Jeanne Eagels

Eagels' performance in The Letter inspired many actors new to the medium of talking pictures, including Bette Davis who repeated the role in a 1940 remake of the film. Greta Garbo has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6901 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. The Oscar went to Mary Pickford for the film Coquette. Her ashes are buried at the Skogskyrkogården Cemetery in Stockholm.
Eagels was posthumously nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the The Letter. She died at age 84 as a result of renal failure in New York on Easter Sunday, and was cremated. She was survived by her mother, Julia Eagles, and several brothers and sisters. It is rumored that she wrote an autobiography just before her death but this book has yet to be published if it exists.

In Kansas City, thousands of mourning fans were at the train station when her coffin was returned for interment in the local Calvary Cemetery. She had invested wisely, was known for extreme frugality, and was a very wealthy woman. Three medical practitioners gave three different causes for her death, all of which pointed to alcohol and drug abuse. Garbo lived the last years of her life in absolute seclusion.
Just before she was to return to the Broadway stage, Jeanne Eagels died suddenly at a hospital in New York City on October 3, 1929. She spent time gardening flowers and vegetables and was known for taking walks through New York streets dressed casually and wearing large sunglasses, always avoiding prying eyes, the paparazzi and media attention. Her performance in The Letter garnered high praise from critics. She would at times jet-set with some of the world's best known personalities, such as Aristotle Onassis and others, but chose to live a private life.

The ban did not stop Eagels from working in film, and she made two "talkies" for Paramount Pictures, including The Letter and Jealousy (both released in 1929). In the mid-1950s, she bought a seven room apartment in New York at 450 East 52nd Street, where she lived for the rest of her life. In 1928, after failing to appear for a performance in Milwaukee, Eagels was banned by Actors Equity from appearing on stage for 18 months. She was awarded a special Academy Award for unforgettable performances in 1954. She then went on tour with Her Cardboard Lover for several months. In 1951, she became an American citizen. She appeared opposite John Gilbert in Man, Woman and Sin, which was directed by Monta Bell and made at MGM studios in California. Her movies, she felt, had their proper place in history and would gain in value.

This play was a modest success, and after a season on Broadway, she took a break to make a movie. By her own admission, Garbo felt that after World War II the world changed, perhaps forever. After much speculation about her next play, she chose a comedy Her Cardboard Lover (1927) in which she appeared on stage with Leslie Howard. Up until her death, Garbo sightings were considered sport for paparazzi photographers.
For her next role, Eagels was offered the part of Roxie Hart in the play Chicago, but walked out of this role during rehearsals, possibly due to conflicts with the director. She withdrew from the entertainment world completely and moved to a secluded life in New York City, refusing to make any public appearances. They had no children together. In 1949, Garbo filmed a screen test as she considered reentering the movie business, but otherwise never stepped in front of a movie camera again.

The marriage was a stormy one and they divorced in 1928. It is often reported that Garbo chose to retire from cinema after this film's failure, but in fact she simply became more choosy about her roles, and eventually years had passed without her agreeing to do another film.
During this period she married 'Ted' Edward Harris Coy (1925), a former Yale University football star. Ninotchka was a successful attempt at lightening Garbo's image and making her less exotic, complete with the insertion of a scene in which her character breaks into joyful laughter which subsequently provided the film with its famous tagline, "Garbo laughs!" A follow-up film, Two-Faced Woman, attempted to capitalize upon this by casting Garbo in a romantic comedy that featured her dancing, but this film was a critical and box-office failure as it was felt that the elements that had made Garbo unique were all but eliminated. She went on tour with Rain for two more seasons, and returned to Broadway to give a farewell performance in 1926. Her famous byline was "I vant to be alone." Except at the very beginning of her career, she granted no interviews, signed no autographs, attended no premieres and answered no fan mail. The house was packed nearly every night for two years. She was also famous for shunning publicity, which became part of the Garbo mystique.

Critics raved about her tense, smoldering, and vivid performance. Greta Garbo was considered one of the most glamorous movie stars of the 1920s and 1930s. She played the character of Sadie Thompson, a free-wheeling and free-loving spirit who confronts a fire-and-brimstone preacher on a South Pacific island. Garbo was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Anna Christie (1930), Romance (1930), Camille (1937) and Ninotchka (1939). She appeared in several other Broadway shows once she returned, but in 1922 she made her first appearance as a star in a bone fide hit- Rain. She then starred opposite Melvyn Douglas in the comedy Ninotchka (1939) by director Ernst Lubitsch, which was publicized with the slogan "Garbo Laughs.". She had to quit this show due to illness (probably sinusitis) and she subsequently travelled to Europe. Her performance as the doomed courtesan in Camille (1937) was called the finest ever recorded on film.

