Ingrid Bergman (29 August 191529 August 1982) was a Swedish actressObituary Variety, 1 September 1982. with a career spanning five decades, Bergman is often regarded as one of the most influential actresses in the history of cinema. She won numerous accolades, including three Academy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award; which made her the youngest performer to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting and one of four actresses to have received at least three acting Academy Awards.
Born in Stockholm to a Swedish father and German mother, Bergman began her acting career in Swedish and German films. Her introduction to the U.S. audience came in the English-language remake of Intermezzo (1939). Known for her naturally luminous beauty, she starred in Casablanca (1942) as Ilsa Lund. Bergman's notable performances in the 1940s include the dramas For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), Gaslight (1944), The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), and Joan of Arc (1948), all of which earned her nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress; she won for Gaslight. She made three films with Alfred Hitchcock: Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), and Under Capricorn (1949).
In 1950, she starred in Roberto Rossellini's Stromboli, released after the revelation that she was having an affair with Rossellini; that and her pregnancy before their marriage created a scandal in the U.S. that prompted her to remain in Europe for several years. During this time, she starred in Rossellini's Europa '51 and Journey to Italy (1954), the former of which won her the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. The Volpi Cup was not awarded to her in 1952 because she was dubbed (by Lydia Simoneschi) in the version presented at the Festival; she was awarded posthumously in 1992, and the prize was accepted by her son Roberto Rossellini. She returned to Hollywood, earning two more Academy Awards for her roles in Anastasia (1956) and Murder on the Orient Express (1974). During this period she also starred in Indiscreet (1958), Cactus Flower (1969), and Autumn Sonata (1978) receiving her sixth Best Actress nomination.
Bergman won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for the Maxwell Anderson play Joan of Lorraine (1947). She also won two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for The Turn of the Screw (1960), and A Woman Called Golda (1982). In 1974, Bergman discovered she had breast cancer and continued to work until shortly before her death on her sixty-seventh birthday in 1982. Bergman spoke five languages—Swedish, English, German, Italian, and French—and acted in each. In 1999, the American Film Institute recognized her as the fourth-greatest female screen legend of Classic Hollywood Cinema.
Early life
Ingrid Bergman was born on 29 August 1915 in Stockholm, to a Swedish father, Justus Samuel Bergman, and a German mother, Frieda "Friedel" Henriette Auguste Louise Bergman (née Adler), who was born in Kiel. Her parents married in Hamburg on 13 June 1907.Ancestry Library EditionStandesamt Hamburg 3, 1907 No. 173. She was named after Princess Ingrid of Sweden. Although she was raised in Sweden, she spent her summers in Germany and spoke fluent German.
Bergman was raised as an only child, as two older siblings had died in infancy before she was born. When she was two and a half years old, her mother died. She learned to create imaginary friends as a child. Justus Bergman had wanted his daughter to become an opera star and had her take voice lessons for three years. He sent her to the , a prestigious girls' school in Stockholm where Bergman was reportedly neither a good student nor popular.
Justus was a photographer and loved documenting his daughter's birthdays with his camera. He made his daughter one of his favorite photographic subjects. She enjoyed dancing, dressing up, and acting in front of her father's lenses. "I was perhaps the most photographed child in Scandinavia," quipped Bergman in her later years. In 1929, when Bergman was around 14, her father died of stomach cancer. Losing her parents at such a young age was a trauma that Bergman later described as "living with an ache", an experience of which she was not even aware.
After her father's death, Bergman was sent to live with her paternal aunt, Ellen, who died of heart disease six months later. Bergman then lived with her paternal uncle Otto and his wife Hulda, who had five children of their own. She also visited her maternal aunt, Elsa Adler, whom the young girl called (Mom) according to family lore. She later said, "I have wanted to be an actress almost as long as I can remember", sometimes wearing her deceased mother's clothing, and staging plays in her father's empty studio.
Bergman spoke Swedish and German as first languages, English and Italian (acquired later, while living in the U.S. and Italy), and French (learned in school). She acted in each of these languages at various times.
Bergman received a scholarship to the state-sponsored Royal Dramatic Training Academy, where Greta Garbo had some years earlier earned a similar scholarship. After several months, she was given a part in a new play, (A Crime), written by Sigfrid Siwertz. This was "totally against procedure" at the school, where girls were expected to complete three years of study before getting such acting roles. During her first summer break, Bergman was hired by Swedish film studio Svensk Filmindustri, which led her to leave the Royal Dramatic Theatre after just one year to work in films full-time.
Career 1935–1938: Swedish years Bergman's first film experience was as an extra in the 1932 film , an experience she described as "walking on holy ground". Her first speaking role was a small part in (1935). Bergman played Elsa, a maid in a seedy hotel, being pursued by the leading man, Edvin Adolphson. Critics called her "hefty and sure of herself", and "somewhat overweight ... with an unusual way of speaking her lines". The unflatteringly striped costume that she wore may have contributed to the unfavorable comments regarding her appearance. Soon after , Bergman was offered a studio contract and placed under director Gustaf Molander.
Bergman starred in Ocean Breakers, in which she played a fisherman's daughter, and then in , where she had the opportunity to work alongside her idol Gösta Ekman. Next, she starred in Walpurgis Night (1935). She played Lena, a secretary in love with her boss, Johan, who is unhappily married. Throughout, Lena and the wife vie for Johan's affection, with the wife losing her husband to Lena at the end.
In 1936, in On the Sunny Side (), Bergman was cast as an orphan from a good family who marries a rich older gentleman. Also in 1936, she appeared in Intermezzo, her first lead performance, where she was reunited with Gösta Ekman. This was a pivotal film for the young actress and allowed her to demonstrate her talent. Director Molander later said: "I created Intermezzo for her, but I was not responsible for its success. Ingrid herself made it successful." In 1938, she starred in Only One Night, playing an upper-class woman living on a country estate. She didn't like the part, calling it "a piece of rubbish". She only agreed to appear if only she could star in the studio's next film project, . She later acted in Dollar (1938), a Scandinavian screwball comedy. Bergman had just been voted Sweden's most admired movie star in the previous year and received top billing. wrote in its review: "Ingrid Bergman's feline appearance as an industrial tycoon's wife overshadows them all."
In her next film, a role created especially for her, (A Woman's Face), she played against her usual casting, as a bitter, unsympathetic character, whose face had been hideously burned. Anna Holm is the leader of a blackmail gang that targets the wealthy folk of Stockholm for their money and jewellery. The film required Bergman to wear heavy make-up, as well as glue, to simulate a burned face. A brace was put in place to distort the shape of one cheek. In her diary, she called the film "my own picture, my very own. I have fought for it.". The critics loved her performance, citing her as an actor of great talent and confidence. The film was awarded a Special Recommendation at the 1938 Venice Film Festival, for its "overall artistic contribution". (in Swedish). Swedish Film Institute. Retrieved on 29 April 2009. It was remade in 1941 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with the same title, starring Joan Crawford..
Bergman signed a three-picture contract with UFA, the German major film company, although she only made one picture. At the time, she was pregnant, but, nonetheless, she arrived in Berlin to begin filming The Four Companions () (1938), directed by Carl Froelich. The film was intended as a star vehicle to launch Bergman's career in Germany. In the film, she played one of four ambitious young women, attempting to set up a graphic design agency. The film was a light-hearted combination of comedy and romance. At first, she did not comprehend the political and social situation in Germany. Later, she said: "I saw very quickly that if you were anybody at all in films, you had to be a member of the Nazi party." By September, she was back in Sweden, and gave birth to her daughter, Pia. She was never to work in Germany again.
Bergman appeared in eleven films in her native Sweden before the age of twenty-five. Her characters were always plagued with uncertainty, fear, and anxiety. The early Swedish films were not masterpieces, but she worked with some of the biggest talents in the Swedish film industry, such as Gösta Ekman, Karin Swanström, Victor Sjöström, and Lars Hanson. It showcased her immense acting talent, as a young woman with a bright future ahead of her.
1939–1949: Hollywood and stage work breakthrough
Bergman's first acting role in the United States was in Intermezzo: A Love Story by Gregory Ratoff which premiered on 22 September 1939. She accepted the invitation of Hollywood producer David O. Selznick, who wished her to star in the English-language remake of her earlier Swedish film Intermezzo (1936). Unable to speak English, and uncertain about her acceptance by the American audience, she expected to complete this one film and return home to Sweden. Her husband, Petter Aron Lindström, remained in Sweden with their daughter Pia (born 1938). In Intermezzo, she played the role of a young piano accompanist, opposite Leslie Howard, who played a famous violin virtuoso. Bergman arrived in Los Angeles on 6 May 1939 and stayed at the Selznick home until she could find another residence.
According to Selznick's son Danny, who was a child at the time, his father had concerns about Bergman: "She didn't speak English, she was too tall, her name sounded too German, and her eyebrows were too thick". Bergman was soon accepted without having to modify her looks or name, despite some early suggestions by Selznick. "He let her have her way", notes a story in Life magazine. Selznick understood her fear of Hollywood make-up artists, who might turn her into someone she wouldn't recognize, and "instructed them to lay off". He was also aware that her natural good looks would compete successfully with Hollywood's "synthetic razzle-dazzle". During the following weeks, while Intermezzo was being filmed, Selznick was also filming Gone with the Wind. In a letter to William Hebert, his publicity director, Selznick described a few of his early impressions of Bergman: