuters that the letter had been sealed shut and not published before Garbo’s death at the request of the person who donated it to the library in 1972.

“But now it is official. Anybody can see it,” she said.

In her letter, Garbo wrote of a great love for her country and said she longed for her old friends. She said she did not like her life in the United States.

“I never will care for anybody here. I never go to parties. I sometimes go to the cinema and see a bad film,” she wrote. “Oh, that it should be such a long distance to home.”