ट्रिविया

Close friend of Greta Garbo after they met as students at Sweden's Royal Dramatic Training Academy in 1922.

Mimi Pollak was a Swedish actress and theatre director.

She appeared since her 1922 debut in the film Amatörfilmen in about 30 film and TV productions.

Mimi Pollak became in 1948 the first contracted female director at the Royal Dramatic Theatre with the production of Jean Genet's Jungfruleken (Les Bonnes/The Maids), starring Anita Björk and Maj-Britt Nilsson in the leads.

Pollak attended the Royal Dramatic Theatre school in Stockholm with fellow actress Greta Garbo from 1922 to 1924. Garbo moved to the US in 1925 and Pollak married in 1927 and later had children, although they did maintain contact for over 60 years. Their relationship and letters are portrayed (published in parts) in the Swedish book Djävla älskade unge! (Bloody Beloved Kid), written by Po Tin Andersén Axell (2005), and in Garbo's personal writings, released in Sweden the same year.

It was Mimi Pollak who came up with Greta Garbo's stage name Garbo.

Notable film roles are her supporting parts in Schamyl Bauman's film comedy Skolka skolan (1949), in Vilgot Sjöman's Klänningen (a.k.a. The Dress, 1964), in Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata (starring Ingrid Bergman) as the piano teacher, in Flight of the Eagle (1982), starring Max von Sydow and directed by Jan Troell and in the very popular Swedish TV mystery Agnes Cecilia - en sällsam historia (1991), adapted from the successful books by Maria Gripe.

Pollak became a very successful director at the Royal Dramatic Theatre and staged altogether 60 plays at the national stage over the years.

Pollak worked in the 1920s and 1930s as a film actress and as stage actress mainly on Helsingborg City Theatre and The Blanche Theatre, Stockholm, but she returned as an actress to the Royal Dramatic Theatre in 1942.

She retired in 1975, but made a stage comeback in 1991, age 87, in Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya.