Bergman, Ingrid (1915–1982)

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Bergman, Ingrid (1915–1982)

Swedish actress who was one of the most beloved, condemned, and beloved-again stars in the history of the silver screen. Born Ingrid Bergman on August 29, 1915, in Stockholm, Sweden; died on August 29, 1982; daughter of Justus Samuel Bergman and German-born Friedel (Adler) Bergman; married Petter Lindstrom (a dentist), on July 10, 1937; married Roberto Rossellini (an Italian director); married Lars Schmidt, in 1958; children: (first marriage) FriedelPia Lindstrom (b. 1938); (second marriage) Robertino (b. February 2, 1950), and (twin girls) Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna (Isabella Rossellini ) andIsotta Ingrid Freida Giuliana (b. June 18, 1952).

Filmography:

Munkbrogreven (The Count from the Monk's Bridge, Sweden, 1934); Branningar (Ocean Breakers or The Surf, Sw., 1935); Swedenhielms (The Family Swedenhielms, Sw., 1935); Valborgsmassoafton (Walpurgis Night, Sw., 1935); Pa Solsidan (On the Sunny Side, Sw., 1936); Intermezzo (Sw., 1936); Die Vier Gesellen (The Four Companions, German, 1938); Dollar (Sw., 1938); En Kvinnas Ansikte (A Woman's Face (Sw., 1938); En Enda Natta (Only One Night, Sw., 1938); Juninatten (A Night in June, Sw., 1940); Intermezzo: A Love Story (U.S., 1939); Adam Had Four Sons (U.S., 1941); Rage in Heaven (U.S., 1941); Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (U.S., 1941); Casablanca (U.S., 1943); (2-reel doc.) Swedes in America (U.S., Office of War Information, 1943); For Whom the Bell Tolls (U.S., 1943); Gaslight (U.S., 1944); Spellbound (U.S., 1945); Saratoga Trunk (U.S., 1945); The Bells of St. Mary's (U.S., 1945); Notorious (U.S., 1946); Arch of Triumph (U.S., 1948); Joan of Arc (U.S., 1948); Under Capricorn (U.K., 1949); Stromboli (Italy, 1949); Europa '51 (The Greatest Love, It., 1952); Siamo Donne (We the Women, It., 1953); Viaggio in Italia (Journey to Italy, It., 1953); Giovanna d'Arco al Rogo (Joan at the Stake, It., 1954); Angst (Fear, Ger.It., 1954); Elena et les Hommes (Paris Does Strange Things, Fr.-It., 1956); Anastasia (U.S., 1956); Indiscreet (U.K.-U.S., 1958); The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (U.K.-U.S., 1958); Goodbye Again (Aimez-vous Brahms?, U.S.-Fr., 1961); Der Besuch (The Visit, Ger.Fr.-It.-U.S., 1964); The Yellow Rolls-Royce (U.K., 1964); Stimulantia (Sw., 1967); Cactus Flower (U.S., 1969); (from a novel byRachel Maddux ) A Walk in the Spring Rain (U.S., 1970); From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (U.S., 1973); Murder on the Orient Express (U.K.-U.S., 1974); A Matter of Time (U.S.-It., 1976); Herbstsonate (Autumn Sonata, Ger.-Nor.-U.K., 1978).

Theater:

Liliom with Burgess Meredith (1940); Anna Christie (Santa Barbara, 1941); Joan at the Stake (directed by Roberto Rossellini, opened at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, December 1952); Tea and Sympathy (opened in Paris at Théâtre de Paris, December 2, 1956); Hedda Gabler (opened at Théâtre Montparnasse, Paris, December 10, 1962); A Month in the Country (opened in Guildford, England, 1965); Eugene O'Neill's More Stately Mansions (opened at the Broadhurst on Broadway, 1967); Captain Brassbound's Conversion (opened in London, 1971, New York, 1972); W. Somerset Maugham's The Constant Wife (opened in London and New York, 1975); (withWendy Hiller ) Waters of the Moon (opened at the Haymarket, London, 1979).

Television:

Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw" (NBC, 1959); "Twenty-four Hours in a Woman's Life" (CBS, 1961); (with Michael Redgrave, Trevor Howard, and Ralph Richardson) "Hedda Gabler" (BBC and CBS, 1963); (one-character play) Jean Cocteau's "The Human Voice" (ABC, 1966); "A Woman Called Golda," Paramount, 1982.

Lindstrom, Pia (1938—)

American newscaster in New York City. Born Friedel Pia Lindstrom on September 20, 1938; daughter of Ingrid Bergman and Petter Lindstrom (a dentist); married Joseph Daly, in December 1971; children: Justin (b. 1973).

Ingrid Bergman was not only breathtakingly beautiful, she was forthright, unaffected, and demure.

She was Sister Benedict, Joan of Arc, and the virginal Maria. She was every man's fantasy of the perfect mate, every woman's fantasy of the perfect friend. And when she fell from grace, she was metaphysically tarred, feathered, run out of town, and condemned on the floor of the United States Senate.

Born on August 29, 1915, in Stockholm, Sweden, Bergman was just turning three when her mother died of a liver ailment. Her debonair father Justus Bergman (second youngest of 12 siblings) owned a successful photography shop at No. 3 Strandvägen, an elegant boulevard in Stockholm, where the Bergmans lived in a large apartment on the top two floors. Ingrid, an only child (her mother had lost two children in earlier pregnancies), was reared by Justus and Ellen, his 49-year-old single sister with a heart condition, who moved into the household. Ellen Bergman was a suspicious Lutheran who sought out sin. In summer, Ingrid stayed with her maternal grandparents, the Adlers, who were also devout, and many other aunts in Hamburg, Germany.

During a childhood defined by rigidity, Ingrid had one oasis: her father. Affectionate by nature, Justus doted on his only daughter. His artist's sensibility contrasted with the family's severity: he was a painter who loved music and hoped that his daughter would be an opera singer. Ingrid took piano lessons and delighted in playacting for him. Growing up on Strandvägen, she watched from her window as theatergoers arrived for evening performances at Sweden's greatest theater, the Royal Dramatic, a few yards away. The Röda Kvarn (Red Mill), a film palace, was also near. Ingrid was 11 when her father took her to her first stage presentation. Spellbound by the acting, she announced at intermission, "That's what I'm going to do."

In those early years, Bergman attended a prestigious girls' school in Stockholm, the Palmgrenska Samskolan. She was not a particularly good student, and her shyness warded off any potential popularity. At nine, she was joyous when a governess, 18-year-old Greta Danielsson , arrived. Also musically inclined, Greta became a close friend to Ingrid, while a romance blossomed between Greta and Justus, who was then 53. Though they wanted to marry, Aunt Ellen threatened to leave, and the family's propriety won out. Greta was driven from the house.

Soon after, when Ingrid was 12, Justus was diagnosed with cancer. With Greta by his side, he journeyed to Bavaria for a cure but returned a gaunt, dying man. Greta was still not allowed in the house until a maternal aunt arrived from Hamburg for a brief stay. Aunt Mutti (German for mother), who became an anchor for Ingrid, was a formidable, no-nonsense woman, and she saw to it that Greta was allowed to stay at Justus' bedside. "I remember my Father turned his head to look at Greta," recalled Bergman, "and then he turned his head to look at me, and I smiled at him. And that was the end."

For the next six months, Ingrid continued to live under the stern eye of Aunt Ellen until one night in the darkened apartment Ellen cried out for help. As her heart gave out, Ellen died in the young girl's arms. A traumatized Ingrid moved in with her Uncle Otto. Though more animated, Otto and his family were also devoutly Lutheran, lived on a tight budget, and began to depend on Ingrid's inheritance for support. While Aunt Hulda slept on a portable bed in the hallway, two girls shared one room, three boys another. Ingrid, treated as the rich relative, had a room to herself.

Now entering her teens, while living with this passel of cousins, she would retreat to her room, play different roles, and fantasize her future as the next Sarah Bernhardt. Still awkward in school, she came alive when asked to read or perform. "At school, Ingrid's shyness was so intense," wrote biographer Alan Burgess, "that occasionally it became a nervous affliction, an allergy for which her doctor could find no explanation. Her fingers swelled up and she couldn't bend them. Her lips and eyelids swelled too. … Drama school ended all her illnesses, and most of her inhibitions."

