DOTD For Thursday, September 18, 2025

A Drink To Celebrate Secrets & Screen Sirens

Today’s DOTD - Drink Of The Day - is inspired by the legendary actress, and some say spy, Greta Garbo! So of course, today’s DOTD is the Greta Garbo Cocktail!

Greta was born in Stockholm as Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, and obviously kept the Greta part while replacing the rest. She grew up in a gray, ugly, working-class neighborhood. While she became interested in theater at an early age she was shy and largely preferred to play alone or with a few friends. She graduated from basic schooling at the age of 13. Typical Swedish working-class girls at the time did not attend high school. She later acknowledged that gave her an inferiority complex.

Greta studied at the Royal Dramatic Theatre’s Acting School in Stockholm during her later teen years, and in 1924 the Finnish director Mauritz Stiller recruited her to play a part in his film The Saga of Gösta Berling. Stiller became her mentor.

It’s unclear how she met Louis B. Mayer, of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio juggernaut. There are two conflicting stories. One story has him interested in Stiller’s work, with Stiller demanding that Garbo be part of any contract. Another story has Mayer already interested in Garbo due to having seen Gösta Berling. Either way, Mayer’s daughter reported him saying “I’ll take her without him. I’ll take her with him. Number one is the girl.”

The rest is history. Dubbed “the greatest money-making machine ever put on screen” she enjoyed enormous success as an actress until she retired in 1948.

Long rumored to be a spy, in part because Greta Garbo played legendary spy Mata Hari in a 1931 movie, Garbo herself was NOT a spy according to the Initernational Spy Museum. She did play a small role in the Allied intelligence apparatus during World War II, working first with the British secret service in 1939, and then in the latter part of the war, working with the U.S. OSS in morale operations.

Keeping to her early, reclusive ways, Garbo never married, avoided film industry functions, public appearances, and anything that would draw attention. In a rare 1928 interview she stated “As early as I can remember, I have wanted to be alone. I detest crowds, don’t like many people.” Her famous line from her 1935 film Grand Hotel, “I want to be alone” was indeed a reflection of her real life personality

Ingredients

Here’s what you’re going to need for this drink: