Ingrid Bergman - A life in pictures by Actes Sud Issuu

ingrid bergman schirmer/mosel

Ingrid Bergman New York, 1946. Photograph by Irving Penn for Vogue

isabella rossellini / lothar schirmer (ed.)

ingrid bergman a life in pictures

stockholm, berlin, hollywood, rome, new york, paris, london 1915–1982

With an introduction by Liv Ullmann Interview between Ingrid Bergman and John Kobal Texts by Ingrid Bergman, Roberto Rossellini, Cornell Capa, Irene and David O. Selznick, Ernest Hemingway, Jean Renoir, John Updike, Curd Jürgens, Alfred Hitchcock, Paul Henreid, Gottfried Reinhardt, and others A visual biography in 500 photographs, notes and documents from the Ingrid Bergman Archives at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT and many other private and public collections. Authorized by Ingrid Bergman’s children: Pia Lindström, and Roberto, Isabella, and Ingrid Rossellini.

THIS DOCUMENT IS CONFIDENTIAL AND FOR PRIVATE USE ONLY. © 2012 BY SCHIRMER/MOSEL AND THE INDIVIDUAL AUTHORS, PHOTOGRAPHERS, AND ARCHIVES. PICTURE CREDIT: CONDÉ NAST PUBLICATIONS INC. © 1947 (RENEWED 1975) (PAGE 2), WESLEYAN CINEMA ARCHIVES/INGRID BERGMAN COLLECTION (PAGES 4, 8, 9, 11, 13, 17, 19, 22, 25, 26, 32, 34, 41, 42, 43, 45, 47), SVENSKA FILMINSTITUTET (PAGE 7), WARNER BROS./THE KOBAL COLLECTION (COVER, PAGE 15), MAGNUM PHOTO (PAGES 20, 21, 31, BACK COVER), TIME LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES (PAGE 29), AFP/GETTY IMAGES (PAGE 39), VICTORIA BRYNNER (PAGE 35), SZ PHOTO/RUE DES ARCHIVES (PAGE 37)

a schirmer/mosel munich production

Ingrid Bergman New York, 1946. Photograph by Irving Penn for Vogue

isabella rossellini / lothar schirmer (ed.)

ingrid bergman a life in pictures

stockholm, berlin, hollywood, rome, new york, paris, london 1915–1982

a schirmer/mosel munich production

CONTENTS

introduction by Liv Ullmann

interview between Ingrid Bergman and John Kobal

chapter I Sweden: A Family Album – First Films

1915–1939 chapter II Hollywood

1939–1945 chapter III Victory in Europe Joan of Arc in New York

1945–1949 chapter IV Flight to Italy A Public Family: The Rossellinis

1949–1955 chapter V Divorce and Comeback in America

1956–1957 chapter VI “Indiscreet” and “Yellow Rolls Royce”

1958–1965 chapter VII Theater in London Ingrid & Ingmar in Stockholm Golda in Jerusalem

1965–1982 epilogue 17-year-old Ingrid Sandviken, Sweden, 1932

CONTENTS

introduction by Liv Ullmann

interview between Ingrid Bergman and John Kobal

chapter I Sweden: A Family Album – First Films

1915–1939 chapter II Hollywood

1939–1945 chapter III Victory in Europe Joan of Arc in New York

1945–1949 chapter IV Flight to Italy A Public Family: The Rossellinis

1949–1955 chapter V Divorce and Comeback in America

1956–1957 chapter VI “Indiscreet” and “Yellow Rolls Royce”

1958–1965 chapter VII Theater in London Ingrid & Ingmar in Stockholm Golda in Jerusalem

1965–1982 epilogue 17-year-old Ingrid Sandviken, Sweden, 1932

“Bränningar / The Surf” by Ivar Johansson. Film still, 1935 6

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“Die vier Gesellen / The Four Companions” Publicity shot, Berlin, Germany, 1938

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Ingrid with her daughter Pia Arrival in Hollywood: a film star with a baby but no make-up box, c. 1939

FOREWORD by Liv Ullmann

She used to phone us during her last three years of life. Ingrid and I had worked together on a film Ingmar Bergman wrote and directed called Autumn Sonata. While filming, I invited Ingrid to join a girl’s night comprised of Norwegian actresses and directors who regularly met to discuss the cinema, theater and our personal lives. "ere were seven of us, and I was the youngest. “You are our first guest, you mean so much to us,” we told her, and sat down to a wonderful meal with wine and conversation. Ingrid was in good spirits and seemed to be enjoying herself that evening. At one point she stood up and proposed a toast. “I have had so much in life,” she said. “Maybe you think you never had as much. But I tell you, I never, never had such girlfriends who meet regularly as you do—all being women and sharing. I think it’s wonderful! Let us drink to life-long friendships.” She made only one more film after her Academy Award nominated role in Autumn Sonata. It was a TV biography of Golda Meir, A Woman Called Golda, for which she won an Emmy and a Golden Globe. I think she never forgot that feeling of closeness we’d shared at the girl’s only night, because even as she was in the last stages of cancer she would call us to talk for a moment. People often surrounded her, but I recognized in her an inner aloneness. Ingmar saw it, too. In the early days of rehearsal Ingrid and Ingmar did not get along. He was the unquestioned master of his soundstage, and she could be feisty to 8

the point of abrasiveness. She nearly brought him to tears. “No more films. I can’t go on,” he told me. “I don’t know what to do. Is the script so bad? I don’t know how I can continue.” But of course he did continue. "e tension on the set gradually improved, as he describes in Ingrid’s autobiography, My Story: “Slowly I began to understand that Ingrid’s need for security, tenderness, and contact is enormous. And she didn’t feel at home with me; she didn’t trust me one hundred percent, so I just had to demonstrate how I really felt toward her. "at was fantastic because I had a feeling I had not to be polite any more, or strategic, or diplomatic, or search for the right words. So I revealed myself. I got furious when I felt furious. I was occasionally brutal; sometimes I was very tough with her, but at the same time I showed her how much I loved her”. It all began so badly. Even though Ingrid and Ingmar admired each other’s work, and for at least ten years had discussed working together, when Ingmar finished the script we were going to do, Ingrid hated it. She was to play a renowned pianist and a mother who hadn’t seen her daughter (my role) in seven years. It was too boring, she felt, too depressing. “What mother would go so long without seeing her daughter?” Of all people, Ingrid knew the devastation of losing contact with her daughter. Ingrid’s own mother had died when she was three years old. {…} 9

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“Die vier Gesellen / The Four Companions” Publicity shot, Berlin, Germany, 1938

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Ingrid with her daughter Pia Arrival in Hollywood: a film star with a baby but no make-up box, c. 1939

FOREWORD by Liv Ullmann

On the set of “Intermezzo” by Gregory Rato$. Hollywood debut with producer David O. Selznick, 1939

INTERVIEW between Ingrid Bergman and John Kobal

JK : If you were ever cast as Ingrid Bergman, could you play her?

IB (giggles): Yes, of course I could. Who could play it better? My life seems fantastic because I’ve never really had to fight for anything—it’s just come my way. I made my own image because I refused to change my name or my hair. They wanted to change me completely when I first came over because that was the standard thing to do. They took stars from Hungary, Germany, France, and then tried to change them—to make them more beautiful to American eyes, I suppose. But then they became just like all the other American stars that were there. Lots of publicity stills in bathing suits and hats and all that. Well, I’d often seen that in the papers and wondered how come they never got anywhere. {…} So I was careful. I said I was coming over to do one picture that is good. I want a top director and a top leading man; because I noticed they didn’t have that, these other people. So when Selznick came to me, I told him that was what I wanted and after that I would go home. He said it wasn’t done that way. So I said okay, then we don’t do it. Well, he gave in. He said we’d do one picture and I could go. But if I liked it in Hollywood, I said I’d stay with him. So that was the contract I made—I was very clever. Then when I came over, they started in on me: “The name’s impossible to pronounce,” “The name’s German and there’s a war on,” “Your teeth, eyebrows and hair are wrong.” But I said I wouldn’t change anything. I told them that they’d got me over here because they’d seen a picture called Intermezzo and I was here to do a remake, and I was staying how I was because that’s the way you liked me in the picture. Then they started on the publicity. But I didn’t want any of it—I wanted the public to discover me. {…} 10

On the set of “Intermezzo” by Gregory Rato$. Hollywood debut with producer David O. Selznick, 1939

INTERVIEW between Ingrid Bergman and John Kobal

JK : If you were ever cast as Ingrid Bergman, could you play her?

Ingrid on the beach (waiting for a new film job) at Burgess Meredithâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home Amagansett, New York, 1940

“Casablanca” by Michael Curtiz made her immortal Film still with Humphrey Bogart, 1942

REMEMBERING INGRID by Paul Henreid

Ingrid Bergman, who played my wife in Casablanca, puzzled me during the filming of the picture. She was sweet and gentle in all her relationships with the other actors, seemingly a retiring, patient woman, wonderful to work with and an excellent actress, but to all of us she seemed terribly vulnerable. We wanted to take care of her to protect her. She was so amenable to direction, never fussy over lines, never a primadonna—how had she gotten as far as she had? I wondered. Every actress I knew who had made it had a driving vitality to her personality. If she wasn’t ruthless, she was at least stubborn and aggressive. There was no other way a woman could get ahead in such a competitive field. There are too many times an actress must fight for something she

wants in a script, or she must have the strength to disagree with a director or producer. Bette Davis had that strength to an inordinate degree. Ingrid Bergman showed no sign of anything like that.

Tolls, the movie they’re making from Hemingway’s novel. It’s going to be a blockbuster of a movie, and I tested for it. It’s a fantastic part.” “Well, maybe you’ll get it,” I reassured her. “Oh Paul, I’ve lost it. They gave it to Vera Zorina! I wanted that part so badly, you’ve no idea.” There was a sudden depth of feeling to her voice, an intensity I hadn’t heard before off camera. Her voice hardened. “Those idiots! What the hell do they know? Picking Vera Zorina of all people. She can’t act, Paul. She just can’t and I’m good. I’m really good!” Her voice rang with conviction. “I just hope they find out how bad she is.” The phone rang then and it was for Ingrid. She went to it and said, “Yes, yes…,” then let out a yell I can only compare to that of a tigress who has made a kill, a yell of such joy and triumph that I was stunned. Was this submissive Ingrid? She put down the phone and yelled, “I got it, Paul! I got it!

After we finished filming Casablanca we were called for “still” sittings. One day it would be Bogart, Rains, and me, another day Ingrid and Bogie, and finally Ingrid and

I got it!” It was an entirely different side of her. I saw her suddenly filled with a triumphant vitality and strength, and in that moment I understood how she had managed to get

me. While we were posing together, I noticed a certain tightness about her, and I asked, “Are you all right?” “All right?” She bit her lips and I could see tears well

ahead in Sweden and in the Hollywood jungle. “What happened?” I asked. “I got the part of Maria in For Whom the Bell Tolls! I

up. “Paul, I’m heartbroken!” Suspecting a shattering love affair, I muttered something sympathetic about men, and she looked at me as if I were crazy. “No, no! I’m talking about For Whom the Bell

just know that if I fought hard enough they’d come to their senses and see that Zorina was wrong and couldn’t act. Paul, we’ve got to celebrate!”

“Casablanca” by Michael Curtiz made her immortal Film still with Humphrey Bogart, 1942

REMEMBERING INGRID by Paul Henreid

wants in a script, or she must have the strength to disagree with a director or producer. Bette Davis had that strength to an inordinate degree. Ingrid Bergman showed no sign of anything like that.

After we finished filming Casablanca we were called for “still” sittings. One day it would be Bogart, Rains, and me, another day Ingrid and Bogie, and finally Ingrid and

I got it!” It was an entirely different side of her. I saw her suddenly filled with a triumphant vitality and strength, and in that moment I understood how she had managed to get

me. While we were posing together, I noticed a certain tightness about her, and I asked, “Are you all right?” “All right?” She bit her lips and I could see tears well

ahead in Sweden and in the Hollywood jungle. “What happened?” I asked. “I got the part of Maria in For Whom the Bell Tolls! I

just know that if I fought hard enough they’d come to their senses and see that Zorina was wrong and couldn’t act. Paul, we’ve got to celebrate!”

“Saratoga Trunk” by Sam Wood. Film still with Gary Cooper, 1945

On the set of “Spellbound” by Alfred Hitchcock. Ingrid and Gregory Peck, 1945 18

Falling in love: Ingrid Bergman and Robert Capa Berlin, 1945. Photographs by Robert Capa Archive 20

“Notorious”, her second film with Alfred Hitchcock Film still, 1946 22

“Joan of Arc” by Victor Fleming. Film premiere, New York, 1948 24

A PRIVATE VIEW Memories by Irene Mayer Selznick

Ingrid, who loved the theatre, had always come to New York more than my other Hollywood friends. Late in 1948 she was at loose ends, without a producer and unhappy about her work. Her movies hadn’t turned out too well after she left David. She was still the very top star, but none of her many offers included a great director. She told me she didn’t care about money; she wanted opportunity. She was prepared to take a real cut for the chance to work with any one of five directors; she named William Wyler, Billy Wilder, George Stevens, Roberto Rossellini, and, I believe, John Huston. She wondered what to do about it. I came up with a plan that was as simple and direct as Ingrid herself. The thing to do was to write each one, in her own charming style, asking him to bear her in mind in case

Roberto Rossellini, a good looking genious in a well tailored suit His first visit in New York, 1948. "e photo Ingrid kept in her personal collection 26

the right story came along. She was unimpressed, in fact dubious. I told her it was a beguiling idea that only she could get away with. I could just imagine the astonishment of a director receiving a

know it. It got pretty late, so I got undressed. When she didn’t take the hint, I went to bed. She didn’t leave. She sat down beside me and phoned Roberto in Rome. I tried not to listen and I still didn’t pry. She didn’t want to be alone or go back to the hotel at that hour. I had a great big bed; if I didn’t mind, she would sleep right there. I gave her a nightie and a toothbrush, and on the way to the bathroom she slipped on the polished floor and cracked her head on the corner of the air conditioner. She fell so heavily I thought she was a goner. An eighth of an inch in a different direction and she wouldn’t have gone to Rome. She sent a cable on arrival. I have it still: “I AM HERE. INGRID.” It didn’t say much. On the other hand, it said a lot and left no doubt. Ten days later there was another cable, which said more. It read: “ WE DON’ T HAVE TIME TO WRITE BECAUSE WE ARE SO HAPPY. BERGELINI.” For an awful mo-

handwritten note from Ingrid Bergman asking for a job. I told her how to reach them, including Rossellini, with whom I had recently dined in Paris and whom I had found

ment I thought, “What have I done?” Actually, nothing at all. It wasn’t my fault she hadn’t written the other four directors. Nonetheless, Ingrid was quite a letter-writer. One letter

charming. Some months later, Ingrid told me she’d had a marvellous letter from him. I asked if she’d also heard from the others. She said of course not; she had only written

says: “… I was going through my mind about all the things that happened in New York and in Italy a year ago. When I fell flat on the floor in your bedroom, it must have been

Rossellini. That summer the Lindstroms met him in Paris, and he visited them in the winter. In March Ingrid was in New York, all set to fly to Italy to make her first Italian picture. Everything considered, it

symbolic! The fallen star! I should have known already then, that the way I felt could not end without disaster.” Her tale needs no retelling here. Every year when I was

was natural to spend the last evening with me. We wound up at my place for a drink Ingrid talked and talked. She was not so much exhilarated as fevered. Her spirits were higher than a couple of highballs would account for. I asked no questions, because if something was afoot, I preferred not to

in Europe I went to Rome and so witnessed some of her happiness and some of her pain. For some years I carried gifts from her to Pia. I was Ingrid’s last link to her daughter and the last of the Lindstroms’ friends on whom Petter shut the door.

A PRIVATE VIEW Memories by Irene Mayer Selznick

Roberto Rossellini, a good looking genious in a well tailored suit His first visit in New York, 1948. "e photo Ingrid kept in her personal collection 26

the right story came along. She was unimpressed, in fact dubious. I told her it was a beguiling idea that only she could get away with. I could just imagine the astonishment of a director receiving a

handwritten note from Ingrid Bergman asking for a job. I told her how to reach them, including Rossellini, with whom I had recently dined in Paris and whom I had found

ment I thought, “What have I done?” Actually, nothing at all. It wasn’t my fault she hadn’t written the other four directors. Nonetheless, Ingrid was quite a letter-writer. One letter

charming. Some months later, Ingrid told me she’d had a marvellous letter from him. I asked if she’d also heard from the others. She said of course not; she had only written

says: “… I was going through my mind about all the things that happened in New York and in Italy a year ago. When I fell flat on the floor in your bedroom, it must have been

symbolic! The fallen star! I should have known already then, that the way I felt could not end without disaster.” Her tale needs no retelling here. Every year when I was

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Stromboliâ&#x20AC;? by Roberto Rossellini, Stromboli Island, 1949. Photograph by Gordon Parks 28

Ingrid Bergman with her twin daughters Ingrid Isotta and Isabella Rossellini near Rome, 1952. Photograph by David Seymour