In late 1931, Ingrid was 16 when Greta took her to the Svensk Filmindustri studios outside Stockholm to apply for a job as an extra. Elated by her first walk-on, Bergman decided to audition for the Royal Dramatic Theatre, but the competition was keen: 75 would-be's were vying for eight slots. Bergman hired a drama coach and took private gymnastics; then came the day of the tryout. Wrote Bergman: "A run and a leap into the air, and there I am in the middle of the stage with that big gay laugh that's supposed to stop them dead in their tracks. I pause, and get out my first line. Then I take a quick glance down over the footlights at they jury. And I can't believe it! They are not paying the slightest attention to me." Even so, she was accepted.

Now grown to her full height, 5′9″, the 18-year-old Bergman began dating Dr. Petter Aron Lindstrom, a young dentist, whom she had met on a blind date. Petter had obtained the only medical dentistry degree in Stockholm, spent a summer north of the Arctic Circle working on teeth of Laplanders in a tuberculosis sanatarium, and served as an associate professor at the Dental College of Karolinska Institute. He was a champion boxer, champion skier, generous, caring, in love with the theater, and 26. He was also a solicitous advisor, a take-charge kind of fellow. While Ingrid pursued her career, Petter began to handle the mundanities of everyday living. In July 1936, they exchanged engagement rings in Hamburg, among her mother's relatives, the Adlers, who were greeting all with "Heil Hitler" and advised Petter to drop the Aron from his name because it sounded Jewish. Aunt Mutti was now living with a man high up in the Nazi party who was selling uniforms to the SS. To Petter's alarm, Ingrid, who was and would remain naively apolitical, "heiled" along with the crowd. They were married the following July in Petter's hometown of Stöde, Sweden.

Bergman snagged her first film role in the comedy The Count of the Monk's Bridge (1934). Blessed with an abundance of self-confidence, she was soon showing Sweden's greatest comedienne Tollie Zellman , who had a scene wrapping fish, just how to wrap fish. "And who's this?" Zellman asked the director. "A young girl who's just started," he replied. "Oh, she starts well, doesn't she," quipped Zellman. Offered a film contract, Bergman left drama school after only one year. From then on, unschooled in technique, she had to rely on instincts.

Her second film Ocean Breakers—considered one of Sweden's best films of 1935—was entered in the Venice Film Festival. That same year, Bergman starred opposite her idol, reigning star Gösta Ekman in The Family Swedenhielms. She made six films in quick succession before the public caught up with her. The defining movie was Intermezzo, again with Ekman, the story of a world-famous violinist, married with family, who falls in love with a beautiful young pianist. The haunting soundtrack gave the film enormous power. "It wasn't just a pilsnerfilm [beer movie]," Bergman would later comment. "It was so well written that you felt pity for everybody." Along with Autumn Sonata and Casablanca, Intermezzo was one of the films, claimed Bergman, that made her career. When it opened on November 16, 1936, the Stockholm Daily reported that the audience sat stunned at movie's end. Amazingly, while playing the part of a potential homewrecker, Bergman conveyed screen innocence. Writes biographer Laurence Leamer, "For her audience, she sanctified behavior that the moral dictates of her time considered slightly sordid or improper. It was a role she would play again and again."

On the home front, Petter adored his wife and handled the household, money matters, and any unpleasantries in her career. She would later reflect: "Men make women helpless by deciding and telling them what to do. Men in my life taught me to be dependent, beginning with my father, and after that Uncle Otto, who didn't want me to become an actress, and then Petter, even before our engagement—not that it was Petter's fault. I was the one who asked him for advice and help in those early days." Throughout her life, Bergman would attract mentors, male and female, strong people who would gravitate to her seeming helplessness and come to her aid.

I am a flyttfågel [bird of passage]. I have always, ever since I was a little girl, looked for something new, new.
—Ingrid Bergman

Fluent in German, Bergman was enticed by the promise of playing Charlotte Corday and signed a three-picture deal with the German studio UFA in 1938. As a now-pregnant Bergman entered Berlin, Hitler marched into Austria, but she continued to be unaware of global politics. Precedent had been set by other Swedish actresses who had gone the German route to international careers, including Signe Hasso, Sarah Leander , and Kristina Söderbaum (who would star in the notorious Jew Süss, an anti-Semitic remake of a pro-Jewish English movie). After completing her first German film, a non-political comedy The Four Companions, Bergman returned home to give birth to Friedel Pia Lindstrom, known as Pia, on September 20, 1938. Ingrid was not comfortable with motherhood, and, though the movie on Corday had been canceled, she planned to return to Berlin for her second movie. But it was 1939, and Petter warned her that if she returned to Berlin it would be the end of their marriage; he then cast about for roles in America.

Deterred from returning to Germany, Bergman would forever credit Kay Brown , the New York story editor for David Selznick, for her American career. Brown viewed the Swedish production of Intermezzo and alerted her boss. "I reported on Intermezzo to David as story material," said Brown, "but I did not go overboard about it. But I went madly overboard about the girl. I thought she was the beginning and end of all things wonderful." Selznick decided to remake Intermezzo, starring Bergman and Leslie Howard, and Ingrid arrived in New York on the Queen Mary on April 20, 1939.

Despite a production code demand that "the 'girl's punishment' will have to be made a little heavier," Intermezzo began filming. At first, Selznick wanted Bergman to change her name, feeling that Americans would never learn to pronounce "Ingrid"; it was too Germanic. He also wanted to repair her teeth and pluck her eyebrows. To his credit, Selznick changed his mind, and when the makeup people stalked with powder and puff, he warded them off. They would film her as au natural as lighting would allow. Selznick, a genius at producing and promoting, wisely knew not to thrust another "foreign star" on a sated public as his discovery; rather, he had Bergman keep a low profile, thinking it best to have Americans discover her for themselves.

Oblivious to the frigid reception from the Hollywood elite who deemed her an overgrown peasant, Bergman threw herself into the work routine: hours with her piano coach and hours with her English coach Ruth Roberts , sister of George Seaton. Bergman would insist that her good friend Roberts be written into each contract for future productions. Her other close friend was Selznick's wife, Irene Selznick . Though Bergman found David Selznick demanding, she respected him highly and, as she did with Petter, sought his advice on most everything.

At filming's end, Bergman returned to Sweden while Selznick's publicity machine began to smooth over her ties to Germany. When Louella Parsons wrote that Ingrid had had a relationship with a high Nazi official, Bergman wired a denial. Intermezzo opened in October 1939. Though critics were lukewarm about the film, they issued hosannas to Bergman, calling her wholesome, natural, and incandescent. In January 1940, she returned to Hollywood, this time with Pia; Petter remained behind. While Selznick hunted for her next property, she successfully opened on Broadway in Ferenc Molnar's Liliom with Burgess Meredith.

Bergman hated being idle. With Selznick still looking for material, she was loaned out to Columbia for Adam Had Four Sons, though she wasn't taken with the script. Finishing Adam on the evening of December 11, 1940, she began filming Rage in Heaven the following morning, this time on loan out to MGM. She was then slotted to be cast as the "good" woman in MGM's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, starring Spencer Tracy, while Lana Turner played the trollop. But Bergman convinced director Victor Fleming to switch the parts. Meanwhile, Selznick had his eye on the role of Maria in Ernest Hemingway's bestseller For Whom the Bell Tolls, purchased by Paramount. Martha Gellhorn , who had just married Hemingway, had shared an ocean crossing with Bergman and been struck by the "woman with the baby on her back." While Hemingway and Selznick pushed for Bergman, Paramount settled on Norwegian ballerina Vera Zorina . Petter arrived to take up medicine at the University of Rochester in upstate New York; the couple had now lived apart for almost half their marriage.

During the filming of Jekyll and Hyde, Bergman became involved with both Fleming and Tracy. "Ingrid told me often that she couldn't work well unless she was in love with either the leading man or the director," recalled Petter. Wrote Leamer: "She knew that when she made love to a man as the cameras rolled, she would give a better performance if she were making love to him offscreen as well. It was not a question of morality. Nor was it a matter of profound romantic love, a fact that it would take several men a good while to understand." It was not love that Ingrid craved, that made her feel alive, maintains Leamer, it was a good part.

She moved to Rochester to live with her husband and daughter but was restless and rarely stayed long. When Hal Wallis called from Warner Bros. with a movie called Casablanca, Bergman signed, script unseen, since the film was only partially written. The writers Julius and Philip Epstein had "winged it" in the story conference with Selznick. Unlike most Hollywood films, each scene in Casablanca was shot in story sequence, mostly because no one knew the ending throughout the filming. Bergman repeatedly asked director Michael Curtiz who she was in love with: Humphrey Bogart or Paul Henreid. Curtiz would reply, "We don't know yet, play in between."

Before returning to Rochester, Bergman learned that Paramount was unhappy with Zorina in For Whom the Bell Tolls, now being filmed by director Sam Wood in northern California's Sierra Nevada mountains. Bergman was secretly tested, given the role, and swept to the location, where she immediately fell in love with Gary Cooper. Determined to work together again, Cooper and Bergman would sign on for Edna Ferber 's bestseller Saratoga Trunk. Theirs was a two-picture romance. "In my whole life I never had a woman so much in love with me as Ingrid was," said Gary Cooper. "The day after the picture ended I couldn't get her on the phone."

Meanwhile, Casablanca had opened and received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Film. When For Whom the Bell Tolls opened in August 1943, Bergman was on the cover of Time magazine and nominated for Best Actress. Petter moved West and took up a surgical internship at Stanford University Hospital in San Francisco.

Bergman was at the top of the heap. Loaned out again to MGM for Gaslight, starring Charles Boyer, she was nominated for and won the 1944 Academy Award for Best Actress. That same year, Petter began his neurosurgical residence at Los Angeles County Hospital, and the Lindstroms bought their first home in Benedict Canyon. The family was finally together, but as soon as Bergman had a chance to settle in, she was off selling bonds around the country or doing a radio show in New York. In quick order, she filmed Hitchcock's Spellbound, with Gregory Peck, and Bells of St. Mary's, with Bing Crosby. She then spent a day or two at home in Benedict Canyon before signing on for a European USO tour and embarking on June 13, 1945. While on tour, she had affairs with musician

Larry Adler and war photographer Bob Capa, affairs she would continue on her return to L.A., though Adler noted that theirs was more talk than passion. "I felt guilty for not being satisfied with all I had," wrote Bergman. "Again and again I repeated to myself how fortunate I was, a faithful husband who loved me and did everything he could for me, a good child, a beautiful home. I had health and money and success in my work, but still I was in a constant struggle inside, looking for something I couldn't put my fingers on. Petter understood my restlessness, maybe better than I did. We had long talks about our lives, and I felt a great relief in leaning on him and letting him make the decisions."

Following the filming of Hitchcock's Notorious with Cary Grant, Bergman broke free of her Selznick contract and began work on her first independent production, Erich Maria Remarque's Arch of Triumph, with Charles Boyer. Outwardly placid, she was inwardly tense. She began to smoke heavily in addition to being a serious drinker. Pia, now seven, began to ask why her mother wasn't home more.

Since childhood, Bergman had wanted to play the role of Joan of Arc, a part Selznick had long promised. Offered Maxwell Anderson's Joan of Lorraine for Broadway, she opened in New York on November 18, 1946. The play was a sizeable hit, and she received over 21 awards. Planning began in earnest for the movie, with Victor Fleming directing and Walter Wanger producing. As a partner in the production, Bergman began filming Joan of Arc on September 17, 1948; she also began an affair with Fleming. Though the partners lavished attention to detail on the film, the script by Anderson was weak.

In 1946, Bergman attended a movie house on 49th Street in New York to see Roberto Rossellini's Open City, starring Anna Magnani . Unlike Casablanca, this was a cold, hard look at war and the Nazi occupation. Bergman was bowled over by the direction. A few months later, she saw the same name on a tiny movie-house marquee on Broadway; she went in alone and watched a movie entitled Paisan; again, she was riveted to her seat. By this time, Bergman was growing concerned about her career, as her first two yet-to-be-released movies away from the Selznick stable looked like possible failures. Tired of doing the same kind of film and ready to shake things up, she sent a letter to the Italian director. Rossellini responded, asking if she'd be interested in collaborating on a film to be shot in Stromboli. Since actors are rarely consulted on a script before the script is written, Bergman was intrigued. Rossellini did not mention that he had originally intended the film for the woman he was living with, Anna Magnani.

Arch of Triumph opened and confirmed Bergman's worst fears. For the first time in her career, the critics were dismissive, and the film was Hollywood's biggest monetary loser to date. Joan of Arc then opened to a publicity blitz—the cover of Life, an eight-story figure of Bergman astride her mount in Times Square—but the reviews were mixed, and it was another commercial disaster. "I have to get out of Hollywood," said Bergman to all who would listen. Rossellini symbolized a higher form of art and a chance to prove her talent once again. "Probably, subconsciously, he offered a way out from both my problems: my marriage and my life in Hollywood," wrote Bergman. "But it wasn't clear to me at that time." Rossellini arrived from Italy having eluded Magnani by announcing he was going out to walk the dog. He stayed in the Lindstrom guest house.

