Sea Wing

Marguerite Wenner-Gren was originally from Texas and through here sister, the celebrated silent movie star Gene Gauntier, she was acquainted with many of the biggest English-speaking celebrities of the time. The Wenner-Grens, for example, had dinner with Charlie Chaplin and spent a lot of time with the scandal-ridden Edward, Prince of Wales, and Mrs Wallis Simpson.

 

Marguerite, who wanted people to notice all of her elegant friends, often threw spectacular parties. On one occasion a young Elizabeth Taylor was invited for lunch at the couple’s apartment on Laboratoriegatan in Stockholm. Ms Taylor, who was accustomed to people waiting for her, was an hour and a half late. When Liz finally showed up and sat down with her hostess, Marguerite told her about their magnificent palace outside the city. Elizabeth announced that she thought it sounded incredibly nice and suggested the lunch continue at Häringe. Who dares to say no to a movie star? The food was wrapped and the entire lunch party was stowed into all available cars (Taylor rode on her own). Naturally, the lunch ran late and Elizabeth stayed the night in this very room.

 

This was not the first time cinematic visitors were received at thepalace. Even before the palace was in the Wenner-Grens’ possession, many of the visitors here were movie stars. Torsten Kreuger’s brother, Ivar, had ownership in the Swedish movie company SF, and he got to know a number of both Swedish and international actors. He brought them to his brother’s palace when he wished to make a special impression.

Not all siblings choose to have close, almost daily contact. However Marguerite Wenner-Gren and her sister, Gene Gautier, were practically inseparable (the reason why their urns are now resting side by side under the natural stone in front of the palace). Marguerite’s beloved older sister was a prominent American silent movie actress who started her career as a fearless stuntwoman (in her first movie part, she was thrown into a roaring river). She became a prominent name in the movie industry both for her acting, as well as for her many celebrated scripts and successful work as a director.

 

Gene had an amazing, notorious life, travelling to movie locations all over the world. She married the equally celebrated movie star Jack Clark in 1912, but the couple separated after only a few short years, in 1918. Gene got along very well with her brother-in-law Axel Wenner-Gren, and it was in part thanks to Gene’s liberal attitude that Axel and Marguerite could be intimate on the boat from America, despite being unmarried.

 

Greta Garbo’s first acting job was in a commercial for the Swedish department store PUB, where she also worked as a shop assistant. How her professional career evolved after that is widely known: in 1954, Ms Garbo moved to the USA, where her career promptly took off and she emerged as the icon we know her as today. Amongst other achievements, the American Film Institute lists her as the fifth best actress of all time.

 

In 1931, Greta starred as a seductive and scantily clad spy in the movie Mata Hari, leaving the moralists horrified. Making matters more interesting, the real-life Ms Garbo was accused of being an actual informer who sold information about Axel Wenner-Gren, an alleged Nazi sympathizer, to the British Secret Intelligence Service MI6. Considering how much time Greta spent with the Wenner-Grens during the late 1930s and early 40s, she would have had plenty of opportunities to conduct a thorough investigation (but this is all just speculation and no results ever turned up to prove Greta spied). According to Axel’s personal dairies, the two often spoke in confidence, both on land and at sea.

 

The luxury yacht, Southern Cross, previously owned by the famous film producer Howard Hughes, was spacious enough for both the Wenner-Grens and many guests. In 1938, travelling home from the Bahamas, the Wenner-Grens stopped in Los Angeles to fetch Greta Garbo and her boyfriend at the time. The captain set course for the West Coast of Sweden, with a small tour around Alaska along the way. During the voyage, Greta’s boyfriend proposed, but when Axel asked if she was going to marry, Greta snapped: “Like hell I will!”

 

Greta stayed at Häringe – in a room made just for her – throughout thatentire summer. Via telegram from the yacht, Axel had ordered the roombe specially built. It has no right angles because Greta Garbo – a prima donna, indeed – did not like corners, and the silk that adorns much of the room’s interior was most likely hand woven in Venice and coloured with lead to create the unique starlit lustre. The Hollywood star also requested that fresh Japanese Camellias be placed in her washing water each morning, leaving the gardener with the tedious task of picking flowers from the garden at dusk throughout the duration of Ms Garbo’s visit.

When the jazz singer and exotic dancer Josephine Baker spent the night at Häringe, she ordered three egg whites up to her room, which she used as pomade for the sleek hairstyle that was in vogue at the time. Ms Baker, who had other eccentric oddities (she used to walk her leopard on Champs-Élysées), became famous for a dance routine that she performed wearing a skirt made from a string of bananas. The black, former vaudeville artist captivated audiences. After a show in Stockholm, one critic from Dagens Nyheter wrote that Josephine had “the world’s most expressive bottom.” Baker was also deeply involved in the American Civil Rights Movement, although she later lived in France until her death in 1975.

 

Josephine had many nicknames, one being “The Black Pearl”. Perhaps this was the reason why Marguerite – who loved her jewellery so much she once referred to the collection as “my little babies” in a magazine interview – was so fond of the innovative artist. Josephine Baker is one of Marguerite’s friends who can be found depicted on the wall border in the dressing room. Although rumour has it that Josephine might have actually visited the palace before she was invited by the Wenner-Grens (some believe she had a steamy romance with Ivar Kreuger).

Many primadonnas have slept in this building (Sea Wing) after extravagant parties or sporty weekends. One of them was the stubborn and tenacious Zarah Leander, who had a similar temperament to the former ruler of Häringe, Agneta Horn, whose father, Gustav Horn, erected this building to begin with. Ernst Rolf, the famous Swedish singer and revue actor, discovered 22-year-old Zarah when she approached him during a guest performance in Norrköping to tell him how talented she was. A couple of years later, this girl from the woods of Sweden – despite a few misfortunes and occasional detours – was a famous movie star in Germany. Zarah became so popular that during the Second World War, she was the highest paid actress in the Third Reich – a fact that annoyed the Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels, who would have preferred a pure, native German to hold the honoured position.

 

When Zarah Leander eventually returned to Sweden, she was welcomed with only a lukewarm reception. Many people were wary of her Nazi ties and distanced themselves from the starlet. The same happened to Axel Wenner-Gren after his attempts to help Hermann Göring solve Nazi conflicts with the British. Axel also wrote several letters to the US president, instructing him on how to act in the war. Some might say that Axel’s pompous personality had something do to with the way he was treated, but here at Häringe, he, Marguerite, Zarah, and Revue King Karl Gerhard enjoyed many good dinners together, without any consideration of all the public drama that had taken place in the palace over the centuries.