Ingrid Bergman

Ingrid Bergman

Ingrid Bergman (29 August 1915 – 29 August 1982) was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, and a Tony Award. She is best remembered for her roles as Ilsa Lund in Casablanca (1942) and Alicia Huberman in Notorious (1946). Bergman was born in Stockholm to a Swedish father and a German mother and started her career as an actress in Swedish and German films in the 1930s. Her introduction to American audiences came with her starring role in the English-language remake of Intermezzo (1939). At her insistence, producer David O. Selznick agreed not to sign her to a contract—for four films, rather than the then-standard seven-year period, also at her insistence—until after Intermezzo had been released. Selznick's financial problems meant that Bergman was often loaned to other studios. Apart from Casablanca, her performances from this period include Victor Fleming's remake of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), Gaslight (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945). Her last films for Selznick were Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) and Notorious (1946). Her final film for Hitchcock was Under Capricorn (1949). After a decade in American films, she starred in Roberto Rossellini's Stromboli (1950), following the revelation that she was having an extramarital affair with the director. The affair and then marriage with Rossellini created a scandal in the U.S. that forced her to remain in Europe for several years, after which she made a successful return to working for a Hollywood studio in Anastasia (1956), for which she won her second Academy Award. Although she made many films for Hollywood studios in subsequent years, they were all made in Europe, and she did not film in Hollywood again until 1969. According to the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, Bergman quickly became "the ideal of American womanhood" and a contender for Hollywood's greatest leading actress. In the United States, she is considered to have brought a "Nordic freshness and vitality" to the screen, along with exceptional beauty and intelligence; David O. Selznick once called her "the most completely conscientious actress" he had ever worked with. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Bergman as the fourth-greatest female screen legend of classic American cinema.

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