Garbo and Gilbert: they made magic on the silver screen, and off—and this is the story of their ill-fated romance. When John Gilbert, the hot Hollywood star of the silent era, first met Greta Garbo, the icy young Swede, she snubbed him. Not long after, Louis B. Mayer, head of M.G.M., forced them to work together: he felt that the exquisitely beautiful young starlet could only benefit by playing alongside the more experienced Gilbert. There, on set, in front of everyone, they fell madly in love. What followed was as turbulent, dramatic, and public as any Hollywood melodrama.