Scott Reisfield
Scott Reisfield is the grand-nephew of Greta Garbo and wrote the 2005 book Garbo: Portraits from her Private Collection (co-written with Robert Dance). That book was a companion to the museum exhibit of the same name. The American edition sold 12,500 copies. It was also printed in German, French and Swedish.
Scott has traveled around the world to research Garbo. He has access to family documents and collections that have not been used prior to this. He had the time to tease out fact from fiction, and there was a lot of fiction. He went back to archives multiple times to pin down answers.
Scott has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the University of Michigan. He has spent forty years in business, thirty of them in senior management, working in companies ranging from large corporations to startups. He also ran marketing for a national association. Today, Scott lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Famously elusive, Greta Garbo only had her picture taken when a contract required it. She shunned publicity, kept her private life a secret, and rejected the spotlight. Published here for the first time are these portraits–impeccably reproduced in tritone, one more beautiful than the next. In addition, the book features family pictures, candid photographs, and letters previously viewed only by her closest friends and relatives.
Scott Reisfield provides an intimate portrait of his great aunt, spanning well beyond her career in the public eye–from the earliest days in Sweden when she would sneak through the back door of the theater to see actors rehearse, to her later years in New York when she traveled exclusively through back entrances, side doors, and secret elevators.
Co-author Robert Dance’s essay traces the evolution of the image of Garbo–from the ingénue of her first publicity shots to the icon that she became–while an illustrated film production history documents all the still photography and portraiture of her entire career.
Long treasured by her immediate family alone, this collection of photographs, and the essays that accompany them, form a spectacular tribute to Garbo, the woman and the myth, on the eve of her centennial.