Ingrid Bergman left for Italy to film on March 9, 1949—and took everything with her. The photographers had a feast as she wended her way to Stromboli, holding hands with Rossellini as they drove through the Italian countryside; that same repast was sent over the wires of the Associated Press. She wrote Petter and asked for a divorce, saying she had fallen in love with Roberto, she had fallen in love with Italy. As the couple sped south, a tidal wave of negative publicity was forming. It would reach all distant shores.

Stromboli began filming under the auspices of RKO and Howard Hughes, but there still was no script, and, rather than collaborate as he had promised, Rossellini was parceling out dialogue at a meager rate, page by page, while Bergman and a group of amateurs eagerly waited. Stromboli was a remote island off the coast of Italy with a 3,000-foot volcano, one of the most active in the world, at its center. There were no telephones; there was no electricity. The lovers were unaware of the volcano erupting in the world's press, but boats began to enter Stromboli's harbor, bobbing with journalists.

In Hollywood, industry regulars were alarmed. Walter Wanger knew that any new money to be reaped from Joan of Arc was about to fly out the window. Production code director Joseph Breen warned Bergman by telegram to deny the rumors that she had left husband and child for a married man, or lose her career. Meanwhile, Petter pleaded with his wife just to meet, to talk over the divorce, and he demanded that she be the one to break the news to Pia. But the woman who wanted her freedom and avoided unpleasantness at all cost was now with a man who was domineering and jealous; Roberto threatened to shoot himself if she met with Petter.

Sometime in late May, Bergman learned that she was pregnant. On August 6, the news was announced in an Italian paper. Three days later, when Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper arrived in Rome, Bergman denied her pregnancy, knowing full well that, when the truth came out, Hopper would look gullible and Bergman would have made a powerful enemy. It was Hopper's rival, Louella Parsons , who broke the story in December, bumping the news of the development of the hydrogen bomb off the front page.

On January 3, 1950, Roberto was issued an Austrian annulment of his first marriage. On February 2, Ingrid gave birth to a boy Robertino, and her Mexican divorce was granted the following week. Because of laws in Rome, the baby was registered at City Hall: "Father, Roberto Rossellini; mother unknown." Theater owners of America took a strong moral stand, declaring that they would ban Stromboli if it did not make money in its first few days. In Indianapolis, an owner of a group of theaters called for a boycott of Bergman films; a legislator called for the Maryland Assembly to condemn Stromboli. On March 14, Senator Edwin C. Johnson from Colorado stood on the Senate floor and denounced the Swedish actress, calling her "one of the most powerful women on earth today—I regret to say, a powerful influence for evil." He then proposed a bill demanding the "licensing of actresses, producers and films by a division of the Department of Commerce." Just over two months later, Bergman and Rossellini were married on May 24, 1950.

On its release, Stromboli was Bergman's third consecutive commercial disaster. Though it received awards in Europe, American critics judged it banal. Rossellini railed against the American version which hinted at a happy ending. While he was off filming or spearfishing, Bergman grew restless, but Rossellini adamantly refused to allow her to work for any other director. In the fall of 1951, she began shooting his Europa '51. The American critics sniped once again, though Europa '51 would become a favorite of young European filmmakers.

On November 10, 1950, nine days after an American divorce was granted, 12-year-old Pia Lindstrom arrived at the Federal Court in Los Angeles and became an American citizen; she also changed her name to Jenny Ann. Petter would not allow her to visit her mother in Italy for fear that she would be kidnapped by Rossellini. Bergman filed suit for visitation. In another court, Pia repudiated any need for her mother and said she preferred to stay with her father. Petter and Pia moved to Pittsburgh, and he remarried three years later. On June 18, 1952, Bergman gave birth to twin girls, Isabella and Isotta. But Rossellini was not husband material. Remarked actress Giulietta Masina , "He was a man who was born to be alone."

That same summer, Rossellini directed Bergman in one of five segments of We, the Women, followed by Journey to Italy. Journey was another disappointment until rediscovered by filmmakers in 1958. Fear, made in Germany with her new husband, was also a financial flop. Finally, Rossellini allowed her to make a picture without him, loaning her out to his friend, an aging Jean Renoir, for Elena et les Hommes (Paris Does Strange Things) in 1956. It was her first hit in years.

