Ideal Beauty
The Life and Times of Greta Garbo
by Lois W. Banner
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app
1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date Sep 15 2023 | Archive Date Sep 30 2023
Talking about this book? Use #IdealBeauty #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!
Description
Ideal Beauty reveals the woman behind the mystique, a woman who overcame an impoverished childhood to become a student at the Swedish Royal Dramatic Academy, an actress in European films, and ultimately a Hollywood star. Chronicling her tough negotiations with Louis B. Mayer at MGM, it shows how Garbo carved out enough power in Hollywood to craft a distinctly new feminist screen presence in films like Queen Christina. Banner draws on over ten years of in-depth archival research in Sweden, Germany, France, and the United States to demonstrate how, away from the camera’s glare, Garbo’s life was even more intriguing. Ideal Beauty takes a fresh look at an icon who helped to define female beauty in the twentieth century and provides answers to much-debated questions about Garbo’s childhood, sexuality, career, illnesses and breakdowns, and spiritual awakening.
Advance Praise
"[A] reconsideration of Greta Garbo as a template for analyzing tropes about 20th-century women...[Ideal Beauty] presents a truly different approach for both lay and academic readers. It expertly offers an understanding of an elusive figure within the context of the film industry."
--Library Journal, STARRED Review
“In this scrupulously researched book, Lois Banner brings a novel and insightful approach to the study of film icon Greta Garbo by examining her life and relation to standards of beauty, as well as surfacing previously unheralded issues: those who found her unattractive, the role of “Garbo Maniacs” in her star discourse, her power at MGM, the toll of her hidden illnesses, the place of religion in her life, the celebrity world in which she circulated post-Hollywood retirement. Thus, Ideal Beauty combines biography, film analysis, and social/feminist history in a scholarly yet approachable fashion. A must for all Garbo aficionados.”
--Lucy Fischer, Distinguished Professor Emerita, University of Pittsburgh
"In this illuminating biography of Greta Garbo, Lois Banner brings her skills and talents as a perceptive feminist, accomplished historian, and keen cultural observer to move beyond the myths and stereotypes to uncover the life and times of this iconic Hollywood beauty. A great read!"
--Lary May, author of Screening out the Past and editor of Recasting America
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781978806504 |
| PRICE | $34.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 286 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Wendi M, Reviewer
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. Ms. Garbo was a deep, complicated, troubled woman. The layers of isolation from the celebrity life, show the roots of the obsession with celebrity that we now have.
Dr. Banner researched so deeply and fully that I can’t imagine reading a better book on Garbo. This is something I’m not sure she would have wanted written about her, but I’m so glad it was!
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC, but the opinions are all my own.
Susan D, Reviewer
A fresh look at the style, image and persona that was Garbo.
Lois Banner reveals the layers of this multifaceted beauty. Gender bending in style, romantically involved with men and women, elusive, troubled, desirable and retired from her career at the age of thirty six, this is a book that longed to be written.
An interesting combination of fashion, film, feminism and fight this is a must read.
My thanks to NetGalley, the author and Rutgers University Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Readers who liked this book also liked:
