Anita Björk
Anita Barbro Kristina Björk (born April 25, 1923 in Tällberg , Leksand municipality , † October 24, 2012 in Stockholm ) was a Swedish theater and film actress. She was one of the most respected actresses in her country. In her seven decades long theater career she appeared in over 100 roles at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm. She became known to a wide audience primarily for her elegant and passionate portrayals in films such as Alf Sjöberg's Himmelsspiel (1942) and Miss Julie (1951), Ingmar Bergman's Sehnsucht der Frauen (1952) or Bo Widerberg's Adalen 31 (1969).
Life
Education and first roles in theater and film
Anita Björk was born in 1923 in the Dalarna province , in the heart of Sweden, into a family of artists. Her parents were Barbro (maiden name: Clason) and Gösta Björk. Her father was a violinist. Too old to start ballet training, Anita Björk devoted herself to French language lessons at school in her youth. She also played amateur theater and took a liking to acting. Björk then attended the theater school of Gösta Terserus (1904–1978) and was accepted at the Royal Drama School in Stockholm in 1942 , where famous actresses such as Greta Garbo , Ingrid Bergman and Eva Dahlbeck had learned. There she studied with Mai Zetterling , whom Björk remembered in retrospect in her autobiography All Those Tomorrows (1986) as a confident actress with a deep and masterful voice.
After completing her training in 1945, Björk appeared in productions at the Stockholm Royal Dramatic Theater . Her breakthrough as a stage actress followed in 1948 with Mimi Pollak's staging of Jean Genet's drama Die Zofen , in which she took on the role of Claire alongside Maj-Britt Nilsson . This was followed by other leading roles, often directed by Zetterling, Olof Molander and Alf Sjöberg . Björk established himself with classical pieces such as August Strindberg's one-act play with fire (1949) or William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (1953), as well as more modern subjects such as Eduardo Borrás ' Amorina (1951) or the part of Eliza Doolittle in George Bernard Shaws Pygmalion (1952). Frequently cast alongside Jarl Kulle and Erland Josephson , the actress also acted alongside well-known professional colleagues such as Bibi Andersson , Harriet Andersson , Eva Dahlbeck, Allan Edwall , Holger Löwenadler , Per Oscarsson , Max von Sydow or Ingrid Thulin in the course of her theater career .
Parallel to her work at the theater, Björk made her debut in Swedish film in 1942 with the supporting role of Anna Jesper in Alf Sjöberg's drama Himmelsspiel . Further appearances under well-known film directors such as Arne Mattsson ( Det kom en gäst , 1947) or Gustaf Molander ( Woman without a face , 1947; Kvartetten som sprängdes , 1950) followed. Björk only became known to an international audience in 1951 through the renewed collaboration with Alf Sjöberg on Fräulein Julie . In the film adaptation of Strindberg's tragedy of the same name , she slipped into the title role of a young high nobility who was having an affair with her father's misanthropic valet (played by Ulf Palme ). The film premiered at the 4th Cannes International Film Festival , where it received high praise from critics. Björk was inferior to the later Oscar- nominated American Bette Davis ( Everything about Eva ) in the awarding of the actor's prize , but Miss Julie won the Grand Prix , the main prize of the film festival. Björk's elegant and passionate portrayal of the eponymous heroine was later elevated by film critics to one of the most remarkable demonstrations of acting in film history. The well-known critic Bosley Crowther of the New York Times praised the sensitive performance of the actress in the very difficult role in his contemporary review. "The lady is pretty and lithe, with a delicate, blonde delicacy, and yet she manages to whip up some excruciating emotional storms," says Crowther.
