60 free Greta Garbo trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Greta Garbo trivia quiz covers the whole arc of the Swedish star, from a cold-water flat in Stockholm to MGM's most valuable player and finally to the sunglasses-wearing recluse of Manhattan's East 52nd Street. The easy questions handle the basics: her birthplace, the studio that made her, the taglines 'Garbo talks!' and 'Garbo laughs!', and the famous line about wanting to be alone. The harder end is for classic-film devotees: the director who discovered her and probably invented her name, the department store where she modelled hats, the leading man she nearly married, the salary she demanded for Queen Christina, why her last film was condemned by the Legion of Decency, the role in Sunset Boulevard she turned down, and the honours Sweden gave her decades after she stopped working. There are also questions on Anna Christie, Mata Hari, Grand Hotel, Camille, Ninotchka and the people around her, from Mauritz Stiller to Cecil Beaton. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for Garbo, her films and her collaborators before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, our classic Hollywood, silent film and Best Picture winners quizzes are natural next stops.
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Q 01In which city was Greta Garbo born in 1905?
Stockholm
She grew up in the working-class Södermalm district in a three-bedroom cold-water flat, the youngest of three children.
Q 02What was Garbo's surname at birth?
Gustafsson
Her mother worked in a jam factory and her father, a labourer, died of Spanish flu when she was 14.
Q 03As a small child Garbo was nicknamed 'Kata'; where did the nickname come from?
Her own mispronunciation of Greta
She was a shy daydreamer who disliked school and left it at 13, never attending high school.
Q 04Before acting, Garbo modelled hats for the catalogue of which Swedish department store?
PUB
She had started as a soap-lather girl in a barber shop before running errands in the store's millinery department.
Q 05Which director recruited Garbo in 1924 for The Saga of Gösta Berling and became her mentor?
Mauritz Stiller
Born Moshe Stiller in Helsinki, he is also believed to have suggested the screen name Garbo.
Q 06The Saga of Gösta Berling was based on the debut novel of which Nobel Prize-winning author?
Selma Lagerlöf
Garbo played Countess Elizabeth Dohna in her first leading role, alongside Lars Hanson.
Q 07Garbo's 1925 film Die freudlose Gasse (Joyless Street), made in Berlin, was directed by whom?
G. W. Pabst
She co-starred with Asta Nielsen and said that in expression and versatility she was 'nothing to her'.
Q 08Which MGM chief brought Garbo to Hollywood in 1925 after seeing her in Gösta Berling?
Louis B. Mayer
His daughter recalled him saying 'It was her eyes ... I can make a star out of her.'
Q 09After crossing the Atlantic, Garbo and Stiller waited in New York how long without word from MGM?
Over six months
They then went to Los Angeles on their own and waited another five weeks before a friend got MGM's production boss to grant a screen test.
Q 10Garbo's first American film, Torrent (1926), adapted a novel by which Spanish writer?
Vicente Blasco Ibáñez
She replaced Aileen Pringle as a peasant girl turned singer, and her second film The Temptress adapted another Ibáñez novel.
Q 11Which 1926 film, Garbo's third in America, made her an international star?
Flesh and the Devil
Silent-film historian Kevin Brownlow said she gave 'a more erotic performance than Hollywood had ever seen' in it.
Q 12Which leading man co-starred in Garbo's 1926 breakthrough film and became her off-screen lover?
John Gilbert
Legend says he proposed and a wedding was arranged, but she backed out; they made four films together in all.
Q 13Which 1928 film's profits made Garbo MGM's top box-office star, displacing Lillian Gish?
A Woman of Affairs
It was her third picture with Gilbert, and by then all eight of her post-Temptress silents had been hits.
Q 21In Mata Hari (1931) Garbo played the World War I spy opposite which leading man?
Ramón Novarro
The release reportedly 'caused panic', with police reserves needed to control the crowds.
Q 22What profession does Garbo's Grusinskaya have in the 1932 MGM film that won Best Picture?
Ballerina
The ensemble included John Barrymore, Joan Crawford and Wallace Beery, and the film won Best Picture.
Q 23The 1932 film in which Garbo played Grusinskaya holds what unique Academy Award distinction?
Only Best Picture winner with no other nominations
Q 14Garbo demanded black screens on set, explaining that if alone, her face would do what?
Things it could not do otherwise
She also barred all visitors from her sets, including the studio brass.
Q 15Garbo's last silent film, The Kiss (1929), was also the last silent film made by which studio?
MGM
The studio was the last in Hollywood to convert to sound, partly out of fear that her accent would not work in sound films.
Q 16Garbo's first talking picture, Anna Christie (1930), adapted a play by which dramatist?
Eugene O'Neill
MGM's marketing made a sensation of her speaking voice and it became the highest-grossing film of the year.
Q 17Roughly how far into Anna Christie does Garbo speak her first line, ordering a whisky?
Sixteen minutes
Her English was so good by then that she had to add an accent in retakes to sound more Swedish.
Q 18Which MGM colleague beat Garbo to the Best Actress Oscar for her Anna Christie nomination?
Norma Shearer
That nomination was combined with her work in Romance; she was the first Nordic performer ever nominated for acting.
Q 19After finishing Anna Christie in English, Garbo shot a second version of the film in which language?
German
It was released in December 1930 with a different director and cast; a silent version with titles was also made.
Q 20Garbo's 1931 film Susan Lenox was used to boost which then little-known actor?
Clark Gable
She was ranked the most popular female star in America in both 1930 and 1931.
It came from Vicki Baum's novel Menschen im Hotel and was remade as Week-End at the Waldorf in 1945.
Q 24The AFI's 30th most memorable movie quote, 'I want to be alone', comes from which Garbo film?
Grand Hotel
Garbo insisted in a 1955 LIFE piece that what she had said in life was 'I want to be let alone'.
Q 25Garbo's 1933 MGM contract renewal, conditional on Queen Christina, set what per-film salary?
$300,000
The negotiations took nearly a year and the film became one of the studio's biggest productions to that point.
Q 26Which British actor was set to debut opposite Garbo in Queen Christina before a poor screen test?
Laurence Olivier
Garbo insisted on her former lover instead, giving the declining star his fourth and last film with her.
Q 27For Queen Christina's famous final shot, Rouben Mamoulian wanted Garbo's face to be what?
A blank piece of paper
He described the earlier bedroom sequence, in which she memorises the room, as 'a sonnet'.
Q 28Garbo's close friend Mercedes de Acosta wrote a screenplay for her to play which historical figure, a project MGM refused?
Joan of Arc
De Acosta, an acknowledged lesbian, had a sporadic and volatile romance with Garbo according to both women's biographers.
Q 29Garbo turned down the dying heiress in Dark Victory to instead make which 1935 literary adaptation?
Anna Karenina
She had already played the same Tolstoy heroine in a 1927 silent released as Love, and this version won her the New York Film Critics Circle award.
Q 30Garbo's 1935 Tolstoy adaptation won which prize at the Venice Film Festival?
The Mussolini Cup
Fredric March played Vronsky and Basil Rathbone was Karenin; the film grossed over $2.3 million.