INGRID BERGMAN Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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INGRID BERGMAN

Name: Ingrid Bergman                                                                                   
Born: 29 August 1915 Stockholm, Sweden                                                                 
Died: 29 August 1982 London, United Kingdom                                                           
                                                                                                       
Ingrid Bergman (August 29, 1915 – August 29, 1982) was a three-time Academy Award-winning           
and two-time Emmy Award-winning Swedish actress. She also won the Tony Award for                       
Best Actress in the first Tony Award ceremony in 1947. She is ranked as the                           
fourth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute.                               
                                                                                                       
Bergman, named after Princess Ingrid of Sweden, was born in Stockholm, Sweden                         
on August 29, 1915 to a Swedish father, Justus Samuel Bergman, and a German                           
mother, Friedel Adler Bergman. When she was three years old, her mother died and                       
her father passed away when she was thirteen. She was then sent to live with an                       
aunt, who died of heart complications only six months later. Afterwards she was                       
raised by another aunt and uncle, who had five children.                                               
                                                                                                       
At the age of 17, Ingrid Bergman auditioned for and was accepted to the Royal                         
Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. During her first summer break, she was hired at a                       
Swedish film studio, which consequently led to her leaving the Royal Dramatic                         
Theater to work in films full time, after having attended for only one year. Her                       
first film role after leaving the Royal Dramatic Theater was a small part in                           
1935's Munkbrogreven (She had previously been an extra in the 1932 film                               
Landskamp).                                                                                           
                                                                                                       
On July 10, 1937, at the age of 21, she married a dentist, Petter Lindström (who                     
would later become a neurosurgeon). On September 20, 1938, she gave birth to a                         
daughter, Pia Lindström.                                                                             
                                                                                                       
After a dozen films in Sweden (including En kvinnas ansikte which would later be                       
remade as A Woman's Face with Joan Crawford) and one in Germany, Bergman was                           
signed by Hollywood producer David O. Selznick to star in the 1939 English                             
language remake of her 1936 Swedish language film, Intermezzo. According to                           
Bergman's A&E Biography, Selznick suggested she change her name, have her teeth                       
capped, and her eyebrows plucked, but Ingrid was having none of it. Taken aback                       
by her reply, Selznick changed his mind, allowing Ingrid to keep all her real                         
features and her real name. Intermezzo was an enormous success and Bergman                             
became a star, described as "Sweden's illustrious gift to Hollywood". Some                             
things that set her apart from other female stars in Hollywood at that time were                       
that she did not change her name, her appearance was entirely natural with                             
little to no makeup, and that she was one of the tallest leading ladies.                               
                                                                                                       
After completing one last film in Sweden and appearing in three moderately                             
successful films in the United States, Bergman joined Humphrey Bogart in the                           
1942 classic film Casablanca, which remains her best known role. Bergman did not                       
consider Casablanca to be one of her favorite performances. "I made so many                           
films which were more important, but the only one people ever want to talk about                       
is that one with Bogart." About Bogart, she said "I never really knew him. I                           
kissed him, but I didn't know him."                                                                   
                                                                                                       
That same year, she received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress                       
for For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), which was also her first color film. The                           
following year, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Gaslight (1944).                       
After losing to Ingrid Bergman for the 1944 Best Actress Academy Award, Barbara                       
Stanwyck told the press she was a "member of The Ingrid Bergman Fan Club", "I                         
don't feel at all bad about the Award because my favorite actress won it and has                       
earned it by all her performances." She received a third consecutive                                   
nomination for Best Actress with her performance as a nun in The Bells of St.                         
Mary's (1945). Bergman had been considered for the role of Mother Maria-Veronica                       
in 1944's The Keys of the Kingdom, but the part ultimately went to Rose Stradner,                     
who was then the wife of the film's producer, Joseph Mankiewicz.                                       
                                                                                                       
Later, she would receive another Best Actress nomination for Joan of Arc (1948),                       
an independent film produced by Walter Wanger and initially released through RKO.                     
Bergman had championed the role since her arrival in Hollywood, which is one of                       
the reasons she had played it on the Broadway stage in Maxwell Anderson's Joan                         
of Lorraine. Partly because of the scandal with Rossellini, the film, based on                         
the Anderson play, was not a big hit, and received disastrous reviews. It was                         
subsequently shorn of 45 minutes, and it was not until its restoration to full                         
length in 1998 and its 2004 appearance on DVD that later audiences could see it                       
as it was intended to be shown.                                                                       
                                                                                                       
Bergman starred in the Alfred Hitchcock films Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946),                     
and Under Capricorn (1949). Unlike her earlier Hitchcock films, Under Capricorn                       
was a slow-paced costume drama, slow to such a degree that Bergman's reputation                       
and the film's release suffered from this,  in addition to the                                       
gathering adverse publicity over Bergman's affair with Rossellini. Ingrid                             
Bergman was a student of the acting coach Michael Chekhov during the 1940s.                           
Coincidentally, it was his role in Spellbound, of which she was a star, that he                       
received his only nomination for an Academy Award.                                                     
                                                                                                       
Between motion pictures, Bergman appeared in the stage plays Liliom, Anna                             
Christie, and Joan of Lorraine. Furthermore, during a press conference in                             
Washington, D.C. for the promotion of Joan of Lorraine, she protested against                         
segregation after seeing it first hand at the theater she was acting in. This                         
led to a lot of publicity and some hate mail.                                                         
                                                                                                       
Ingrid Bergman went to Alaska during World War II in order to entertain troops.                       
Soon after the war ended, she also went to Europe for the same purpose, where                         
she was able to see the devastation caused by the war. It was during this time                         
that she began a relationship with the famous photographer Robert Capa. She                           
became a smoker after needing to smoke for her role in Arch of Triumph.                               
                                                                                                       
