Born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in Stockholm, Sweden, the youngest of three children born to Karl Alfred Gustafsson (1871–1920) and Anna Lovisa Johansson (1872–1944). Her older sister and brother were Alva and Sven.When Garbo was fourteen years old, her father, to whom she was extremely close, died. She was forced to leave school and go to work. Her first job was as a lather girl in a barbershop. Greta states in the book Garbo On Garbo page 33 that her relationship with her mother was not strained. She then became a clerk at the department store PUB in Stockholm, where she would also model for newspaper advertisements. Her first motion picture aspirations came when she appeared in a group of short film advertisements for the department store where she worked, and they were eventually seen by comedy director Eric Petscher. He cast her in a big part for his upcoming film Peter The Tramp in 1922, although her motion picture debut was a year earlier in a low-budget film.
From 1922 to 1924, she studied at the prestigious Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. While she was there, she met director Mauritz Stiller. He trained her in cinema acting technique, gave her the stage name "Greta Garbo", and cast her in a major role in the silent film Gösta Berlings Saga (English: The Story of Gösta Berling) in 1924, a dramatization of the famous novel by Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf. She starred opposite Swedish film actor Lars Hanson and then starred in two more movies in Sweden and one in Germany (Die Freudlose Gasse - The Joyless Street). She and Stiller were brought to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by Louis B. Mayer when Gösta Berlings Saga caught his attention. On viewing the film, Mayer was impressed with Stiller's direction, but was much more taken with Garbo's acting and screen presence.
According to Mayer's daughter, Irene, with whom he screened the film, it was look and emotions that emanated from her eyes that would make her a star. Unfortunately, her relationship with Stiller came to an end as her fame grew and he struggled in the studio system. He was fired by MGM and returned to Sweden in 1928, where he died soon after. Throughout this period, Garbo was slowly emerging as a "Galatea" molded by a series of corporate Pygmalions. In photographs and films one can see her change from a pudgy shop-girl until she turns into the perfect Sphinx, the "face" captured in famous pictures by Edward Steichen and Clarence Bull, and other photographers of the period.
