Talking Garbo: Greta’s apartment hits market for $7.25M

Garbo gawks!

The floor-through co-op on E. 52nd Street where legendary actress Greta Garbo lived for 40 years until her death in 1990 is on the market for $7.25 million — more than $1 million less than it last sold for back in 2017.

The New York Post is reporting the home the Swedish-born sex symbol of Hollywood’s silent age bought back in 1954 was on the market for $5.95 million back in 2017 but ended up selling for $8.5 million once word got out it had been Garbo’s pad.

Now, owners will need history to repeat itself if they are to see a profit on the purchase.

The home still includes some of the personal touches Garbo instilled in it when she lived there, including the master bedroom’s walls and headboard that are clad in the star’s favorite pink Fortuny silk, as well as a bedroom that still has a pink- and green-accented V’Soske rug that Garbo is said to have designed herself. Wooden wall panels and built-in shelves also still adorn the dwelling.

The home also offers views of the East River through large windows, which the listing says reminded the star of her native Stockholm.

The two-bedroom apartment has a formal dining room, a newly renovated kitchen that includes a Miele side-by-side refrigerator and freezer, and a living room with a gas fireplace. French doors lead to a balcony and a study outside an ensuite bathroom can be turned into a third bedroom.

After appearing in the 1924 Swedish film “The Saga of Gösta Berling.” Garbo was brought to Hollywood by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayor’s chief executive, Louis B. Mayer, and went on to star in the silent films “Torrent,” “Flesh and the Devil” and ”A Woman of Affairs,” which made her MGM’s top box-office star. She later starred in “The Mysterious Lady,” “The Single Standard” and “The Kiss.”

Her first talkie, “Anna Christie” arrived in 1930, with MGM marketers enticing the public to see the film with the tagline “Garbo talks!”

The 1984 film usurping that catchphrase focused on a dying Garbo fan played by Anne Bancroft whose last wish is to meet her idol. Her son, played by Ron Silver, tries to get Garbo to visit his mother at the hospital. Garbo, though, passed on playing herself, and was portrayed by Betty Comden.

[New York Post] — Vince DiMiceli