In 1918 she appeared in Daddies, a David Belasco production, and won even more notice. She had made a silent version, Love, with John Gilbert in (1927). Eagels eventually won recognition and kudos playing opposite the stage actor George Arliss in three successive plays. Selznick wanted her cast as the dying heiress in Dark Victory in 1935, but she insisted on being cast in another screen version of Tolstoy's classic Anna Karenina. In 1916 and 1917 she made three films for Thanhouser Film Corporation. David O. Her acting career blossomed, and in 1914 she appeared in her first motion picture role. She exercised that control by getting her leading man, Laurence Olivier, replaced on Queen Christina (1934) with former co-star John Gilbert.

Although she struggled for recognition as a dramatic actress, her beauty, talent and luck led to her getting bigger parts in better shows. They finally settled and she signed a new contract, which granted her almost total control over her movies. She changed the spelling of her surname to "Eagels", allegedly because this spelling looked better in lights. She then had a contract dispute with MGM and did not appear on the screen for almost two years. At one point her acting coach was Beverly Sitgreaves, who had once shared the stage with the great French actress Sarah Bernhardt. She was next part of an all star cast in Grand Hotel (1932). She started out as a chorus girl and this led to appearances in the chorus of the Ziegfeld Follies (i.e., as a Ziegfeld Girl). The censors complained about her revealing outfit shown on the movie poster.

In or around 1911, she came to New York City and had to start at the bottom again. Garbo appeared very seductive as the World War I spy in the title role of Mata Hari (1932). At first she was a dancer, but in time she went on to play the leading lady in several popular comedies and dramas put on by the Dubinskys. No one could watch as her scenes were shot. Her ambitions were such that she left Kansas City around the age of 12 and toured the Midwest with the Dubinsky Brothers' traveling theater show. She was known for always having a closed set to all visitors. It was there that she began her acting career, appearing in a variety of small venues at a very young age. When she was filming, if something happened that she was not pleased with she would say, "I think I'll go back to Sweden!" This would frighten the movie studio heads, who gave in to her every wish.

Born Amelia Jeannine Eagles in Kansas City, Missouri. Unfortunately, her one-time fiancé, John Gilbert, whose popularity was waning, did not fare as well after the advent of sound and his career faltered. Jeanne Eagels (June 26, 1890 – October 3, 1929) was an actress on Broadway and in several motion pictures. Her low, husky voice with Swedish accent was heard on screen for the first time in Anna Christie (1930), which was publicized with the slogan "Garbo Talks." The movie was a huge success, but Garbo personally hated her performance. Jeanne Eagles page (http://www.jeanneeagels.com). Having achieved enormous success as a silent movie star, she was one of the few who made the transition to talkies. Her name was linked with his in a much publicized romance, and she was said to have left him standing at the altar when she changed her mind about getting married.

The latter two she starred in with the popular leading man John Gilbert. The most important of Garbo's silent movies were The Torrent (1926), Flesh and the Devil (1927) and Love (1927). He was fired by MGM and returned to Sweden in 1928, where he died soon after. But their relationship came to an end as her fame grew.

When Stiller went to the United States in 1925 to work for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he insisted that Garbo be given a contract as well. She starred in two movies in Sweden and one in Germany. He also gave her the stage name Greta Garbo. He trained her in cinema acting technique and cast her in a major role in Gösta Berlings Saga (1924) (English: The Story of Gösta Berling).

While she was there, she met the Swedish director Mauritz Stiller. From 1922 to 1924, she studied at the prestigious Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. He cast her in a small part for the movie Peter The Tramp (1920). That led to another short movie, which was seen by comedy director Eric Petscher.

Her first motion picture aspirations came when she appeared in an advertising short for the department store where she worked. She then became a clerk in a department store, where she would also model for newspaper ads. Her first job was as a lather girl in a barbershop. Consequently, she was forced to leave school and go to work.

When Greta was fourteen, her father died. Her older sister and brother were Alva and Sven. She was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in Stockholm, Sweden, the youngest of three children born to Karl Alfred Gustafsson (1871-1920) and Anna Lovisa Johnasson (1872-1944). Greta Garbo (September 18, 1905 - April 15, 1990) was a Swedish actress.