Crisis of identity? More a career move. Gustafsson, her real name, was ditched, along with the frizzy hair, to encourage Hollywood to take the Swedish peasant girl to their hearts. The rest were aliases to encourage Hollywood to leave the Swedish movie legend alone, and to make sure she stayed a legend by encouraging most of the world to believe she was dead, in the best tradition of young, too-beautiful stars.
A love-hate relationship, then? Hollywood loved her, voting her fifth in a recent list of movie icons of the century. Garbo hated them and flounced off to spend 50 years hiding in her East Side apartment and browsing in Bloomingdale's dressed in big hats and bigger sunglasses.
Never to be seen again? Carrots were dangled in 1955 in the form of a special Oscar for "unforgettable performances", but Garbo refused to take the bait. Sneakily-taken photos later showed the 80-year-old goddess wasn't looking as good as she used to.
And now? Since her death in 1990, Garbo's ashes have rested in seclusion, while her niece, Gray Reisfield, fought with friends of the star to get the urn back to Sweden.
Which would Garbo have wanted? New York offered more anonymity, but Sweden had salmon pudding, her favourite dish and difficult to find in Manhattan. But the decision was taken this week to bury her ashes in a Stockholm cemetery, attended only by close family, photographers and camera crews.
So much for "I vant to be alone". I wondered when that was coming. But the life of a movie legend is not easy, especially when every man wants to marry you, and your most famous line becomes the preserve of prima donnas and drag queens.
Must be something to do with the voice. "Garbo talks!" was the studio plug for the debut of her gravelly tones in Anna Christie. "Garbo laughs!" was the warning attached to Ninotchka for audiences more used to emotive glances, swoons and melodramatic lashes.
Not to be confused with: Marlene Dietrich, Gretna Green.
