Tosh's Journal: September 18 (Greta Garbo)

TOSH’S JOURNAL
September 18

“I never said, ‘I want to be alone. ‘I only said ‘I want to be let alone! ‘There is all the difference.” One should be able to choose who you want to be with, or who you want to work with. This is my desire. This is my right. I was from Sweden and came to America to become part of the motion picture business. Well, I ended up in the industry, and I didn’t like it — not one bit. To improve my English dictation, I studied tapes made by Lord Haw-Haw, a British citizen who made broadcasts for the Nazis during the war. He at times used an upper-class British accent, while making statements over the radio, and I found it hypnotic. I try to imagine that it’s P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves whispering in my ear, but what he said sounded so beautiful, but the ugliness of the content was something I had to move aside. “The people of England will curse themselves for having preferred ruin from Churchill to peace from Hitler.” I played it over and over again, till I got his accent just entirely correct. I didn’t do this for a film role but to be part of a new world, and with that, I needed a new identity. By no means was I erasing my other personality, because I wanted to have the ability to switch roles or positions in life.

I’m going to do one more job in the film business, and then I’m going to spend the rest of my life drifting. As I approached my 60th birthday, “in a few days, it will be the anniversary of the sorrow that never leaves me, that will never leave me for the rest of my life.” One can mark success in different ways, and for me, it is to be alone with my heart and some close friends. I always believed that there were two sides to me. One being a recluse and the other, a social person. But I cannot be treated like a performing monkey anymore. I resent my directors telling me to smile, not a smile, say my lines, not to say my lines, and so forth. I don’t feel like I have a strong sense of self, and therefore acting is a way of communicating with the public or the individual. People think I’m beautiful, but what does that exactly mean?

My last role will be playing twins that are conjoined by the head, to be exact by the eye. I’m playing both roles, so it will be tricky for me to convey two separate identities, yet one body. To be honest, the script is not that great, but I think it will be an exciting role, or two roles (they should pay me twice!) and then say goodbye to my so-called public life. What I have to imagine is having a part of me that is always there. What I have done is practise my lines in front of the mirror and pretending that the image is another character or my twin sister. For one of the sisters, I chose the Lord Haw-Haw accent (“Jairmany calling, Jairmany calling”) but for the other sister, who is a country singer - I try to go for a soft southern accent. It is sometimes tricky because I feel like I’m separating my soul in doing this part.

“There are many things in your heart you can never tell to another person. They are you, your private joys and sorrows, and you can never tell them. You cheapen yourself, the inside of yourself when you tell them.” So how does one sister keep her distance from the other, when physically they are together for always. One of the sisters is non-disabled, but the other one has spine bifid, which causes a height difference. So one has to carry the other around, but she made a bar stool, because it is the exact height, and just added wheels to the bottom of the stool. The able-body sister serves as the manager as well as holding the microphone when the other sings. The script is loosely based on a real set of twins, but of course, this being a film, many things are made-up. Once I finish that film, I will focus on nothing. I won’t disappear, but I will decline to participate in the film world, or any other world that is out there. It will just be me, and the private world of the other. I walk alone, but there is always another angel inside me that guides me through the murky waters that are known as life.