She was recruited in 1924 by the Finnish director Mauritz Stiller to play a principal part in his film "The Saga of Gösta Berling", a dramatization of the famous novel by Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf, which also featured the actor Lars Hanson. Stiller became her mentor, training her as a film actress and managing all aspects of her nascent career. She followed her role in "Gösta Berling" with a starring role in the German film "Die freudlose Gasse" ("Joyless Street" or "The Street of Sorrow", 1925), directed by G. W. Pabst and co-starring Asta Nielsen. Accounts differ on the circumstances of her first contract with Louis B. Mayer, at that time vice president and general manager of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Victor Seastrom, a respected Swedish director at MGM, was a friend of Stiller and encouraged Mayer to meet him on a trip to Berlin. There are two recent versions of what happened next. In one, Mayer, always looking for new talent, had done his research and was interested in Stiller. He made an offer, but Stiller demanded that Garbo be part of any contract, convinced that she would be an asset to his career. Mayer balked, but eventually agreed to a private viewing of "Gösta Berling". He was immediately struck by Garbo's magnetism and became more interested in her than in Stiller. "It was her eyes", his daughter recalled him saying, "I can make a star out of her." In the second version, Mayer had already seen "Gösta Berling" before his Berlin trip, and Garbo, not Stiller, was his primary interest. On the way to the screening, Mayer said to his daughter: "This director is wonderful, but what we really ought to look at is the girl... The girl, look at the girl!" After the screening, his daughter reported, he was unwavering: "I'll take her without him. I'll take her "with" him. Number one is the girl." In 1925, Garbo, who was unable to speak English, was brought over from Sweden at the request of Mayer. Both Garbo and Stiller arrived in New York in July 1925, after a 10-day trip on the SS "Drottningholm". But they remained in New York for more than six months without any word from MGM. They decided to travel to Los Angeles on their own, but another five weeks passed with no contact from the studio.