Harry Edington was Garbo's agent and business manager in the late 1920s. In the early 1930s, Marlene was also one of his clients.

Agent Harry Edington

Edington laughed off the idea that she was upset about the ‘second Garbo' hullabaloo surrounding Marlene Dietrich's recent Hollywood debut.

She must think that I am trying to imitate her, but there is nobody like Garbo,” Marlene said at the time.

Edington said Garbo admired Dietrich, though he denied the reports that she played Dietrich's records over and over. That story was started, he said, “after I brought a couple of records of the German girl's songs and played them for Garbo on the set”.

 
Rumor is that post-retirement, Garbo  engaged a clipping service and read most everything written about her. But unlike Marlene Dietrich, who did the same, Garbo did so out of curiosity, not litigiousness.

Garbo's family denies she had a clipping service, but friends say manila envelopes full of articlesinvariably awaited her in the stack of mail upon her return from trips.

 
It was written that Garbo imitates Dietrich in her 1932 released film As you desire me.

Garbo as a blond

he film opens at the nightclub where Garbo's dubbed singing voice sounds “pretty much the way Garbo might – and exactly the way Dietrich did,” according to Richard Corliss, who maintains that Garbo as Zara was “clearly Garbo's playful parody of Marlene Dietrich”.

 
It is said that Madeline Kahn's immortal chanteuse number in Blazing Saddles (1974) is a parody of Marlene Dietrich, but the sentiment of the lyrics is pure Garbo: “I'm tired – tired of being admired....”

Madeline Kahn's immortal chanteuse number

 
In the 1948, Marlene did radio shows in America and two of them were Anna Karenina and Grand Hotel.

 
By her own account, Mercedes de Acosta did not waste any time finding consolation after Greta left her. She meet Marlene at a performance by dancer Harald Kreutzberg.

Mercedes

ot so according to Maria Riva, Dietrichs daughter. Riva wrote that her mother told her that she found Mercedes sobbing in the kitchen during a party at the Thalberg's house. This kitchen meeting had many versions but always ended with the ‘cruet Swede' being replaced by the ‘luminous German aristocrat .

 
Garbo left Hollywood in 1932 and to made a break. Rumor is that Marlene thought she would benefit by Garbo's absence from Hollywood, but her film Blonde Venus was a flop. “Here they should build all churches in the shape of a box office,” said Dietrich.

Blonde Venus

 
In 1938, neither Garbo nor Dietrich made a picture. Both came back with a big hit in 1939. Garbo with Lutisch's Ninotchka and Dietrich with James Stewart in Destry rides again.

 
Dietrich and Stewart   and   Garbo as Ninotchka.

 
In one of her last interviews in early 1990, Paris Match asked Marlene who are, beside her, the biggest movie legends of all time. She named Garbo, Monroe and Rita Hayworth.

   
Dietrich, Monroe, Garbo & Hayworth: The biggest movie legends

 
It is known that in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Greta often sang along to her favourite songs. Some of her favourite songs were from Marlene Dietrich's The Blue Angel (Germany 1930) film.

Marlene in The blue angel

 
I recall seeing her on Fifth Avenue with Gayelord Hauser at the corner of Fifty-fifth Street. Some woman walked up and said, “Oh, you're Greta Garbo”' and she looked down and just said, “Yes.”

David Diamond

She didn't have the elegance of Marlene. I never saw a woman handle a crowd the way Dietrich could – she just hypnotized them. GG couldn't do that, but if somebody got close and said something to her politely, she was nice. She'd say, “I must go, you know, I have to leave,” something like that, and then disengage.

 
There is a favourite family story from the Reisfields (Garbo's niece and grand nephews) about how a New York shop girl thought she recognized a famous face and thanked 'Ms. Dietrich' for coming in.

Garbo in the 1960s

“I guess she didn't get a good look at my legs,” Garbo chuckled to friends on the way. Rumor i that this happened someday in the 1960s.

 
Greta renewed her passport and returned to Cap-d'Ail in June 1957 with flags waving and spirits high – Aristotle Onassis had arranged to have a Hungarian orchestra meet her at the railway station.

Marlene in “scandalous” pants

 
It is said that Garbo played Marlene's records from The Blue Angel during the filming of Susan Lenox (USA 1931).

Garbo making Susan Lenox

Edington (Garbo's agent and business manager in the late 1920s) said Garbo admired Dietrich, though he denied the reports that she played Dietrich's records over and over. That story was started, he said, “after I brought a couple of records of the German girl's songs and played them for Garbo on the set”.

 
Marlene appeared at the Mata Hari premiere in Hollywood on April 29, 1932 and she said that she truly likes Garbo.

Garbo as Mata Hari

 
Filmed in Berlin during 1925, there was for decades this rumour that Marlene Dietrich played a minor role in this film. A dark-haired woman waiting in the butcher shop line was and still is often mistaken for Marlene.

Marlene as she looked around The Joyless Street.

Actually it was Hertha von Walther. She had a much larger role in the original uncut version of the film.

 
Marlene Dietrich thought she would benefit by Greta Garbo's absence from Hollywood in 1932.

Dietrich in Blonde Venus

 
MGM were in negotiations with von Sternberg to direct Garbo's Queen Christina. Sternberg who had often expressed his desire to direct Garbo and had, arguably, modelled Marlene Dietrich after the kind of star he imagined Garbo to be – the director came closest to working with Greta on this, her most personal film.

Garbo in  Queen Christina

 
When MGM announced that GG makes Queen Christina – Paramount started producing the Scarlett Empress (Catherine the great).

Dietrich as Catherine the Great

Garbo as Queen Christina

When MGM announced Marie Walewska, Paramount planned a film about Josephine (Queen of France and wife of Napoleon) with Marlene.

 
Selznick originally wanted Garbo for the film. After she declined, Marlene Dietrich made the film and after seeing the film, she said that she now can see why Garbo didn't make the film.

Marlene in her first color film

 
In 1936/37 MGM needed a steady glamour girl to fill the void as Garbo moved into more mature roles. In late 1937, while their Swedish star prepared for another long sabbatical, Metro initiated talks with Dietrich regarding a contract.

The studio was also developing a number of potential new stars. Dietrich found work elsewhere; the Garbo replacements would come later.

Marlene in her MGM debut

 
It was written that the role of George Sand, in the Columbia pictures film about Chopin (A song to remember, USA 1945), was offered to both Garbo and Dietrich.

DVD cover

Both declined the offering.

Merle Oberon got the part of George Sand and the film was quite a success in 1945.

 
A very funny rumour out of a 1932 German magazine is that Garbo and Dietrich were going to make a film together called Tragödie einer Liebe (Tragedy of Love).

They wrote that Garbo will star next to Marlene Dietrich in a film based on the life of Siamese Twins.

1932 photomontage