Denied work with Alfred Hitchcock and returned to the theater
The previous success drew Hollywood's attention to the Swedish actress. The director Alfred Hitchcock planned to entrust Anita Björk with the female lead in his next feature film I confess . In the English-language thriller, she was supposed to slip into the role of a respected but blackmailable politician wife alongside Montgomery Clift . However, the Warner Bros. film studio saw Björk as a box office and the lead role was given to American actress Anne Baxter at short notice . One of the reasons was that the married Björk had arrived in Hollywood two weeks before filming started with her lover, the well-known Swedish journalist and writer Stig Dagerman , and the illegitimate child from the relationship. As a result, the producers feared a scandal similar to that of Ingrid Bergman . Björk's compatriot had only recently lost the favor of American audiences after she left her husband and child for Italian film director Roberto Rossellini . Despite the participation of the better-known Anne Baxter, I fell through with the audience, which was less sensational after Hitchcock's previous success The Stranger on the Train and also used the topic of Catholicism and a consistently gloomy mood.
After her English-language cinema debut was prevented, Björk was seen in the same year under the direction of the young Ingmar Bergman in Longing for Women . Bergman's first major commercial success in his own country tells the story of four sisters-in-law who get together on a summer afternoon in a lakeside country house. All women need to realize that the first carefree years of marriage have given way to a sobering routine and none of them have become happy in their marriage. Björk starred in the drama alongside Maj-Britt Nilsson , Eva Dahlbeck and Aino Taube in the role of Rachel. For the actress, who, along with Dahlbeck, Doris Svedlund , Eva Henning and Ingrid Thulin , was counted among the “specialists in tragic roles” by Spiegel , it was to remain the only collaboration with Bergman for a long time. In 1954 Björk finally made her English-language film debut in the Hollywood production Das invichtbare Netz, shot in Germany . In Nunnally Johnson's spy film, produced by 20th Century Fox , she acted alongside well-known colleagues such as Gregory Peck and Broderick Crawford in the role of a sly Soviet double agent. However, the film was unsuccessful at the US box office. In German films she appeared in the story of suffering about a clairvoyant officer wife and countess from Austria in Gustav Ucicky's Die Hexe (1954) and as Countess von Zathmar in Walter Reisch's Rilke film Der Cornet - Die Weise von Liebe und Tod (1955).
After the suicide of her second husband Stig Dagerman in 1954, Björk concentrated more on her theater career. She was again a member of the ensemble of the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm and then held over 100 roles in repertory theater . From the 1960s onwards she was only seen in secondary roles in films, including Mai Zetterling 's women's film Loving Couples (1964), Bo Widerberg's romantic drama Adalen 31 (1969) or Anja Breiens family drama The Inheritance (1979), with which she was again in competition competed at the Cannes Film Festival . Björk herself described the continuation of her career as difficult, especially after she had reached a certain age for which female roles were rare. In 1976 she went on tour with lyrics by Stig Dagerman.
From 1984 to 1985 Björk went on tour with a program about Selma Lagerlöf in her home country Sweden, the USA, England and France. A larger Swedish audience remembered her in the 1990s for dignified old age roles, such as Queen Victoria in Bille August 's Palme d'Or Best Intentions , which was based on a script by Ingmar Bergman. Her last film role was in 1998 in Lena Koppel and Anders Wahlgren's romantic drama Moments of Truth at the side of Lena Endre and Krister Henriksson . Björk made one of her last theater appearances in the chamber play Bildmakarna (1998, German: "Die Bildermacher" ), based on the play of the same name by Per Olov Enquist . In the two-act she was seen again in the role of the celebrated writer Selma Lagerlöf, whereupon the Neue Zürcher Zeitung praised her as a “fantastic actress” . Ingmar Bergman was again responsible for the production in the small hall of the Royal Swedish National Theater. A recording of Bildmakarna was later also broadcast on Swedish television. Björk made her last appearance at the Royal Dramatic Theater in 2009 under the direction of Gunnel Lindblom in Albert Ramsdell Gurney's Love Letters (Kärleksbrev) alongside Jan-Olof Strandberg .
