Garbo: A Biography

Garbo: A Biography Barry Paris (Knopf, $35) Hollywood's greatest star was its greatest anomaly-a spellbinding actress who could live without acting, a sex symbol who could live without sex, a frosty, unapproachable Nordic island in a tropical sea of publicity. Given her insular temperament, her lifelong pattern of withdrawal and evasion makes perfect sense, as does the tantalizing thread of detachment that runs through her work. She started to walk away from movies in 1942, at 36, and kept walking for nearly half a century: Paris details her long, aimless walks through the streets of Manhattan, punctuated by art collecting, European holidays with friends, and solitary dinners in front of the TV. Many of her 31 films were corny, and some were compromised, but she rose above censors, sentimental scenarios, and her own doubts. Reading this encyclopedic and finely shaded account, we can brood over the roles we would have liked to see her in. But, then, the essence of Garbo was to arouse and elude our desires. A -L.S. Klepp