A WOMAN’S BURDEN by John Updike

This photograph, taken by David Seymour in 1952, pricked my conscience1 because it showed such loveliness— a beautiful woman in her prime, sturdy and sandaled, cheerfully bearing the burden of womanhood the world over, babies. The photograph, so innocent and even comic, made seem shameful the outcry in my country two years before, when Ingrid Bergman, still married to her Swedish husband Petter Lindstrom, bore a child to the Italian director Roberto Rossellini. America was not yet used to open adultery and out-of-wedlock pregnancy from its film actresses,

especially from this actress, who had played a nun and Saint Joan as well as the heroically virtuous wife of Casablanca and the innocent victim of Charles Boyer’s cruelty in Gaslight. Stars are by definition beloved, but few have been loved as Bergman was by the American public in the 1940s. She betrayed us, it was felt, and with a greasy Italian at that. Quel scancale! Her banishment from Hollywood and our

even in her film roles she had shown some relish in playing “bad girls”—none of this sufficiently softened the national indignation. If ever there was a thoroughly fallen woman, Bergman was it, and it didn’t help that Rossellini had her tramping around bare-legged in the muddy rice fields of Stromboli. Well, here she is in 1952, standing proud. Two little twins, Isabella and Ingrid, peep from their carry cots as if wondering what the fuss was about. Now Isabella is a middle-aged model, her mother is sixteen years dead, and 1950 does seem a very long time ago, in terms of morality and celebrity culture. Bergman lived through it with the same quiet dignity of her screen presence. She seemed to wear no make-up and had a comfortable thickness to her waist; no wonder we all loved her, back then—a “natural woman” who was also a movie queen. A little too natural, it turned out. Nature is hard to contain, whether by religious moral-

hearts was complete, and the facts that Rossellini married her and made her an “honest woman,” that she had had a number of not especially secret affairs before, that Lind-

ity or the derived hypocrisies of public relations. Bergman was a European—with a German mother, and almost a German film career—who failed to play by American rules. The rules have long changed, and, seeing this picture now,

strom was a (presumably cold-blooded) Swede, and that

we want to go down on our knees to it.

The German newspaper Die Zeit in 1998 invited “writers, actors, artists or politicians to select … a photo which at a certain time of their lives had an especially strong impact on their conscience.”

Ingrid Bergman with her twin daughters Ingrid Isotta and Isabella Rossellini near Rome, 1952. Photograph by David Seymour

A WOMAN’S BURDEN by John Updike

hearts was complete, and the facts that Rossellini married her and made her an “honest woman,” that she had had a number of not especially secret affairs before, that Lind-

strom was a (presumably cold-blooded) Swede, and that

we want to go down on our knees to it.

On the set of “Viaggio in Italia / Journey to Italy” with Roberto Rossellini Rome, 1954 32

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“Anastasia” by Anatole Litvak won her the second Oscar Hollywood, 1956. Photograph by Yul Brynner, the male lead in “Anastasia”

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On the set of “Anastasia” with Yul Brynner Ingrid Bergman’s first Hollywood production after her separation from Rossellini, Paris, 1956

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“Anastasia” by Anatole Litvak won her the second Oscar Hollywood, 1956. Photograph by Yul Brynner, the male lead in “Anastasia”

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On the set of “Anastasia” with Yul Brynner Ingrid Bergman’s first Hollywood production after her separation from Rossellini, Paris, 1956

A public family hunted by paparazzi: Ingrid Bergman with Isabella, Ingrid Isotta and Roberto arriving from Rome Paris, October 17, 1959 36

A new husband and an island of her own, Ingrid Bergman and Lars Schmidt Dannholmen, Sweden, 1958. Photo Olle Seijbold 38

“Aimez-vous Brahms? / Goodbye Again” by Anatole Litvak. Film still with Anthony Perkins, 1961 40

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“The Visit” Film still with Anthony %uinn, in the background director Bernhard Wicki, 1964

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At Cannes Film Festival with Swedish director Ingmar Bergman and Ingrid von Rosen, 1973

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“Murder on the Orient Express” by Sidney Lumet. Film still with Michael York, Jacqueline Bisset, and Lauren Bacall, 1974 42

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“The Visit” Film still with Anthony %uinn, in the background director Bernhard Wicki, 1964

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At Cannes Film Festival with Swedish director Ingmar Bergman and Ingrid von Rosen, 1973

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“Murder on the Orient Express” by Sidney Lumet. Film still with Michael York, Jacqueline Bisset, and Lauren Bacall, 1974 42

â&#x20AC;&#x153;A Matter of Timeâ&#x20AC;? by Vincente Minelli. Film still with Isabella Rossellini, 1976 44

“A Woman called Golda” by Alan Gibson. Film still, 1982

back cover

The Shinjuku entertainment district Tokyo, Japan, 1985 Photo Bruno Barbey (detail) front cover

Ingrid Bergman in “Notorious” Publicity shot, 1946 46

“A Woman called Golda” by Alan Gibson. Film still, 1982

back cover

The Shinjuku entertainment district Tokyo, Japan, 1985 Photo Bruno Barbey (detail) front cover

Ingrid Bergman in “Notorious” Publicity shot, 1946 46