[on casting the leading role in
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)]: One day, I received a message from
Cedric Gibbons, who wanted to see me on a matter of urgency and secrecy. Gibby was the only close friend of
Greta Garbo around the studio, and he had been deputed to tell me that Garbo wanted to play Dorian. Indeed, it was the only role she would come back to the screen for. Of course, I moved heaven and earth to set it up. But everyone had a fit: the censorship problem, formidable anyway, would have become insurmountable with a woman.