Stage and Screen Actress
Born Grethe Rüzt-Nissen in Oslo, Norway, Nissen was originally a dancer. She debuted as a solo ballerina on the National Theatre in 1922. She toured in Norway and participated in several Danish films.
Nissen made her Broadway debut as a ballerina in 1924. She had studied ballet with Mikhail Fokine. In early 1924, she came as a member of a Danish ballet troupe to New York, where she was soon hired to do a larger dance numbers for George S. Kaufman in the musical Beggar on Horseback. Greta was discovered by film producer Jesse L. Lasky of Paramount Pictures, and would appear in more than twenty films.
She appeared in The Wanderer (1925, director Raoul Walsh). Among her other films were A Wife, The King on Main Street, The Love Thief, Ambassador Bill, The Lucky Lady, and Honours Easy. In 1932, she played in The Silent Witness with Weldon Heyburn, who became her first husband. Her film career ended in the mid-1930s after she had appeared in a few British films.
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