In 2001 Björk was awarded the title of professor. In 2006 she received the award for her life's work at the Guldbagge Awards, Sweden's national film award. She died in Stockholm in 2012 at the age of 89 after a brief illness.
family
Björk was married three times and had three children. From 1945 to 1951 she was married to her Swedish colleague Olof Bergström (1919–1984), with whom she appeared in front of the camera in Rune Carlsten's romantic drama Räkna de lyckliga stunderna blott (1944) or Edvin Adolphson's Ingen väg tillbaka (1947) was standing. Their son Jonas Bergström (* 1946), who also appeared as an actor, emerged from the marriage. From 1953 the Swede was married to her compatriot Stig Dagerman, who committed suicide in early November 1954. A daughter (* 1951) came from the relationship. Another marriage to Lasse Lindqvist followed from 1962 to 1970.
Far from her acting career, Björk devoted herself to work as a musician and in 1964 founded the social democratic party Kulturarbetarnas socialdemokratiska förening (KSF).
Filmography (selection)
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Plays
A selection of plays in which Anita Björk has appeared at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm:
- 1943: Sins of Youth (Markisinnan) by Noël Coward , directed by Carlo Keil-Möller
- 1943: The three musketeers (De tre musketörerna) by Alexandre Dumas , directed by Stig Torsslow
- 1945: Asmodée (Asmodeus) by François Mauriac , directed by Stig Torsslow
- 1946: Mensch und Übermensch (Mannen och hans överman) by George Bernard Shaw , directed by Göran Gentele
- 1947: The ice cream man is coming (Si, iskarlen kommer!) By Eugene O'Neill , directed by Olof Molander
- 1948: The Maids (Jungfruleken) by Jean Genet , directed by Mimi Pollak
- 1948: The Family Day (Släktmötet) by TS Eliot , directed by Alf Sjöberg
- 1949: Playing with fire (Leka med elden) by August Strindberg , director: Mimi Pollak
- 1949: The Flies (Smutsiga händer) by Jean-Paul Sartre , directed by Rune Carlsten
- 1949: La Belle Marinière (Bröllopet på Seine) by Marcel Achard , directed by Mimi Pollak
- 1949: Ardèle or the daisy (Älskar - älskar inte ...) by Jean Anouilh , directed by Mimi Pollak
- 1950: Fire by Henrik Ibsen , directed by Alf Sjöberg
- 1950: Die Cocktail Party ( Cocktail Party ) by TS Eliot, directed by Olof Molander
- 1951: The Karamazov Brothers (Bröderna Karamasov) by Fyodor Dostojewski , directed by Rune Carlsten
- 1951: Invitation to the castle (Dans under stjärnorna) by Jean Anouilh, directed by Mimi Pollak
- 1952: Colombe by Jean Anouilh, directed by Mimi Pollak
- 1952: Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, directed by Alf Sjöberg
- 1953: Romeo and Juliet (Romeo och Julia) by William Shakespeare , directed by Alf Sjöberg
- 1954: Orestie (Orestien) by Aeschylus , directed by Olof Molander
- 1957: Looking back in Zorn (Se dig om i vrede) by John Osborne , directed by Alf Sjöberg
- 1958: Dom Juan (Don Juan eller Stengästen) by Molière , directed by Alf Sjöberg
- 1959: The Toreros' Waltz (Toreadorvalsen) by Jean Anouilh, directed by Mimi Pollak
- 1960: The Locked Up (Fångarna i Altona) by Jean-Paul Sartre, directed by Alf Sjöberg
- 1961: Yerma by Federico García Lorca , directed by Bengt Ekerot
- 1964: As You Like It (Som ni behagar) by William Shakespeare, directed by Alf Sjöberg
- 1964: After the Fall of Man (Efter syndafallet) by Arthur Miller , directed by Frank Sundström
- 1966: Rannsakningen by Peter Weiss , directed by Ingmar Bergman
- 1966: Maria Stuart by Friedrich Schiller , directed by Ulf Palme
- 1967: The Cherry Orchard (Rollboken) by Anton Chekhov , directed by Per-Axel Branner
