The time James Stewart knocked Greta Garbo “flat on her ass”
Back in the Golden Age of Hollywood, there was a steady stream of stars who came into such prominence that their names would ring true throughout the proceeding generations. With that in mind, it would be foolish to argue that both James Stewart and Greta Garbo do not deserve such acclaim.
In terms of Stewart, he was the star who seemed to personify the “American ideal” of the mid-20th century, beginning his career on the stage before moving to cinema. Throughout his career, Stewart appeared in countless notable movies, including You Can’t Take It with You, The Philadelphia Story, and It’s a Wonderful Life, becoming a hero of Hollywood in the process.
Garbo, on the other hand, who was born in Sweden just three years before Stewart, appeared in a number of silent movies in Hollywood before making the transition to the “talkies”, beginning with 1930’s Anna Christie. In the following decades, Garbo proved her versatility and talent by giving rousing efforts in the likes of Romance, Camille and Ninotchka.
Despite being in Hollywood at the same time, Stewart and Garbo never acted together, but they famously ran into one another, although the meeting was one of sheer embarrassment. In an interview with Maury Z. Levy, Stewart once spoke of the time he first joined MGM as a contract actor, at which time Garbo was the biggest star in Hollywood.
“I would have done anything to meet her,” Stewart had admitted. “I was a big fan.” At MGM, where Garbo was also working, Stewart had been performing in a movie on the stage right next to the Swedish actor, and he thought it would be a good idea to take the opportunity to try and meet one of his favourite fellow actors.
“I found out that when she left, she would go right from the stage door to her limousine, and nobody would see her,” Stewart explained. Thankfully, Stewart had got pally with the soundman who had been working on Garbo’s set, who told Stewart the exact amount of time that it “took her to get from her dressing room on the set to the stage door”.
The soundman told Stewart that he’d call him when the shoot on Garbo’s set was finished so that he would be able “to run out [the] door and get to see her before she gets into the limousine”. A few days later, Stewart got the call from the soundman and ran as fast as he could to the back door of the studio, desperate to see Garbo in the flesh.
However, Stewart quickly (and literally) ran into a problem. He noted, “As I went around the corner to the door, I ran smack into somebody. But I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I just kept running right out to the door.” With only Garbo in mind, Stewart headed for the door, but he still felt a twinge of regret that he’d knocked someone over in the process of trying to see his favourite actor.
Things were about to get worse. The actor explained, “As I was about to open it, I stopped and looked back. And there was Greta Garbo all right – flat on her ass. I knocked the poor woman down. I don’t think she’ll ever forget me for that.” How embarrassing for Stewart, not only to be in pure fanboy mode, knocking any old person down to the ground, but one of the most notable stars in Hollywood and, ironically, the very person he’d been in such a hurry to meet. Having given the interview in the 1980s, it seemed like Stewart never lived the unfortunate moment down.
