COMMITMENTS : A Brief Affair : Greta Garbo and fellow actor Gilbert Roland apparently had a steamy liaison going in the ‘40s. The proof? He had a pair of her silk skivvies and several letters; now they’re on the auction block.

If underpants could only talk.

Not just any underpants, mind you, but a certain pair of monogrammed, cream-colored silk knickers that reportedly once belonged to Greta Garbo. Those panties, appraised at $150,000 to $200,000, will hit the auction block today at Christie’s in New York, put there not by Garbo’s estate but by the estate of actor Gilbert Roland, who died in 1994.

Now, you ask, how did Roland get hold of Garbo’s undies?

“Well, Gilbert was not one to talk of these things,” says his former son-in-law, Scott Harrison, who is also the executor of his estate. “But through the 25 years I knew him and as he writes in his [as yet unpublished] memoirs, he made it clear that he and Greta Garbo had an affair.”

And apparently he has the goods to prove it.

Also to be auctioned, separately from the knickers, are 13 letters that Garbo wrote to Roland. The letters, Garbo-esque in that they don’t openly acknowledge the affair, nonetheless reveal an intimacy between the two.

“The letters do seem to imply that there was something there,” says Karen Swenson, who is writing a biography titled “Greta Garbo: A Life Apart” for Scribner’s, “which is certainly a surprise because Garbo never mentioned Gilbert Roland as being anyone she knew.”

Roland began his career at 14 when he hopped a freight train to Los Angeles and started work as an extra for $3 a day. He was Rudolph Valentino’s double and later became a Latin lover leading man in Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s, one who was also romantically linked with many of his leading ladies off-screen. Among his more popular films were “The Last Train From Madrid,” “The Bullfighter” and the “Lady and the Sea Hawk.” During World War II, he served as a lieutenant in the Air Force, involved with aerial reconnaissance.

The affair with Garbo began in 1943 while he was in Los Angeles on leave. He writes that he was walking down an empty street in Beverly Hills one night when he noticed a woman walking toward him, wearing a trench coat and a large hat.

We walked toward each other, stopped a moment, our eyes met. She pulled her hat down, walked away. Greta Garbo. I stood on the sidewalk, watched her disappear on Bedford Drive. We were in the same art, had several intimate friends, but had never met.

Both Roland and Garbo were 38 at the time; he was married to Constance Bennett, whom he would later divorce. His career was on the wane, having already completed two-thirds of the 80 films in which he would work. She had retired from acting two years earlier.

Roland wouldn’t actually meet Garbo until a few days later, when his Beverly Hills tailor happened to show the actor a pair of slacks that had been made for the actress. Roland offered to deliver them himself and the two met later that day when Garbo, having received his note with the slacks, showed up at Ronald’s house. After several drinks and dinner, Roland contends, Garbo stayed the night.

We sat there in the patio in silence. I went close to her, and found the lips of my desire. We went upstairs. The moon was full, the windows opened. I could see her shadow by the moon, and mine, then the two met. So it was.

When he left that morning to return to the war, Roland took Garbo’s silk panties with him and gave her his gold ring.

We kissed goodbye. I boarded the Army Transport plane back to the field, her panties inside my coat pocket.

Roland would carry those silk knickers inside his military knapsack for two years. And, according to his memoirs, he continued his relationship with Garbo during that time, seeing her mostly in New York while on leave. The two, though, eventually went their own ways.

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So how much will collectors pay to own a portion of that romance? As part of its Hollywood memorabilia sale, Christie’s will auction off the panties and army knapsack together, setting a pre-auction estimate of $10,000 to $15,000. Yet Hollywood film historian and archivist Anthony Slide believes the knickers and knapsack will bring between $150,000 and $200,000.

“Garbo items have been fluctuating in value,” Slide says, “but the knickers are unique. For one thing, a dealer has the potential to cut them up and sell the pieces separately.”

A current price guide puts a Garbo autograph at $15,000, Slide says, yet a one-page letter from her sold for only $800 in 1992. Christie’s has listed the pre-auction appraisal for the 13 letters Garbo wrote to Roland at $15,000 to $20,000.

“These figures are really a conservative jumping-off point,” explains Nancy Valentino, who’s handling the memorabilia sale.

A Maltese falcon from the movie of the same name, for instance, was listed at a pre-auction price of $30,000 to $60,000, but actually sold for $398,000.

Derek Reisfield, Garbo’s great-nephew, has seen the Garbo-Roland letters and maintains that they are authentic. “They are genuine, but I have to say I have seen an incredible number of fakes and forgeries when it comes to signatures and letters related to Miss Garbo,” Reisfield says. He had no comment regarding the authenticity of the knickers, saying it’s been his family’s policy not to comment on Garbo’s private life.

Slide, meanwhile, says the intimate nature of Garbo’s letters, where she refers to herself as “Eleanor,” “Harriet Brown” and calls Roland her “little soldier boy” and “the mountain boy,” are about as forthcoming as Garbo ever got.

“They obviously document a love affair between Roland and Garbo. That’s what makes these letters unusual. And as for the uniqueness of knickers, well, they speak for themselves.”

If only they did.