Liv Johanne Ullmann is a Norwegian actress and film director. She is known as one of the "muses" of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman.
Background
Ullmann was born in Tokyo, Japan, the daughter of Erik Viggo Ullmann (1907–1945), a Norwegian aircraft engineer who was working in Tokyo at the time, and Janna Erbe (née Lund; 1910–1996), also Norwegian. Her grandfather was sent to the Dachau concentration camp during the Second World War for helping Jewish people escape from the town where he lived in Norway; he died in the camp. When she was two years old, the family relocated to Toronto, Ontario, where her father worked at the Norwegian air force base on Toronto Island (in Lake Ontario) during World War II. The family moved to New York, where four years later, her father died of a brain tumor, an event that affected her greatly. Her mother worked as a bookseller while raising two daughters. They eventually returned to Norway, settling in Trondheim.
Education
As a result, Liv was born in Japan and reared and educated in Norway, Canada, and the United States. During her teenage years, she studied acting in London and Norway and performed in several plays for Oslo’s National Theatre.
Career
She began as an actress in Stavanger and Oslo. Her first films were made in Norway, but her first non-Scandinavian films were ill-chosen, and she was too deeply touched bv Bergman’s attitudes (she had been his mistress), too prone to Elizabeth Vogler’s lacunae, to tolerate Shangri-Las: Fjols til Fjells (Edith Kalmar); Tonny (Nils R. Muller); Kort ar Sommaren (Bjarne Henning-Jonsen); De Kalte ham Skar- ven (Erik Folke Gustavson); Ung Flnkt (Kalmar); Hour of the Wolf (68, Bergman); The Shame (68, Bergman)—outstanding as the active wife, dismayed by her husband's lazy spite, a wonderful balance of feeling, remorse, and despair; Passion (Bergman); An-Magritt (Arne Skouen); as the anxious Swedish wife going to America in Utvandrama (Jan Troell) and Invandrama (Troell). After working on Fred Zinnemanns aborted Man's Fate, she made Cold Sweat (Terence Young); Pope Joan (Michael Anderson); Cries and Whispers (Bergman) and Scenes from a Marriage, Bergmans work for TV, in which she confirmed her international reputation; Nijbyggarna (Troell); 40 Carats (Milton Katselas); and pur-suing Garbo as Queen Christina in The Abdication (Anthony Harvey).
She was an international figure now, thanks to appearances on the American stage and publica¬tion of a blithe rumination on being a great actress, Changing. On screen, she was the psychiatrist in Face to Face (Bergman), the figure of civilian charity and regret in A Bridge Too Far (Richard Attenborough), and a cabaret artiste in The Serpent’s Egg (Bergman). She was in Couleur Clair (François Weyergans), and the willing figure of dowdy self-effacement and griev-ance in Autumn Sonata (Bergman).
She had a cameo in Players (Harvey) and then played the widow seduced by her husbands lover in Richard’s Things (Harvey); Jacobo Timerman: Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number (Linda Yellen); The Wild Duck (Henri Safran); The Bay Boy (Daniel Petrie); Dangerous Moves (84, Richard Dembo); Lets Hope It’s a Girl (Mario Monicelli); Gabi—A True Story (Luis Mondoki); La Amiga (88, Jeanine Meerapfel); The Rose Garden (Foils Rademakers), as the attorney who defends Maximilian Schell on charges of having been a Nazi; and Mind walk (Bernt Capra).
She acts less now—The Ox (Sven Nykvist); The Long Shadow (Vilmos Zsigmond); Drpm- spel (Unni Straume); Zorn (Gunnar Hell-strom) she directs more. Faithless is far and away the best of what she has done. It was scripted by Bergman, but he left Ullmann to direct it. One can only say that she delivered something that was a vital extension to Bergman’s work, and a magnif-icent picture in its own right.
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Membership
Mama 1979, Ghosts 1982, Old Times 1985, The Six Faces of Women (TV), Mother Courage. Publicaticm: Changing (autobiog.) 1976, Choices (autobiog.) 1984. Leisure interest: reading.
Connections
In 1985, she married Boston real estate developer Donald Saunders, with whom she continues to share her life.
Decorated officier of Arts and Letters, France, The Order of St. Olaf, King of Norway. Recipient Dag Hammarskjold Honorary medal. Named best actress by either New York Film Critics or National Society Film Critics United States for 6 years in a row.
Decorated officier of Arts and Letters, France, The Order of St. Olaf, King of Norway. Recipient Dag Hammarskjold Honorary medal. Named best actress by either New York Film Critics or National Society Film Critics United States for 6 years in a row.