Ingrid Bergman, in her first Roberto Rossellini film, Stromboli (1950).                               
                                                                                                       
In 1949, Bergman met Italian director Roberto Rossellini in order to make the                         
film Stromboli (1950), after having been a fan of two of his previous films that                       
she had seen while in the United States. During the making of this movie, she                         
fell in love with him and became pregnant with a son, Roberto Ingmar Rossellini                       
(born February 7, 1950).                                                                               
                                                                                                       
The pregnancy caused a huge scandal in the United States. It even led to her                           
being denounced on the floor of the U.S. Senate by Edwin C. Johnson, a Democrat                       
senator from Colorado, who referred to her as "a horrible example of womanhood                         
and a powerful influence for evil." In addition, there was a floor vote, which                         
resulted in her being made persona non grata. The scandal forced Ingrid Bergman                       
to exile herself to Italy, leaving her husband and daughter in the United States.                     
Her husband, Dr. Petter Lindström, eventually sued for desertion and waged a                         
custody battle for their daughter.                                                                     
                                                                                                       
Ingrid Bergman married Roberto Rossellini on May 24, 1950. On June 18, 1952, she                       
gave birth to twin daughters, Isabella Rossellini, who is a famous actress and                         
model, and Isotta Ingrid Rossellini. Over the next few years, she appeared in                         
several Italian films for Rossellini, including Giovanna d'Arco al rogo (Jeanne                       
d'Arc au bûcher, Joan of Arc at the Stake, 1954), a 1935 dramatic oratorio by                         
Arthur Honegger about Joan of Arc. Their marriage ended in divorce on November 7,                     
1957.                                                                                                 
                                                                                                       
After separating from Rossellini, she starred in Jean Renoir's Elena and Her Men                       
(Elena et les Hommes, 1956), a romantic comedy where she played a Polish                               
princess caught in political intrigue. Although the film wasn't a success, it                         
has since come to be regarded as one of her best performances.                                         
                                                                                                       
During her time in Italy, anger over her private life had continued unabated in                       
the United States, with Ed Sullivan at one point infamously polling his TV show                       
audience as to whether she should be forgiven.                                                         
                                                                                                       
With her starring role in 1956's Anastasia, Bergman made a triumphant return to                       
the American screen and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for a second time.                     
The award was accepted for her by her friend Cary Grant. Bergman would not                             
make her first post-scandal public appearance in Hollywood until the 1958                             
Academy Awards, when she was the presenter of the Academy Award for Best Picture.                     
Furthermore, after being introduced by Cary Grant and walking out on stage to                         
present, she was given a standing ovation.                                                             
                                                                                                       
Ingrid Bergman with Yul Brynner in Anastasia (1956), her second Academy Award-winning                 
role.                                                                                                 
                                                                                                       
Bergman would continue to alternate between performances in American and                               
European films for the rest of her career and also made occasional appearances                         
in television dramas such as a 1959 production of The Turn of the Screw for                           
Startime for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by                         
an Actress.                                                                                           
                                                                                                       
During this time, she also performed in several stage plays. In addition, she                         
married the producer Lars Schmidt, a fellow Swede, on December 21, 1958. This                         
marriage ultimately led to divorce in 1975.                                                           
                                                                                                       
In 1972, Senator Charles H. Percy entered an apology into the Congressional                           
Record for the attack made on her 22 years earlier by Edwin C. Johnson. She was                       
the President of the Jury at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival.                                           
                                                                                                       
Bergman received her third Academy Award (and first for Best Supporting Actress)                       
for her performance in Murder on the Orient Express (1974), but she publicly                           
declared at the Academy Awards telecast that year that the award rightfully                           
belonged to Italian actress Valentina Cortese for Day for Night by concluding                         
her acceptance speech with "Please forgive me, Valentina. I didn't mean to."                           
Bergman could speak Swedish (her native language), German (her second language),                       
English (learned when brought over to United States), Italian (learned while                           
exiled in Italy),  ) and French (learned formally from language                                       
teachers) fluently. In addition, she acted in each of these languages at various                       
times. Fellow actor John Gielgud, who had acted with her in Murder on the Orient                       
Express and who had directed her in the play The Constant Wife, playfully mocked                       
this ability when he remarked, "She speaks five languages and can't act in any                         
of them."                                                                                             
                                                                                                       
In 1978, she played in Ingmar Bergman's Höstsonaten (Autumn Sonata) for which                         
she received her seventh Academy Award nomination and made her final performance                       
on the big screen. In the film, Bergman plays a celebrity pianist who returns to                       
Sweden to visit her neglected daughter, played by Liv Ullmann. The film was shot                       
in Norway. It is considered by many to be among her best performances.  She                           
hosted the AFI's Life Achievement Award Ceremony for Alfred Hitchcock in 1979.                         
                                                                                                       
She was honored posthumously with her second Emmy Award for Best Actress in 1982                       
for the television mini-series A Woman Called Golda, about the late Israeli                           
prime minister Golda Meir. It was her final acting role.                                               
                                                                                                       
Ingrid Bergman died in 1982 on her 67th birthday in London, England, following a                       
long battle with breast cancer. Her body was cremated in Sweden. Most of her                           
ashes were scattered in the sea with the remainder being interred in the Norra                         
begravningsplatsen in Stockholm next to her parents. A single violin played the                       
song "As Time Goes By", the theme from Casablanca, recalling her most famous                           
role, that of Ilsa Lund.                                                                               
                                                                                                       
Ingrid Bergman holding the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in                             
Gaslight. Also shown is Bing Crosby.