Music & Arts
Five Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Ingrid Bergman
We wanted to take a moment to remember and celebrate Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman.
She’s widely known for her work in “Casablanca,” which still is considered one of the best movies of all time. Bergman rose to international fame by starring in acclaimed films like, “Gaslight,” “Anastasia” and “Murder on the Orient Express.” Her work in these films helped her score three Oscars.
Despite her notoriety, here are five things you probably didn’t know about Ingrid Bergman, who died on her 67th birthday in 1982.
She got her break in an unexpected way.
In an interview with CBC, Bergman credits a young elevator boy for helping jumpstart her career. The boy’s parents would rave about Bergman’s movies. Luckily, producer David O. Selznick had a scout that was staying at the boy’s hotel. The scout was looking for tips, so the boy passed along his parents’ praise. Because of that, Bergman starred in her first American film, “Intermezzo: A Love Story.”
She’s part of an elite squad.
Before 2015 when Alicia Vikander won an Oscar for her performance in “The Danish Girl,” Bergman was the only Swedish actress to have won an Oscar. Only five Swedish actresses have been nominated for Oscars: Greta Garbo, Ann-Margret, Lena Olin, Vikander and Bergman. As for Oscars, Katharine Hepburn has won the most (4), but Bergman joins Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Daniel Day Lewis and Walter Brennan with three Oscars.
She was multilingual.
Bergman lived an adventurous life, having lived in Stockholm, Hollywood, Rome, Paris and London. She learned to speak English, Italian, French, German and Swedish. In an interview, Bergman was asked about her language preference, to which she replied, “English for acting, Italian for romance, French for diplomacy, German for philosophy and Swedish for secrecy, because so few people know it.”
Her husband and her shared an island in Sweden.
Bergman married Lars Schmidt in 1958, the same year that Schmidt first showed her the island, Dannholmen, in Sweden. A private island is pretty impressive. Maybe it was one of the reasons why she ended up marrying him later that same year.
Ice cream was her one true weakness (preach).
Bergman was known to have an appetite, her biggest weakness being ice cream. In Charlotte Chandler’s biography, “Ingrid,” Bergman was quoted as saying, “The greatest danger for me is ice cream, especially American ice cream and the most terrible thing is with hot chocolate sauce – cold ice cream and hot chocolate sauce. I could get fat thinking about it.”
