The reclusive star died aged 84 in 1990, and her niece Gray Reisfield has had her ashes kept in a mortuary in New York while she decided where they should go.

She has decided they should be interred in Skogskyrkogaarden, the cemetery in southern Stockholm where Garbo's parents are buried, after a private ceremony on 17 June.

Reisfield said: "I had contact with my aunt for over 60 years but we never discussed where she wanted to be buried.

"She loved Sweden and often used to say she wanted to return home to virgin Swedish nature. And it is an incredibly beautiful part of this nature I have found at Skogskyrkogaarden."

Other countries wanted remains

Greta Garbo with Robert Taylor in the film Camille

Other European countries and the United States had all offered burial places for Garbo's ashes, but a spokesman for Reisfield said she took a long time to make up her mind, partly because she feared the ashes would be stolen by a fan.

Garbo rose to fame after starting her working life in a barber's shop at 14.

She appeared in 10 silent and 14 sound films, and moved to the US in 1923, becoming an American citizen.

She stunned Hollywood by quitting public life at the age of 36.