Then Kay Brown, who was now working as an agent for ICM, rang up with a new movie for 20th Century-Fox. Anastasia concerned the daughter of Nicholas and Alexandra who was thought to have escaped the Russian death squad. Before casting Bergman, Fox took a poll of theater owners to make sure there might be an audience. Despite a lukewarm response, producer Darryl F. Zanuck and director Anatole Litvak insisted on her. When she told Rossellini that she was going to England to make a picture, he reacted in his usual way, said Bergman, "he threatened to drive the Ferrari into a tree." Though, in the past, his threats had frightened her, she was determined to do Anastasia. "I just didn't believe his suicide threat anymore."

Anastasia was Bergman's American rebirth. Though Ed Sullivan took a poll of viewers as to whether or not the American public was ready for her return, and the reviews were mixed, Bergman arrived in New York on January 19, 1957, to be feted by the New York Film Critic's for her performance. She was also nominated for and won an Academy Award for Best Actress, which Cary Grant accepted on her behalf on March 27.

That same year, Bergman met theatrical producer Lars Schmidt and was the hit of Paris in Tea and Sympathy. Though her career was once more on the ascendance, the same was not true for Roberto. As she stood on stage, reaping the cheers of the Parisian audience, he stood in the wings, furious. "They were standing up and screaming, standing up and applauding, and the 'bravos' never stopped." said Bergman, "Then I took my solo bow in the center of the stage, and as I bent over I turned my head and I looked at Roberto. Our eyes met. We looked straight at each other. I knew then my marriage was over."

While filming in India, Roberto made his own headlines on May 17, 1957, embroiled in a relationship with an upper-class married woman in India who also became pregnant. It was Bergman who smoothed things over with Prime Minister Nehru to allow Roberto to return to India and finish filming. She separated from her husband on November 7, 1957, and the marriage would be annulled in June 1958. More headlines followed when 19-year-old Pia met with her mother in July 1957 for the first time in years.

Bergman went on to shoot Indiscreet with Cary Grant in 1957, and portrayed the life of Gladys Aylward in Inn of the 6th Happiness in 1958. She also married Lars Schmidt on December 21 of that year. He soon took over all her financial affairs, and they lived at Choisel, an hour outside of Paris. This marriage became one of convenience, and Bergman turned her attention to her career. On television, she appeared in Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw" (NBC, 1959), winning an Emmy for Best Dramatic Performance; she followed with "Hedda Gabler" in 1960. For film, she shot The Visit, The Yellow Rolls Royce, and Françoise Sagan 's Aimez-vous Brahms? In 1974, Murder on the Orient Express earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

On June 15, 1974, Bergman underwent a biopsy for a lump in her left breast. The tumor was malignant, and her left breast was removed. On Friday June 3, 1977, Roberto Rossellini died; the following day, Lars' mistress gave birth to a boy. Throughout, Bergman kept working. During the 1977 filming of Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata, co-starring Liv Ullmann , for which Bergman was nominated for her fifth Academy Award, she discovered another lump under her arm which necessitated the removal of her right breast.

In 1982, because she had never worked with heavy makeup, Bergman was reluctant at first to take on the role of Golda Meir in the four-hour television miniseries "A Woman Called Golda" to be shot in Israel. Bergman demanded a screen-test to be sure she could carry it off. By the time she had finished mental preparation for the role, however, little makeup was needed, though padding was necessary. Bergman was rapidly losing weight due to her illness and the effects of ongoing chemotherapy, and she had to overcome more than casting against type. Writes Leamer:

Ingrid had to play Golda as a fortyish mother and as a nearly eighty-year-old grandmother dying of leukemia. That would have been challenge enough, but she had to play the role with a right arm that had become grotesquely swollen. When her right breast was removed, the lymph glands had been affected, and now large amounts of body fluid flowed into her arm. When she was not being filmed, she rested her arm on a telescoping stand that she called "the gun." At night she slept with her arm strapped above her head.

On August 29, 1982, after quietly observing her 67th birthday with a small circle of friends, Ingrid Bergman died sometime in the night. Her daughter Pia accepted a posthumous Emmy for her mother's work on Golda.