Single Girl: Greta Garbo

“I want to be alone” became Greta Garbo’s most famous quote, as she was always shying away from the camera outside of her acting jobs.

Though years later, she was quoted saying, “I never said, ‘I want to be alone,’” quoted in a 1955 piece in LIFE magazine.

“I only said, ‘I want to be let alone! There is all the difference.” Greta Garbo has been regarded as one of the greatest actresses to ever be on screen.

She was known for her somber persona, her portrayals of tragic characters, and her understated performances.

She was an incredibly private person, and she fiercely protected that privacy. Greta Garbo would never kiss and tell, though that didn’t mean she wasn’t taking lovers.

While she chose not to marry or have children, it’s been said that she loved to get around. It’s possible that her intense need for privacy was born from her unconventional sex life for the time period.

Greta is known to have taken lovers with men, women, gays, straights, single people, or married people.

Despite her private sex life, it was widely known that she frequently bedded the gay fashion photographer Cecil Beaton, who gossiped to author Truman Capote that Garbo said he was one of the only people to ever give her physical satisfaction.



When Garbo met her co-star, John Gilbert, for the movie “Flesh And The Devil” there was an instant attraction. The two fell madly in love, and their real-life romance bled into their on-screen chemistry.

The movie’s director, Clarence Brown was quoted saying, “Those two were alone in a world of their own. It seemed like an intrusion to yell ‘cut!’. I used to just motion the crew to another part of the set and let them finish what they were doing.”

As for her relationships with other women, Garbo was linked to Tallulah Bankhead, Billie Holiday, and Louise Brooks, and a rumored affair with Josephine Baker.

Greta Garbo lived a life that was unapologetically for herself, and she never really even had a relationship that could’ve been described as serious. Throughout her life, her love life remained a mystery, and it seemed that’s exactly what she wanted.

- Sienna Sinclaire - Naughty Lifestyle Guide - Los Angeles Dating & Sex Coach