- 1968: The Storm (Stormen) by William Shakespeare, directed by Donya Feuer
- 1969: Drei Schwestern (Tre systrar) by Anton Chekhov, directed by Keve Hjelm
- 1977: Medea by Euripides , directed by Gun Jönsson
- 1979: Maß für Maß (Lika för Lika) by William Shakespeare, directed by Donya Feuer
- 1986: L'Orchestre (Damorkestern) by Jean Anouilh, directed by Ingvar Kjellson
- 1989: Madame de Sade (Markisinnan de Sade) by Mishima Yukio , directed by Ingmar Bergman
- 1995: Savannah Bay by Marguerite Duras , directed by Pia Forsgren
- 1996: The Bakchen (Backanterna) by Euripides, directed by Ingmar Bergman
- 1998: Bildmakarna by Per Olov Enquist, directed by Ingmar Bergman
- 1998: La Celestina (Celestina) by Fernando de Rojas , directed by Robert Lepage
- 2000: Köpenhamn by Michael Frayn, directed by Åsa Melldahl
- 2009: Love Letters (Kärleksbrev) by Albert Ramsdell Gurney , directed by Gunnel Lindblom
Awards
- 1951: Thalia Prize from Svenska Dagbladet newspaper
- 1952: Svenska Filmsamfundet badge
- 1989: Swedish Theater Critics' Prize
- 1992: O'Neill Fellowship
- 2006: Swedish Guldbagge Film Prize for her life's work
literature
- Bernt-Ola Falck: Anita Björk: fotografiska möten . Linköping: Falck, 2003. ISBN 91-631-4301-1 (Swedish)
Web links
- Portrait in the Svensk Filmdatabas (Swedish)
- Portrait at ingmarbergman.se (Swedish)
- Role selection on the website of the Royal Dramatic Theater (Swedish)
- Anita Björk in the All Movie Guide (English)
- Anita Björk in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Stilfull skådespelerska ur tiden at svd.se, October 24, 2012 (accessed October 25, 2012).
- ↑ a b c portrait at ingmarbergman.se (accessed on May 16, 2012).
- ^ Anita Björk , p. 87. In: Liz-Anne Bawden (Ed.): Buchers Enzyklopädie des Films . Lucerne [u. a.]: Bucher, 1977. - ISBN 3-7658-0231-X
- ↑ Anita Björk . In: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 47/1955 of November 14, 1955.
- ↑ Björk, Anita . In: Öhrström, Kerstin: Vem är hon: kvinnor i Sverige; Biography upplagsbok . Stockholm: Norstedt, 1988 (accessed via WBIS Online ).
- ↑ a b c d e f Portrait in Svensk Filmdatabas (Swedish; accessed September 14, 2008)
- ↑ a b Anita Björk , pp. 130-131. In: Ephraim Katz: The Macmillan international film encyclopedia . New York, NY: Macmillan, 1994.- ISBN 0-333-61601-4
- ↑ movie review from Bosley Crowther in The New York Times, April 8, 1952
- ↑ a b Anita Björk , p. 85. In: David Thomson: The new biographical dictionary of film . New York: Knopf, 2003. - ISBN 0-375-41128-3
- ↑ a b I confess . In: The large TV feature film film lexicon (CD-ROM). Directmedia Publ., 2006. - ISBN 978-3-89853-036-1
- ↑ Magus from the north . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 1960, pp. 70 ( online - see cover picture).
- ↑ Short biography in the All Movie Guide (English; accessed on September 14, 2008)
- ↑ B. Villiger: Who's Afraid of Selma Lagerlöf? . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, February 16, 1998, p. 25
- ↑ role profile (Swedish, accessed on March 8, 2009) at dramaten.se
- ↑ Awards in Svensk Filmdatabas (Swedish, accessed on 25 October 2012).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Björk, Anita |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Björk, Anita Barbro Kristina (full name); Björk Hirsch, Anita |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swedish theater and film actress |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 25, 1923 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Tällberg , Leksand municipality |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 24, 2012 |
| Place of death | Stockholm , Sweden |