Books and Arts -- Book ReviewCinema royalty -- Two faces of a starGarbo. By Robert Gottlieb.She was everything on screen and not much off it.That is the conclusion to be drawn from Robert Gottlieb’s biography of Greta Garbo, the legendary film star of the 1920s and 1930s.“Was she even an actress, or was she merely a glorious presence?” he asks.Readers’ assessments of her glory may depend on their view of how much personal morality matters.A millionaire many times over, on her death in 1990 Garbo bequeathed a pittance to her live-in maid; she failed to increase her annual tip to the doorman of her building in Manhattan for 37 years.Luxuriously attired as Anna Karenina or Mata Hari, Garbo shone for the camera.She swooned, she wept, she ravishingly died, a vision of unknowable Swedish beauty.The costumier at MGM remarked that no one else wore gowns with such ease.Her grey-blue eyes were her best feature and dazzled even in black and white.As a teenager she beguiled the director Mauritz Stiller, who helped make her famous.
