Garbo's Performance

Unfortunately, Rudolph was a wife-beating, drinking, womanizing tyrant who became enraged at the attention his handsome wife attracted. Geertrude took solace in the enchanting Malay culture--their people, language, and dance, the latter which would change the course of her life dramatically years later. The natives called her mata hari--it meant eye of dawn.

Tragedy struck when their two children were poisoned by an enemy of Rudolph; their daughter survived but the son died, after which Geertrude came down with typhoid. The ordeal of being a beaten wife, losing her child, and surviving illness gave her inner strength and she divorced Rudolph, even if it meant never seeing her daughter again.

The divorcee headed for the anything-goes city of Paris and found her calling in eastern dance when the dark-haired, exotic looking woman convinced a wealthy collector she was a Hindu princess and dancer; a performance was arranged and Mata Hari became the toast of Paris. She also took on the role of celebrated courtesan with extremely wealthy, highly positioned men which led to her becoming a "spy" when WWI erupted.

At this time she inconveniently fell in love for the first time with a Russian pilot young enough to be her son. Through a complex series of machiavellian maneuvers, Mata Hari became a scapegoat as the perfect target to put on very public display as an example of wartime treason. In what has to be among the most dramatic endings to a dramatic life, Mata Hari was executed by firing squad toward the end of WWI. In true theatrical fashion, the smartly dressed woman bravely refused a blindfold, thanked her executioners, and smiled.

She was only 41.