Greta Garbo Trivia
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58 free Greta Garbo trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 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.
30 of 58 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city was Greta Garbo born in 1905?
Stockholm
Stockholm's working-class Södermalm district was her childhood home, and the city took her back in the end: her ashes were interred there in 1999, nine years after she died in New York.
Q 02What was Garbo's surname at birth?
Gustafsson
Gustafsson became Garbo while she was still a drama student; the director who gave her a first major film role is usually credited with choosing the new name.
Q 03Where did the young Garbo's family nickname, 'Kata', come from?
Her own mispronunciation of Greta
Her own mispronunciation of Greta, from her toddler days, stuck as a family nickname; the shy girl behind it left school at 13 and was soon nursing her sick father.
Q 04Which director cast the drama student Garbo in The Saga of Gösta Berling and became her mentor?
Mauritz Stiller
Mauritz Stiller went to Hollywood with her, but while she became a star he quarrelled with two studios, returned to Sweden and died soon afterwards.
Q 05Garbo's first major film, The Saga of Gösta Berling, was based on the debut novel of which Nobel Prize-winning author?
Selma Lagerlöf
Selma Lagerlöf's novel went almost unnoticed in Sweden until its Danish translation was acclaimed; in 1909 she became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Q 06Garbo's 1925 film Die freudlose Gasse (Joyless Street), made in Berlin, was directed by whom?
G. W. Pabst
G. W. Pabst showed hunger and vice in inflation-era Vienna so starkly that censors in several countries cut the film heavily, and versions of different lengths circulated for decades.
Q 07Which MGM chief brought Garbo to Hollywood in 1925 after seeing her in Gösta Berling?
Louis B. Mayer
Louis B. Mayer's studio was so impressed by the rushes of her first Hollywood film that her salary was raised before it was even released.
Q 08MGM retitled a 1927 Garbo romance so that posters could pair her and her co-star 'in' what?
Love
Love let the posters announce the two stars 'in Love', cashing in on gossip about their real-life romance; MGM also shot a happy ending for American audiences.
Q 09In Torrent, her first American film, Garbo played a Spanish peasant girl who becomes what?
An opera star
An opera star: the mentor who had come to Hollywood with her was passed over as director for Monta Bell, yet the newcomer triumphed without him.
Q 10Which silent film, Garbo's third in America, made her an international star?
Flesh and the Devil
Flesh and the Devil drew crowds partly on gossip that its screen passion was no act: she and her co-star had begun a real romance during filming.
Q 11Which leading man co-starred in Garbo's breakthrough American film and became her off-screen lover?
John Gilbert
John Gilbert is said to have been left waiting on their wedding day; years later she insisted that the fading star play opposite her in Queen Christina.
Q 12The scandalous bestseller The Green Hat reached the screen in 1928 as which retitled Garbo film?
A Woman of Affairs
A Woman of Affairs disguised its origins to placate the censors: the novel's title and character names were dropped, and the disease at the heart of its plot became embezzlement.
Q 13Garbo demanded black screens on set, explaining that if alone, her face would do what?
Things it could not do otherwise
Q 21What profession does Garbo's Grusinskaya have in the 1932 MGM film that won Best Picture?
Ballerina
Ballerina: the fading Russian dancer is close to ending her life when she finds a thief in her room, a penniless baron after her jewels, and loses her heart to him.
Q 22What makes Garbo's 1932 film as Grusinskaya unique among Best Picture winners?
It had no other nominations
It had no other nominations: the archetypal all-star film, with five big names sharing the bill, took the top prize without a single nod for any of them.
Q 23The AFI's 30th most memorable movie quote, 'I want to be alone', comes from which Garbo film?
Grand Hotel
Things it could not do otherwise, she said; visitors were barred from her sets too, because being watched made her feel like 'just a woman making faces for the camera'.
Q 14Garbo's last silent film, released in 1929, shares its title with a famous 1896 Edison short; what is it?
The Kiss
The Kiss was the last silent the studio made: fearing how her accent would come across, MGM put off her sound debut for as long as it could.
Q 15Garbo's first sound film, Anna Christie (1930), adapted a play by which dramatist?
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill's Pulitzer-winning play had a Swedish-American heroine, so MGM chose it for her sound debut: the accent the studio had feared now suited the part.
Q 16In Anna Christie, Garbo's first words ever spoken on screen are an order for which drink?
Whisky
Whisky, with ginger ale on the side: delivered in a husky, accented voice, the line was widely quoted and became a classic.
Q 17Which MGM colleague beat Garbo to the Best Actress Oscar for her Anna Christie nomination?
Norma Shearer
Norma Shearer won for The Divorcee, the first of several defeats for Garbo: despite repeated nominations she never won a competitive Oscar.
Q 18After finishing Anna Christie in English, Garbo shot a second version of the film in which language?
German
German was the choice because, before dubbing, studios reshot their hits for export: she remade the film on the same sets with a new director and a new cast.
Q 19Which rising MGM star made his only film with Garbo in Susan Lenox (1931)?
Clark Gable
Clark Gable never worked with her again; in Britain the film was cut and renamed The Rise of Helga to get past the censors.
Q 20In Mata Hari, Garbo played the World War I spy opposite which leading man?
Ramón Novarro
Ramón Novarro plays a Russian pilot; in a famous seduction scene she persuades him to blow out the votive candle he keeps burning, as proof of his surrender.
Grand Hotel's weary plea followed her for life, though she protested that what she had really said off screen was 'I want to be let alone'.
Q 24How does the reign of Garbo's monarch end in Queen Christina?
Abdication
Abdication: she gives up her throne to sail away with a Spanish envoy, only to lose him to a rival's sword; the real Christina also abdicated, in 1654.
Q 25Which British actor was brought to Hollywood to play opposite Garbo in Queen Christina, only to be replaced?
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier showed no spark with her on camera, so Garbo insisted on her former lover instead, a fading silent idol making his last film with her.
Q 26For Queen Christina's famous final shot, Rouben Mamoulian wanted Garbo's face to be what?
A blank piece of paper
A blank piece of paper, he told her, so that every member of the audience could write their own feelings on it; he even asked her not to blink as the camera closed in.
Q 27Garbo's close friend Mercedes de Acosta wrote a screenplay for her to play which historical figure?
Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc had already been the subject of a de Acosta stage play in the 1920s; she reworked it for Garbo in 1934, but the film was never made.
Q 28Garbo turned down the dying heiress in Dark Victory to instead make which 1935 literary adaptation?
Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina won her the New York critics' prize, while the dying heiress she passed up went to Bette Davis four years later and brought Davis an Oscar nomination.
Q 29Before the Golden Lion existed, Garbo's 1935 film won which top Venice Film Festival prize?
The Mussolini Cup
The Mussolini Cup, named for Italy's dictator, was Venice's top award from 1934 until he fell in 1943; the Golden Lion did not arrive until 1949.
Q 30Which director guided Garbo's performance as the doomed courtesan Marguerite Gautier in Camille?
George Cukor
George Cukor had just sat with his dying mother, and Garbo said he showed her how the dying fold their hands and simply fall asleep.