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Garbo’s last film, the Two-Faced Woman (1941), was directed by George Cukor, and was a critical (though not a commercial) failure. It is often reported that Garbo chose to retire from cinema after this film’s failure, but already by 1935 she was becoming more choosy about her roles, and eventually years passed without her agreeing to do another film. By her own admission, Garbo felt that after World War II the world changed, perhaps forever. In 1941, MGM costume-designer Adrian also left the studio, later saying: “It was because of Garbo that I left MGM. In her last picture they wanted to make her a sweater girl, a real American type. I said, ‘When the glamour ends for Garbo, it also ends for me. She has created a type. If you destroy that illusion, you destroy her.’ When Garbo walked out of the studio, glamour went with her, and so did I.”

In 1949, Garbo filmed several screen tests as she considered reentering the movie business to shoot La Duchesse de Langeais directed by Walter Wanger but she never stepped in front of a movie camera again.